The Abingdonian 2019

84 The Abingdonian It was a pleasure to welcome back all the members of the house at the start of the academic year, and of course to welcome plenty of new members. Along with a host of new third years and a new fourth year, we welcomed Mr Barber, Dr Ambrose, Rev Gooding and Mrs Ley to the tutoring team. Term kicked off at a frantic pace with the first week ending with a new scholars’ presentation where third years Max Siriwardene and Laurence Peverall received their ties for sport and music respectively. The focus then shifted on to the more experienced scholars as fourth years John Bonchristiano and Alexander Boorer entertained and informed with presentations on image recognition software and concussive injuries, before fifth years Alfie Marshall and Daniel McNamara explained the impact of climate change on wildlife, and the dark history of Cambodia. It was all very impressive stuff and great to see intellectual muscles being flexed so early in the year. Before we knew it, the first major competition was upon us with the whole house gearing up to have another crack at winning the House Singing Competition. We eventually settled on Africa by Toto, with Head of House Oliver Dickson conducting and Chanka Pathinayake accompanying on piano for a third straight year, a contribution for which he was awarded his full colours. Alas, despite by far our strongest performance as a house, we once again had to settle for our traditional placing of “joint fourth”. A lot of fun was had by all however, not least the sixth form who, after the annual whinging at the start of the week, ended up performing with real gusto on the day! Still, there was plenty of talent on show elsewhere in the Michaelmas Term, with an excellent mentoring programme being put together by Deputy Head of House William Cope, strong presentations on historically influential women by Rev Gooding’s fourth year tutor group, and five of our sixth formers (plus guest coach Nat Reading) recording an emphatic 8-5 victory for the 2nd XV against Radley with Christopher “rocket- for-a-boot” Monnery scoring the winning penalty from the half-way line. Elsewhere we saw Eddie Williams involved in partnerships work, Liam Deegan being awarded the prestigious Arkwright Scholarship for Design Technology, and five of our third years contributing to the hugely successful production of Lord of the Flies. The end of term saw the usual inter- house competitions, with some incredibly enthusiastic performances and some notable successes including both the U15 and U18 swimming teams being victorious, meaning that we were overall winners of the swimming trophy. It is noteworthy that three of the U18 team were in the fifth year with super-sub Edward Jones completing the four man team. Elsewhere the U15 rugby team were narrowly pushed back into second place. We saw off the term with our celebration assembly where we handed out House Prizes, beautifully handcrafted once again by Joshua Buckingham, followed by the now traditional candlelit carol service in Chapel. My thanks go out to School Chaplain Rev Dr Steer for leading the service. Border’s House