The Abingdonian 2019

92 The Abingdonian O’Doherty’s House The year seems to have flown by and it is only when writing this that I realise just how much we have done and achieved. We welcomed our new third years into the house along with Mr Eames-Jones in September and kicked the house activities off with our annual 5-a-side football and pizza evening. The newly appointed House Prefects and the third year mentors did a grand job of organising this and it was a competitive, yet fun evening. Speaking of football, our new acquisition this year was table football and this has proved to be extremely popular. The best part about it is seeing different year groups playing against each other and establishing friendships. There was a bit of an issue putting it together as we found that we were missing most of the parts but the boys who helped soon rectified this once the second box arrived. I am always really impressed in how the boys take on a challenge and how it brings out the leadership and team spirit in them. Another house activity that brought the boys together was a house quiz and pizza evening - yes pizza again! Raffy Armon-Jones and Dawid Klewicki did a fantastic job as quizmasters and the Upper Sixth produced a challenging and varied set of questions. The boys were extremely knowledgeable but the staff beat them hands down in the dingbats round! We once again had a house theme each term and this year these were courage, discovery and collaboration. The courage theme linked into my sabbatical, which was in the second half of the Michaelmas Term. During this time I went outside of my comfort zone and travelled on my own to Uganda, to visit a school for mentally and physically disabled children, and India, where I travelled across the north of the country taking in the magnificent art and architecture. I had the most amazing time and want to thank Mrs Beynon for looking after the house in my absence. The theme in the Summer Term ran alongside our annual House Challenge, which was this year won by team Italy. Having a theme each term encourages the boys to think about things beyond school and it was great hearing different year groups give presentations during house assemblies and in tutor periods. Throughout the year O’Doherty’s House performed to their best in the inter-house competitions. These kicked off with the House Singing. This was a time of extra pressure considering we had won it twice in a row but everyone rose to the occasion. Build Me Up Buttercup was the song of choice and we certainly belted it out under the enthusiastic lead of Henry Steinsberg, our conductor. We didn’t secure a podium slot, which is a shame, but we certainly sang our hearts out. Inter-house debating saw us against some very strong teams in some of the opening matches and unfortunately we did not get through to the final stages. All the teams had planned well and delivered their speeches with confidence though and I have high hopes for next year. As a house we always want to go into competitions giving it our very best, even if we might know we are not the strongest in certain fields. This attitude has meant that over the course of the year we were securing consistently high scores in individual competitions. We were overall winners of the badminton in both the U14 and U18, U15 table tennis, U18 football, pool, U16 water polo and the Road Relay event, overall second in rugby, U16 football, U15 ergo, fencing and joint second in hockey, and overall third in swimming, squash and joint third in basketball, cricket, golf, tug-of-war, U14 football and ergo. We were also overall winners of the Inter-house Athletics Competition