Abingdonian 2020

69 www.abingdon.org.uk Summer Term My First Year at Abingdon For the previous seven years I had been going to a small village school with pretty much the same 25 people and only being a three minute drive from home. Now I was going to a school where I knew no-one, had to get on a bus and have a completely different school uniform and a blazer with buttons that, when I twisted them, fell off. “How many other people have come from village schools like me?” That was one of the many questions I was asking myself. On my first day, I didn’t have any lessons since it was an induction day and which gave me a chance to meet the boys in my tutor group. However once lessons had started, I noticed a big difference between the lessons at Abingdon and those at primary school. Although I already knew I would have to do it, moving around the school to go to lessons was a big thing for me. Before, I used to be in one classroom all day. We would only change classrooms when we moved up a year. Now, I was moving every fifty-five minutes to different parts of a huge school. However, I really enjoyed this and also the enthusiasm and positiveness of the teachers from all different subjects - previously, I had the same teacher for all lessons. The opportunity to learn different things that I had heard about such as Latin, Physics, German, and Chemistry was becoming a reality. One of my favourite things about my first year at Abingdon has been the Other Half. This has given me an opportunity to try things I’d never done before or knew existed like fencing, ceramics, GIS, history club, archaeology club, The Blazer and Books and Biscuits. I like how it all contributes to the Lower School Baker Award. The Other Half has also allowed me to represent the school at hockey, as well as go on a Touchliners trip to see Wasps Rugby. Another big part of life at Abingdon is music. Although I play a musical instrument outside of school, there have still been lots of opportunities to be part of music in school. There was house singing when Mr Jenkins was incredibly pleased we won, the Lower School carol service and the whole school Christmas Concert where there was a variety of talents from lots of different people across all the school years. It was amazing. The Summer Term was massively different and I surprisingly enjoyed online school. Before it started, I was thinking about questions like “How will I show teachers my work?” and “What happens if my internet goes down?”. Of course those questions were soon answered. There were many things that I did which I probably would never have done if there hadn’t been Covid-19 like the Lower School Easter Challenge, making a bug house in biology, kitchen chemistry experiments, and having to do an egg-drop challenge in Physics. Even though I wasn’t seeing anyone in person, teachers put us in breakout rooms so we could see each other on a screen and talk to our friends while we were working. The Other Half also continued too - I’ve made collages, done an archaeology project, built lego and completed weekly history assignments. In conclusion, I have thoroughly enjoyed my first year at Abingdon and have really liked the opportunity that I have been given even with the strangeness of the coronavirus pandemic. I hope that returning to school in the second year will be just as rewarding. I can’t wait! Sam Wormald, 1SJC