Abingdonian 2020

94 The Abingdonian Department, described him as a genuinely good friend whose passionate and lively presence in the department was fun and energising. We couldn’t agree with these sentiments more. He has been a fantastic colleague who we will miss greatly. He leaves to take up an exciting role as Assistant Head at Cranford House School. This is clearly an excellent opportunity for Olly and we have no doubt he will prove a great success in his new role. We wish him the very best of luck in his future career. Pete Bignell and Adam Hepworth Su McRae There seemed to be lots going on in the world back in September 2009. There were earthquakes in Sumatra and Samoa, tropical storm Ketsana hit the Philippines, there was flooding in Turkey and Mrs McRae started at Abingdon. She joined a Biology Department that was, at the time, very different both in terms of staffing and in its location in the school. There will be fewer and fewer pupils who will remember the old Biology Department which was located where James’s and Border’s houserooms are now located. Su quickly established herself as a hardworking and competent classroom teacher who was always willing to go the extra mile to get the best from the pupils she taught. She was comfortable teaching across the age and ability ranges and could be relied upon to try things in different ways, often involving a more “hands on” approach in lessons. She was also happy to get out of the classroom and regularly went on the A-level field trip as well as one of our major overseas expeditions. Of course, it wasn’t long before Su was getting involved with a wide range of things in school where her leadership and enthusiasm will have helped a whole load of pupils develop in areas beyond the academic. She will be leaving a school that has a greater breadth of Other Half opportunities on offer thanks to her as she set up clubs for podcasting, croquet and pilates. Behind the scenes Su worked tirelessly on health and safety and school trips administration. It is a good indicator of how hard she worked on this that Abingdon has managed to run such a range of trips and visits for its pupils. During her time at Abingdon, Su looked after no fewer than five Lower School tutor groups, helping many Abingdonians get their time at the school off to a great start as a result. Su was an excellent tutor, always putting a lot of time and effort in to ensuring that her boys were achieving as highly as possible from an academic point of view. Su realised the importance of helping the boys develop good study skills at a young age and she always put a real focus on helping them to be organised and to prepare well for tests and exams – her beach ball revision technique is an absolute winner! Su’s approach to tutoring was about much more than the academic however and she was always keen to get her boys to think about the sort of person they wanted to be, encouraging them to develop their personal skills, work well as a team, think about others, and push themselves outside their comfort zones. As a key element of this, each of her tutor groups were challenged to take on a big sponsored event at the end of their time under Su’s care and many thousands of pounds were raised as a result – and, knowing the importance of leading by example, Su always joined in the challenge herself whether walking laps round Tilsley Park all through the night, taking on 24 sports in 24 hours, or getting on her bike to cover enough miles to symbolically get all the boys back to school during lockdown. It is undoubtedly the case that she helped her boys “be the best you can be” by doing that very thing herself. We will be sorry to see her go. Let us not forget that Mrs McRae is one of only two staff who have had Biology Department animals named after them (Mrs McRaefish) and we wish her every success in her new post teaching A level biology in Oxford. Simon Bliss and Adam Jenkins