3rd July 2015

Can you believe that here we are at the end of another school year? I would like to thank you all

for your support this year. We have had a very busy and successful year in Years 5 and 6 and

you, as partners in the education of your children, deserve much credit for that. This week has

been a particularly busy one, with Move Up Day, the re-scheduled Sports Day and the Summer

Concert and some photos from the Sports Day can be found at the end of this newsletter. All it

remains for me to do is to wish you and your families a relaxing summer break from the Middle

Section team (myself, Roger Owen, Louise Batho and Steve Hibberd.) We

look forward to seeing the boys back raring to go in September!

Head of Middle Section

Spring Term Events

A number of events took place right at the end of the

spring term and missed being mentioned in the last

newsletter. Firstly, for the first time, the Middle Section

held an essay writing competition. Pupils were asked

to submit a piece of writing with the theme of

‘Inspiration’ and we received close to 20 submissions

from pupils who had interpreted the brief in many

different and creative ways. Very well done indeed to

Thomas Wright for his excellent piece of work, which

won him the competition along with the prize of an

Amazon voucher. The ‘Middle Section’s Got Talent’ competition attracted over ten willing acts, with bands being formed and comedy sketches being hastily written. Well done to the band “The Ishkapaydes” (pictured above) for their performance of “Uptown Funk” (originally performed by, so we are told, Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars) which won the competition with the unanimous support of the judging panel. The band consists of George F. (vocals), Oscar S. (vocals), Freddie C. (lead guitar) and Alex B. (drums). Well done also to Robin C. who earned the accolade of ‘Most Outstanding Individual Performance’ at the ‘Let’s Debate’ Debating Competition at Oratory School on the penultimate day of last term.

Orienteering

The Middle Section gathered during exam week in June for an orienteering event held during their Wednesday Games lesson. Pupils got into groups to negotiate a map of the school grounds (see picture on the right) and had to visit various points on the map to collect letters. They then had to arrange these letters into a 12-letter word. Well done to the team from Griffin House for winning the event.

Leavers At the end of this term, we say goodbye to a number of our pupils. Oliver M., Sean J., and Addison

C. leave us to join Our Lady’s, Abingdon, William T. and James C. leave us to join Cokethorpe

School, Thomas M. leaves us to join Kingham Hill and Liam T. leaves us to join Pangbourne

College. We would like to take this opportunity to thank all seven of them for their contribution

during their time at Abingdon Preparatory School and hope that they will keep in touch.

New Starters In addition to those leaving, this term saw two pupils join

Year 5 of the school. Thomas Whetter joined us from

Kirtlington CE Primary School and Adam Rashid joined us

from Chandlings. Thomas says of his time thus far at

Abingdon Prep: “I have enjoyed my time at Abingdon Prep.

The lessons are nice and we get taught a lot. The sports

are also good.” Adam adds: “The lessons are interesting

here and the teachers make sure you get things right.”

Assemblies Pupils in the Middle Section have enjoyed a range of visitors to assemblies in recent times.

Naturally, some of our boys are developing ideas as to what career path they may follow later on

in life. To give some food for thought, pupils in Year 5 & 6 last year had a talk from Julia J., a

veterinary surgeon. This year, we have had the privilege of hearing from Mark D., father of Henry

in Year 5, who led a workshop on the oil exploration industry to pupils in Year 5. Back by popular

demand, Mark also gave a similar presentation to pupils in Year 6 some weeks later.

Additionally, we have also had the benefit of an assembly led by Imogen McCabe from Childline

who detailed all of the services that this organisation offers to young people. A series of

workshops were also run following this assembly which involved discussions of crucially

important issues, such as how to stay safe online. You can see pictures from these events

below.

Chedworth Roman Villa Year 6 enjoyed their annual visit to Chedworth Roman Villa. Chedworth is one of the largest

Roman villas in Britain and was built in phases from the early 2nd century to the 4th century. In

addition to a tour of the site, which was excavated in the 1800’s, pupils also got to handle some of

the artefacts that have been found by archaeologists at Chedworth such as pottery and animal

bones. They also got to make fragrant Roman medicine bags by grinding herbs, in exactly the

same way as they would have done nearly two thousand years ago. You can see pictures from

this day below.

Verse speaking

More recently, pupils in Year 5 and Year 6 took part in the annual

verse speaking competition. This involved all pupils in both year

groups as all had to learn and perform a poem off-by-heart. With the

heats taking place during drama lessons, a selection were chosen to

take part in the competition on Friday 19th June which was attended

by all pupils in Years 3 to Year 6. Well done to Dominic W. (Year 6 –

with his rendition of ‘Naughty Children by Elizabeth Godley) and

Christopher S. (Year 5 – with his rendition of an anonymous poem

“The Dog in the Playground”) who impressed the external judge and

won in their respective year group’s competition. Both are pictured

on the right with their trophies.

The Injury Minimisation Programme for Schools

On Tuesday 23rd June, pupils in Year 6 visited the John

Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford. The reason of their visit was to

attend their ‘The Injury Minimisation Programme for

Schools’. This consisted of number of workshops run by

professionals at the JR intended to equip them with the

skills to cope in emergencies. Pupils were shown how to

perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation and how to use a

defibrillator. You can see some of the pupils on the right

working on their CPR skills.

Architecture and Mathematics Workshops

This term, two outside organisations visited the school to run workshops for the boys. On Mon-day April 27th, pupils in Year 6 attended an architecture workshop where their objective was to design and build a large structure using wooden sticks and work as a team to problem solve in a practical way. The session required huge amounts of team work, cooperation, maths and imagi-nation and you can see some pictures of the workshop in action below. Additionally, pupils in Year 6 joined Year 7 to attend at maths workshop run by the Happy Puzzle Company. Here, they attempted to solve a range of mathematical puzzles. You can see pictures of pupils taking part in both workshops below.