Abingdon News No. 57

10 April 2021 Joint Literary Society: Annual American Literature Lecture The Joint Literary Society from Abingdon and St Helen’s was treated to a fascinating lecture from OA and Senior Lecturer in American Literature at Oxford Brookes, Dr Niall Munro. Dr Munro explored the connections between John Steinbeck and F Scott Fitzgerald, in the lecture entitled ‘But you can repeat the past: the 1920s and 30s in today’s America’. Applying D&T to help arthritis Students in the First, Second and Third Years have been learning about re- designing household objects to make them easier for people with arthritis. Reusing dirty water For this term’s Crest Award project, two members of the Lower School Crest Science Award Club have been investigating methods to filter dirty water for hand washing in remote communities. The activity is based on the Practical Action development charity’s Ditch the Dirt and Stop the Spread campaign. Balraj Purewal and Charlie Scott combined both activities and added ideas of their own in order to design a complete water collection and filtration system. Creative demography The third year students studied demography in geography this term and in their first online lesson, Mr Pygott’s students constructed world population graphs using household items. Classicists gathered in the Amey Theatre to watch the National Theatre’s recent production of Euripides’ Medea. Prior to this, Anthony Bracey OA ‘returned’ to school via Zoom to describe the original setting of the drama over 2400 years ago in Athens, just as the city was about to embark on a 30-year long war. Medea As School was preparing to open for the start of term in January, fresh food orders had been placed but with the move to online learning at short notice there was a surplus of fresh fruit and veg that couldn’t be used. Our ever-resourceful catering team from Sodexo contacted the Oxford Food Hub which supplies free food to about 150 local registered charities and community groups. The fresh fruit, vegetables, yoghurts and eggs were all able to be used in the local community. Abingdon News Food bank donation