Abingdon News No. 60

18 April 2022 Abingdon Prep Cultural celebrations The Prep School has been celebrating our cultural diversity throughout the course of this term. In January, Years 3 and 4 continued our theme of celebrating cultural diversity by focusing on Ukraine. The children learned about the tradition of creating beautiful embroideries on clothes and ceremony towels which are used for special occasions, including weddings and births; and about the symbolism of the stunning designs and how much love and care goes into making each unique piece.Then they were shown some authentic examples. The similarities and differences of a number of different cultures and nationalities from around the world were celebrated in our first ever non English speaking assembly. Led by a group of our children, the assembly was taken in no fewer than five languages including Bengali, Danish, French, Mandarin and Russian (with subtitles in English). The children introduced and explained a little about themselves and went on to describe some of the festivities which are celebrated around the world. We discovered that whilst these can be different from each other, they all share two common themes - the importance of being with family and having good food. In keeping with this theme, pupils have enjoyed helping our office staff add to the welcoming feel of the reception area by writing ‘hello’ in a range of languages they speak. It certainly provides a cheerful welcome to our visitors. Green Fingered Our Green Team gardening and eco club have started looking into decomposition times for common household items. We buried different materials in our regular garden compost and will be closely monitoring them over the next few terms - we can’t wait to find out which ones rot away first! On 24 January, our young leader, Toby, took the Green Team’s weekly session. Toby led the group through how to germinate lemon seeds. He showed the pupils the process of extracting the seeds, removing the outer shell and then how to give them the best conditions for germination. Two seeds were also planted in potting compost so the pupils can compare the germination speeds of the two methods. Let’s Debate On Tuesday 8 February, Joseph, Samuel and Arjun from Year 6 attended ‘Let’s Debate’ Prep Schools’ Debating Day at Oratory School. After taking part in morning workshops focussing on public speaking and debating skills, they then were given a motion and prepared speeches in the Library at The Oratory. Joining up with pupils from Aldro School and Cothill School, they contributed to the presentation of a debate on the ethics of keeping animals in zoos. What a performance! It has been a fantastic term for APS performances. Whether it was Years 3 and 4 who did a tremendous rendition of ‘Eddie the Penguin Saves the World!’ - a fabulous play all about environmental issues including recycling, saving water and conserving energy; Years 5 and 6 who produced a beautiful version of ‘Aladdin’; or our own teaching staff who created much excitement in their flipping pancake competition as part of our Shrove Tuesday assembly!