16 January 2024 Abingdon School in Partnership To mark the 20th anniversary of the Abingdon Film Unit, students and staff from Abingdon, Fitzharrys, Larkmead and St Helen and St Katharine travelled to the British Film Institute, London on 13 September for a reception and film screening. This featured 9 new student films and a retrospective film created by tutors, Colin O’Toole and Jeremy Taylor, containing previously unseen footage from 2006, Wednesday afternoon workshops, “film pitching” sessions, a camera and sound training trip to Dungeness, and clips from some of the 200+ AFU films that have been made since 2003. At the end, AFU alumnus and professional filmmaker Will Mcdowell spoke about the impact the AFU has had on many of those who have been a part of it. All in all, it was a memorable and happy occasion, made possible through the generosity of the OA Club. New Peer Support Leads undertake core training On 3 October, 72 students made up of our PSLs and upper sixth from the OX14 Learning Partnership attended a core training session at Fitzharrys. They participated in work on common scenarios and used role play to learn listening, communication, mentoring and safeguarding skills. These will be used to support the mental health and wellbeing of younger students within school and across our Abingdon community. In November, over 70 students from 5 schools across Abingdon came together for a business language challenge. Students formed mixed school teams to take part in a variety of activities based around marketing and selling Jelly Babies. After initial icebreakers, teams began by creating a trade stand for their sweets as well as a flyer, all in their chosen foreign language. A highlight of the day was filming a short advert and making a phone call to a business representative for a large supermarket chain. Students enjoyed meeting new people and brushing up on their presentation skills, as well as using their language knowledge to complete the challenges - as many as 97% said they would recommend the day to a friend! Well done to all who took part. The ASP Motorsports Club, with members from Abingdon, Fitzharrys and John Mason schools, had a very productive session working on design and development plans with Ollie and Zaak, undergraduate engineering placement students at GKN Automotive’s Innovation Centre in Abingdon. The Club is now split into 2 teams, a blue team continuing with development work on last season’s successful Fitz24 electric racing car, whilst the red team has begun work on renovating a 2nd car, aptly named the Red Kite. Under the guidance of Ollie and Zaak, the teams worked on plans for bodywork designs and materials and improved power control systems for the 2024 racing season which begins in May. It was really inspiring to see the pupils from across the schools working constructively with each other as well as with the young engineers working at the forefront of automotive technology innovation in Abingdon. AFU celebrates 20 years Business language challenge Racing fever
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