Abbey College Cambridge Summer 2015 Newsletter

SUMMER NEWSLETTER 2015

We are coming to the end of a fantastic year at Abbey Cambridge

as we say farewell to our Upper Sixth and Foundation students and

wish them the very best success in the future.

Congratulations to all those who took part in the Abbey Cambridge

Conference and GCSE Project Week. It was truly moving to see the

talent and motivation you all have. You showed our special guests

Julian Drinkall and Jenny Aviss from the Alpha Plus Group, just

how hard you are prepared to work to achieve the high goals you

set yourselves.

At the end of term assembly, we were happy to announce that the

Abbey school community has raised £10,000 this year for the

charity EACH (East Anglia’s Children’s Hospices). A big thank-you

to Julian Drinkall who kindly donated the final £750 to help us

reach our target.

Enjoy your Summer break.

Julian Davies - Principal

ABBEY COLLEGE CAMBRIDGE SUMMER NEWSLETTER 2015

Students and staff celebrated the End of the School Year on Friday 26 June. The Abbey

Cambridge Conference and GCSE Project Week are annual activities where students

learn and develop vital skills needed for their further studies. The Abbey Cambridge

Conference and GCSE Project winners were announced and we were pleased to welcome

our special guest judges, Julian Drinkall, Chief Executive and Jenny Aviss, Director of

Schools from the Alpha Plus Group. Students were awarded for their academic

achievements and contributions to the community across the year. It was a fantastic end

to a great year!



ABBEY COLLEGE CAMBRIDGE SUMMER NEWS-

On Friday 1 May 2015 Abbey Cambridge

hosted the spectacular May Ball at the

historic Madingley Hall of Cambridge

University. During the night students and

staff experienced a gourmet food selection,

fantastic music and a very special Leaver's

Ceremony with awards. It was a brilliant

evening thoroughly enjoyed by all students

and staff!



On 24 April SHI Fenglin (Elaine), XU Zhe (Cyril), YU Zhaoyuan (Michael) and LIU Yifan

(Euphie), accompanied by Ross Barker and Chris Ashford, made an early start to visit the

University of Hertfordshire in Hatfield for the celebration and assessment day conference

of the Engineering Education Scheme. This was the final day of the 7 month long scheme

started back in October where these students have been working closely with engineers

from the multinational electronic chip design company ARM which is based in Cambridge.

Over the course of the scheme the students work on an engineering project with real-world

applications. They develop a mature attitude and many transferable skills which are so

very important to demonstrate when applying to the best universities. At the

conference the students presented their project to a panel of professional engineers and

also had a display stand for all delegates.

Their project has been based around measuring purity of water including pH and nitrate

concentrations and developing the electronics in the detector.

Dimitri IEVLEV was also part of the team but unfortunately could not attend the

celebration day.

Our thanks go to the engineers at ARM: Abdul Rehman Sharif, Gerard O'Leary, Oliver

Stannard and Vincent Chiu. Vincent is actually an Alumnus of Abbey College Cambridge

who, having studied Electronic Engineering at Southampton University, has returned to

Cambridge to work at ARM. Also many thanks to Ross Barker who has supervised the

students throughout the project.

Chris Ashford

Wednesday 29 April was an exciting day for Jianfu LIU (Jeff) as he

visited the Royal Society in London to attend the prize giving for the

British Physics Olympiad. Jeff has demonstrated through the Physics

Olympiad that he is one of the top 15 physics students in the country and

received an invitation to the Royal Society to receive his prize! This is an

amazing achievement for Jeff and it was an honour for me to accompany

him to the Royal society. The Royal Society is an important and historic

scientific institution in the UK and the oldest scientific institution of its

type in the world. It holds amongst its physics alumni Isaac Newton,

Robert Boyle and Martin Rees as well as leaders in all fields of science

throughout history to its foundation in 1660. The current president of the

Royal Society is Sir Paul Nurse: he received a Nobel Prize for his work on

the cell cycle and what controls the division and shape of cells.

For Jeff the Olympiad began back November 2014 when 12 Abbey

students took part in round 1 of the completion competition at Abbey. Of the 1800 students taking part

nationally, 3 of our students (Liangchao SHI, Chong HUO and Jianfu LIU) were in the top 50 and invited

to take part in round 2. This alone is a significant achievement! The second round took place in February.

Jianfu was placed in the top 15 of those 50 and hence invited to take part in the Training Camp at Oxford

University during the Easter Vacation. The training camp is also used as the selection process for the

British Team who compete in the International Physics Olympiad which this year is taking place in India.

His Excellency Mr Ranjan Mathai, the Indian High Commissioner, presented the awards to Jeff and the

other finalists and officially invited those selected to India for the competition.

During the afternoon there was also a lecture by Professor Paul McMillan of University College London as

well as a lunch and tea with the winners of the competitions. This year we have also had the following

students taking part in Olympiads and all of them will be receiving certificates. Well done to everyone!

Chris Ashford

A2 Students who took the British Physics Olympiad

Round 1

LIU Jianfu (Jeff)

SHI Liangchao (Clint)

HUO Chong (Steven)

CHANG Qing (Cherries)

Andrei Kanavalau

LIU Jihang (Levon)

Amin Farjadi

Chan Chia CHUN

ZHOU Qiaohui (Chloe)

HUANG Tao (Tracy)

HU Jiashu (Tree)

Bounvilay Phomsavanh (Sam )

Students who progressed to Round 2:

LIU Jianfu (Jeff)

SHI Liangchao (Clint)

HUO Chong (Steven)

Students who took the AS Physics Challenge:

Bao Tuan NGYUEN

Pasith Angkananukroh

LI Jiayi (Shirley)

Grigory Zhuravlev

Dmytro Ushchapovskyy

LIU Yifan (Euphie)

AN Junlei (James)

Chen Huaying

CHEN Hainuo (Antonia)

SHI Zimu (Joe)

TU Yuchen

Jonathan CHEONG

Wun Dan NAW LAT

QIN Xinyue (Kylie)

Mingiyan Ushanov

XU Zhe (Cyril)

YU Zhaoyuan (Michael)


Congratulations to all these students of

the Lower 6th who achieved a 6.5 or

more in their IELTS tests. A fantastic

achievement and the result of hard

work and dedication all year. Well

done – and if you are not quite there

yet, keep on trying and read the top

tips for working on your English.

Minh Duc DUONG

HUANG Zonghao (Edward)

Jasmine Wen Ling TANG

Suet Wei TIONG

WANG Jiayi (Kelen)

WANG Ruying

LIO Mengyao (Kay)

ZHENG Yuanshuyi (Cecilia)

Mohammed Yusuf Manu

Zamin JABRAYILZADE

LIN Rong (Linda)

LONG Ruixiang (Larry)

MA Xiaohan (Sherry)

Thean Siang NG

SHI Zimu (Joe)

SUN Fei

Chaovatas SUPAPANTITA

WAN Songtao (Andy)

WANG Jiayi (Kelen)

WANG Yuan (Owen)

Patrick Williams

A big congratulations to

WANG Jiebing (Ellen)

on passing her IELTS

exam early and getting

an outstanding score of

7!

The only thing that improves your

language ability is practising. So the more

contact you can have with the written and

spoken language, the more quickly you

will improve.

1. Find things to read that you enjoy –

popular novels like “Twilight” or

“The Hunger Games”, newspapers

and magazines related to a hobby or

sport that you enjoy, articles about

your favourite subject

2. Watch TV and films in English. Try

watching a bit without subtitles first,

and then rewind it and watch the

same bit again with the subtitles to

see how much more this improves

your understanding.

3. Use Macmillandictionary.com to look

up new words – pay attention to any

words that appear in red. These are

important words to know.

4. Download the Sounds Pronunciation

App to your phone and practice your

pronunciation.


Congratulations to Gadibalwe Masalela for gaining a place on

the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) Summer Internship

Programme. Every year the IEA has 50 interns from top

universities including Cambridge, Oxford and the LSE for 5

weeks. Gadibalwe is the only sixth form student on the

programme!

They are based at Westminster for a fun packed educational

programme. It consists of lectures by top economists,

seminars, debates, discussions, and of course pizza nights! They

also receive a tour of Parliament, and meet with MPs and Lords.

During their time with the IEA they all individually produce a

supervised research project, chosen by them, and mentored by

one of the senior research staff at the IEA. Research topics have

ranged from the effect of micro financing in Bangladesh on

women to the role of merchant jurors in the adjudication of 18th

century commercial disputes. So quite a broad range of topics!

No doubt the Abbey Cambridge Conference will prepare Gadibalwe for her upcoming adventure.

David Farrell

Congratulations to the following students who took part in the Cambridge Chemistry Challenge. 8500 Lower

Sixth students across the country entered. The top 7.6% were awarded Gold. Here are our results:

LIU Yifan (Euphie) – Gold

CHEN Hainuo (Antonia) – Silver

Shin Thong LOW – Silver

Tumisang TSOLOPE – Silver

YU Zhaoyuan (Michael)– Silver

Jerry Wei Ko Ko HTWE – Copper

Sher Zanne LEE – Copper

XU Yiwen – Copper

XU Zhe (Cyril) – Copper

Alex Whalley


On Thursday 25 June the Foundation students took to the track to celebrate the end of

term. After their final exam we travelled to WildTracks in Newmarket to try out

Go-Karting. A four lap qualifier decided the position on the starting grid. What followed

were 30 fast paced, highly thrilling laps. There were spins, skids and a few bumps into

the tyre walls but these all added to the excitement. Leading from the first corner Fatjon

Doko took the chequered flag and also achieved the fastest lap. Close behind was PE

teacher, Pete Manners and in third place was Samuel Okunsebor.

On Monday 8 and Tuesday 9 June the Foundation cohort gave their final year presentation to an invited

audience. The presentations were their final year assessments and were graded on the day. Over many weeks the

students have been learning about the different elements that go together to make a great presentation.

Professional motivational speaker Kamal Hyman visited the students and gave them some expert tips on

audience engagement, personalisation and how to make your presentation as interesting and entertaining as

possible. The students were also given a very practical and interactive workshop by Ruth McKechnie, a

professional voice coach. Ruth worked with the students on voice projection, control, pitch and tone.

It was very evident during the final assessed presentations that the

students had responded to the expert’s knowledge and advice. The

topics were very diverse and ranged from the impact of the internet to

the evolution of football. The overall standard was very high with

many of the students achieving 100% for their presentations.

On Tuesday 23 June the Foundation students joined their teachers and senior leaders of Abbey College

Cambridge to celebrate their academic and pastoral successes this year. A wonderful barbecue was enjoyed by

all in the attractive gardens of Harvey Road, one of Abbey Cambridge’s

prestigious accommodation buildings.

Dr Julian Davies, Principal of Abbey Cambridge, gave a reflective speech

and congratulated the students on a highly successful year. Academic

awards were presented by Academic Vice Principal Gavin Copland.

There were also some fun awards voted for by the students themselves,

these were presented by Pastoral Vice Principal, Karen Lonsdale. The

students also voted for their best teacher, this was won by Physics teacher

Mukshiya Didi.

It was a beautiful afternoon, the sun shone as students and staff celebrated a very successful year for the

International Foundation Programme.

Andrea Joyce


The Abbey Cambridge community celebrated its new campus on Monday 1 June with a Topping

Out ceremony. Sir John Ritblat, Chairman of the Alpha Plus Group, led the celebrations.

To mark the occasion, Sir John laid a commemorative piece of concrete, symbolising a pinnacle

point in the construction works. Other special guests included Chief Executive Officer

Julian Drinkall, Director of Schools Jenny Aviss and Terence Ming Kwan Chin, Chair of the

Student Council.

Our new campus is designed by staff to precisely fit the

needs of our fantastic students and to enhance our School

Vision: A community energised by the love of learning and

the pursuit of outstanding achievement for all.

The new school features: on-site boarding, bespoke

classrooms, high-tech labs, first-class computer systems, a

gym, outdoor cinema, a beautiful British garden, a modern

library and many more exciting developments at the

cutting-edge of British education facilities.

Dr Julian Davies, Principal of Abbey Cambridge was delighted: “This is a tremendous milestone

for our community. With this purpose-built campus, students and staff alike will reach their full

potential with all of the state of the art facilities we have to offer.”

Terence Chin said: “I would like to say on behalf of all the A2 students that it has been a pleasure

watching this school evolve and grow, and with the

construction of the new school building, the school is going to

continue getting better and better. I will come and visit this

school again, and when I do I look forward to seeing the

school progress and improve, as well as seeing all the bright

young minds who will be experiencing the same adventure I

did in the last two years.”

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Abbey College Cambridge Summer 2015 Newsletter