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
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 NEWSLETTER 2015
ABBEY COLLEGE CAMBRIDGE SUMMER NEWSLETTER 2015
ABBEY COLLEGE CAMBRIDGE SUMMER NEWSLETTER 2015
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!
ABBEY COLLEGE CAMBRIDGE SUMMER NEWS-
ABBEY COLLEGE CAMBRIDGE SUMMER NEWSLETTER 2015
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
ABBEY COLLEGE CAMBRIDGE SUMMER NEWSLETTER 2015
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!
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)
Chris Ashford
A big congratulations to
Congratulations to all these students of
WANG Jiebing (Ellen)
the Lower 6th who achieved a 6.5 or
on passing her IELTS
more in their IELTS tests. A fantastic
exam early and getting
achievement and the result of hard
an outstanding score of
7!
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
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.
2.
3.
4.
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
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.
Use Macmillandictionary.com to look
up new words – pay attention to any
words that appear in red. These are
important words to know.
Download the Sounds Pronunciation
App to your phone and practice your
pronunciation.
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
ABBEY COLLEGE CAMBRIDGE SUMMER NEWSLETTER 2015
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
ABBEY COLLEGE CAMBRIDGE SUMMER NEWSLETTER 2015
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.
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.
Andrea Joyce
ABBEY COLLEGE CAMBRIDGE SUMMER NEWSLETTER 2015
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.”
ABBEY COLLEGE CAMBRIDGE SUMMER NEWSLETTER 2015