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I volunteered for Abingdon Science Partnership (ASP) for four years. I have listed links to some articles about activities I took part in:
I also wrote an article about leading some of these activities (source):
What new initiatives have you led or made significant contributions to at Abingdon?
One of the main initiatives I have made a significant contribution to is Primary Science Club. I first became involved three years ago when OA Colm Lambert coordinated the effort to start up a student run science class for local schools. Since starting small with 5 members the club grew hugely allowing to run sessions week after week. I have been responsible as a leader since the start organising each week’s activities. Unfortunately we are currently unable to run our sessions in person but we are still producing resources online on our website.
I also took part in the ATLAScraft project, a huge project in collaboration with CERN, universities and local schools where we built the ATLAS detector in Minecraft. It was rewarding to see the project as a whole when it was released by CERN and has been used within our partnership activities ever since. I contributed to meetings with other schools and video conferences with scientists at CERN.
Aside from Partnership activities, I have taken part in many team competitions such as the Blott Matthews engineering competition where I had to coordinate a project to tight deadlines. They are never easy but the results make it all worth it.
What have you gained from leading these initiatives?
I have learnt many valuable skills during leadership of these activities. One of the key skills I have learnt is time management, when you have several projects all taking place at the same time with multiple people needing to get tasks done it is critical I make sure I have full awareness of who is doing what! It can be disastrous if we end up with a session which is inadequately planned, with a lack of structure and not enough content. Spreadsheets often come to save my day alongside our ever growing shared drive filled with resources that we can reuse if we are struggling for time.
Additionally my communication skills have also become more effective over time as I have slowly grown to know what works and what doesn’t! This continues over Zoom which is also a slightly different experience to being in person.
How has Abingdon School encouraged and supported you to make them happen?
Abingdon has so many opportunities for leadership in so many areas within the Other Half. We are often receiving emails about new opportunities and the expansive Other Half list is ever growing with all kinds of unique activities.
There are also opportunities in an academic sense as well such as the Ritangle Maths contest or the CERN Beamline 4 Schools Physics competition.
What advice would you give to other boys who want to take the lead with a new initiative or idea at Abingdon?
I find that sometimes just going and taking on an activity without really knowing the full picture has been the most rewarding for me. I learn new skills and work in areas that I would not normally picture myself in, an example that comes to mind would be the Royal Society Badger Monitoring project where we helped setup camera traps around local schools!
Which initiative that you have led are you most proud of and why?
I think Primary Science Club was the clear example as it has been a huge success. Pre pandemic we were getting lots of visitors that were all fascinated by our experiments and constantly asking questions to learn more. We have also seen the impact from running these sessions with evaluation forms and teachers coming back and telling us how much our sessions are enjoyed by the students.