Extension opportunities
Extension is the lifeblood of the Senior School. Academically, it is what makes the difference between The Abbey and other high-achieving environments. We get outstanding results, but our students are more aware, think more critically, debate, and have creative capacity that goes far beyond the results they achieve.
A narrow focus on results for their own sake is dangerous in education: if it works, it teaches young people to become adept hoop-jumpers; if it doesn’t, it leads to anxiety and the fear of failure. Spend five minutes in any lesson at The Abbey, or even better in a lesson interchange, and it is obvious that this is an environment of fun and challenge and freedom – and our Extension programme is a big part of the reason why.
Extension happens every day in every lesson. Every time our teachers explore a subject in more depth, let a student discussion run, take on a challenging topic for the sheer fun of what it can teach us, they are taking an Abbey Extension angle. There are also lots of specific ways we develop the programme so that every student in our school has the chance to feel the excitement and exhilaration of academic scholarship and the sense of personal capability and confidence it can give you.
Scholars’ Programme
The Scholars’ Programme is one key element of our Extension. All academic scholars of all ages are part of an online group swapping and sharing ideas and there are events every week for all students, led by our scholars. They debate interesting questions – what is money? What is freedom? They are fun challenges and problems to solve and a focus all the time on ideas for their own sake. There is nothing better than seeing the excited chatter of students whose imagination has been caught by a Scholars’ Programme event and who are taking the ideas on in ways all of their own.
Extension opportunities
Students regularly receive the List: 30 or more different opportunities to be curious. Open access university courses, podcasts, competitions, prizes: a world of opportunity, colour-coded for ease – open doors that students learn the confidence to explore for themselves.
iPortfolios
Every student in Upper III (Year 7) begins their Extension journey with an iPortfolio – their own personal record of all the wonderful things they are discovering and exploring. Tutors read and comment on the portfolios and give advice about where students can go next.
Learning hooks
We encourage all teachers in Lower School lessons (Years 7-9) to include a ‘hook’ in every one of their lessons. This hook is simply content that reaches beyond the confines of their subject and links to another. Alongside our formal cross-curricular work, these hooks are there for students to connect for themselves. Again, this drives curiosity, imagination and initiative.
Learning Festival
Every year the Lower School come off timetable and work in groups of mixed ages on a project. It might be designing a space station, or creating an ethical product. Teachers act as information points but student teams lead, conducting their own research and coming to their own conclusions. It is a massive undertaking: a 300-strong academic conference that acts as a focus for the way we want all our young people to learn.
Curiosity week
An annual highlight – and not just because all homework is suspended! Curiosity week is a joy. Breaks and lunchtimes are full of teachers and students giving five minute talks on everything under the sun, as long as it prompts curiosity. What’s the science of bubbles? Why is time travel forwards possible in theory, but not time travel back? What would have happened if a different side had won a battle? Why do different cultures use the concepts of right and left so differently? Lessons are also full of curiosity talking points and students complete a project satisfying their own curiosity in place of regular homework.
ARCH talks
All through the year we run talks and events where distinguished speakers come in to school and share ideas. We invite students from other schools and all the young people present split into rooms to debate what they’ve discovered. One perfect example: Professor Danielle George set our students the challenge of estimating how long it would take to play out all the content of a human brain in 1s and 0s, like a song on Spotify. The answer? Fifty billion, billion, billion years. Far longer than the universe has existed. That’s Abbey Extension!
Scholar’s Award
The programme leads to our most prestigious award: the Scholar’s Award in Sixth Form. Over the summer all students in the Lower VI (Year 12) are invited to complete a project. This might support a qualification such as the EPQ, or it might be for the sheer joy and love of learning. Projects might be essays, pieces of art, film, lab projects: whatever supports each individual’s passion.
Students are encouraged to log all the support they received and then to roam far off the beaten track, under their own steam, following their own adventure in scholarship.
All those who submit projects present their work to staff and peers in the Autumn term. Every entrant is considered for a Scholars’ Award: a substantial research grant supporting independent work during higher education.
Library
The Library is huge and the centre of learning for its own sake every day. It is a lovely place to read, research and study. It is also the focus of celebration for events such as Book Week and World Book Day, with regularly updated cross-curricular and cultural displays, and book clubs for a range of year groups.
Library staff are always on hand to help and respond to individual requests and the Librarian arranges author visits, clubs, promotional trips, quizzes and competitions, as well as offering induction sessions and information literacy teaching. Library lessons are booked by subject teachers to facilitate research and wider reading; the English Department brings classes to the library on a regular basis to encourage reading for pleasure and to work on projects such as The Fiction 40 Reading Challenge.
Author visits have included Paul Twivy, author of teen novel, Hallowed Ground; Jess Butterworth, author of several young adult adventure stories; and Joanna Jolly, an Abbey alumna, who discussed her successful career in journalism and her non-fiction work Red River Girl.
The Library hosts periodicals and DVDS and holds a variety of subscriptions to both print and digital resources to support students at school and with homework. Sixth form students are also supported in their research through a subscription to the London Library containing over one million books and periodicals, dating from 1700 to the present day, almost all of which can be borrowed.
