Page 1 - Abberley Adventures - Autumn 2020

ABBERLEY
1
ADVENTURES
PART OF THE MALVERN COLLEGE FAMILY
OF SCHOOLS
ISSUE 2 | OCT 2020
Dear Parents,
As I write this newsletter, at the start of our October Half Term, I’m looking out to sea from a Cornish cottage and reflecting on what has been an incredibly busy and overwhelmingly positive start to the academic year. I have attempted to outline some of the highlights. Tessa, Archie, Florence and I moved to Abberley on 1st August and, after just three months, we feel extremely settled and confident that we made an excellent choice in moving from the Suffolk coast to join you in beautiful Worcestershire.
Thank you so much to parents, pupils and staff for welcoming us so warmly to your school community and for helping us to settle in. It is clear to us, as we find ourselves saying so often, that Abberley is a very special place. We have found the pupils to be an absolute delight. They are friendly, kind, polite and fun and they seem to have a natural charm and warmth without this feeling in any way ‘put on’ or manufactured. This is clearly a result of the way that they have been brought up by you,
their parents, but I sense that it is also thanks to ‘The Abberley Experience’.
Abberley Hall is a remarkable school with a long history and I am committed to protecting and maintaining all that makes it so wonderful. As you know, we are working with Malvern College but we will continue to stand proudly with our own unique character, to make our own decisions and to operate as an independent charity. As we all know, small rural prep schools away from London, operating in isolation, are under increasing strain and our partnership with Malvern brings us great strength. Many ‘behind the scenes’ necessities of running a prep school, such as marketing, HR, accountancy, compliance and estates management, have been centralised and we are able to benefit from increased expertise in these areas. Malvern has invested heavily in our school and this has provided stability at a time when many independent schools are struggling to remain open. We have always sent children to Malvern College because of our geographical proximity and because our
ethos and theirs have always been aligned. We will continue to send pupils to Malvern but, again, they will go on to the right school for them and this will mean sending them to a wide range of senior schools.
I hope you enjoy reading updates about some of what has been going on during the first half of term. We look forward to welcoming our full-boarders back on Tuesday 3rd November from 6pm and both day pupils and part-time boarders on the morning of Wednesday 4th November for what will, I’m sure, be another action-packed Half Term. In the meantime, I wish you all a very restful and well-deserved Half Term break.
Yours sincerely
Jonnie Besley
Headmaster
IN THIS ISSUE
Report from the Head Girl 2 Report from the Head Boy 2 Covid-19 2 Charities 3 Academic 4 Music and Drama 4 Spor t 5 Opening of New Astro 5 Clubs and Activities 5 Boarding 6 Improvements and New Initiatives 7 A Few Reminders... 7 School values 8 Our Year So Far in Photos 8-9 Dates for the Diary 10 Instagram 11