Sir Vince Cable

Sir Vince Cable attracted a big crowd to OLA for the Festival of Reading evening event, which was open to the public. He was here to talk about his new book After the Storm: the World Economy and Britain's Economic Future. As former Secretary of State for Business under the Coalition Government, and Liberal Democrat MP for nearly 20 years, until he lost his seat in this year’s General Election, this was an absorbing yet accessible insight from someone at the heart of government. This was followed by questions and book signing organised by local book shop Mostly Books. Many people bought copies, including the Mayor of Abingdon and members of staff.

A great champion of reading and bookshops, he started his talk by saying how reading novels during the challenging times of government helped keep him clear-headed.

Edgar Gerrard Hughes Chief Writer for The Day

Edgar Gerrard Hughes is Chief Writer for The Day. He talked to Year 10, and again to Sixth Formers about writing about the news. The Day online newspaper, to which the school subscribes, features three main stories each day. Each report aims to explain each news story so that anyone coming to the story for the first time will understand its context. Below Edgar signs the Library's Author Board.

Kjartan Poskitt

Kjartan Poskitt who created the Murderous Maths series gave two performances packed with laughter and maths! Years 7 & 8, and in a separate session, Years 5 & 6 from OLA Junior school plus visitors from St Edmund's School, Rush Common and Long Furlong schools, learned the 1089 times table in under 15 seconds, played poisoned chocolate, a strategy game, and even were squeezed through a greetings card! Maths at its funniest and cleverest presented by a witty mathematician, and if you want to learn a few tricks then visit his murderous maths website's Tricks section.

OLA Festival of Reading 2015

Ali Sparkes set the Reading Festival alight with her sparkling talks to OLA pupils.

Years 9 and 10's creativity was kindled through the stories which inspire computer gaming. The students needed no persuading to produce some clever and fun mash-up game story beginnings, which were delivered to the group. These included Slender Tubbies, Noddy and GTA, Call of Duty Ghosts meets OLA!

Music is a strong theme in many of her stories - her sparkly boots a nod to the time she released a single - featuring in Frozen in Time, Dark Summer and her sci-fi adventure Destination Earth. Years 7 and 8 pupils heard about Ali's link with legendary 80s funk pop band Level 42 and their lead singer and bassist Mark King, who are in the story, helping to save the earth from aliens.

Pupils from our Junior School enjoyed an entertaining and interactive talk on 'How I Became an Author', explaining how her determination and enjoyment of writing spurred her on. Her early career in journalism gave her good grounding in writing and lead eventually to her full-time career as an author. With a 'hypnotic disc' creating an optical illusion, flash cards to elicit groans, ahhs and cheers as she told her stories, this exciting session needed no trigger for the spontaneous applause which came at the end of each of her sessions.

Thank you Ali Sparkes for your energetic and fun sessions!