Headmaster's Newsletter Friday 13 June 2025
Dear Parents,
When one of the boys has a fall in the playground, there is a fairly simple triage trick that we educational professionals use. We simply ask them how much it hurts on a scale from 1 to 10. This has two purposes. The first is to distract the pupil from any pain to help them calm down. The second, rather obviously, is for us to discern whether we are dealing with a manageable 2 or 3, or a rather more serious 9 or 10. The other trick, by the way, is to suggest that they go and sit in the office with an ice pack, taking some time out from their football match – the injuries that aren’t really injuries are very quickly brushed off with a suddenly breezy ‘Don’t worry, I’m fine’. If we then keep on insisting that they go to the office, and they increasingly insist that they really are fine and they were just diving mid-football like a Serie A player, then we can be fairly certain that everything’s ok.
There is one flaw in this system. People judge things like pain in different ways. My 5 out of 10 might be another person’s 3, and another’s 8. It depends on our pain thresholds, how used we are to pain, how much we care about it, how much of a fuss we want to make. There are also different kinds of pain persistence: if I stub my toe it’s a 10 out of 10 for a turn-the-air-blue minute or so, but generally it goes down to a 2 or 3 soon after. Other injuries might start at 8 then linger, before very slowly going down to 7 and 6. Some pains might start at 6 but then get worse and worse until they get to 9 or 10. It all depends on the situation. The reason I am thinking about numbers like these, and the problems with diagnosing certain things on a numerical scale, is that the idea of measuring happiness in schools is back on the agenda. Like many things on the educational merry-go-round, this idea comes up every five years or so.
As ever, a problem in society is being identified (high levels of anxiety and depression in British children) and the answer is going to be: (a) measure it, (b) measure it again, (c) get schools to solve it, (d) blame schools when the problem isn’t solved, (e) don’t invest in other solutions that might be more difficult and/or complex. So schools would, for example, be expected to solve issues like children’s sleep deprivation or their use of social media. By ‘tracking’ pupils’ happiness/anxiety/depression, schools will apparently be able to get British children up the PISA happiness scale (they currently sit 70th out of 73 tested countries). Only, it’s not as simple as that. I work with children aged 4 to 13; their level of happiness goes up and down depending on how hungry they are, how well their hockey game went, or how nervous they are about their English test. This oscillation can happen several times over the course of a day.
As with the pain analogy above, different people experience happiness and contentment in different ways: some children are happy and grateful no matter what the situation, other children will profess to be apocalyptically unhappy unless everything in life is perfect. How happy are you at this current moment? Is it the same level of happiness as when you woke up this morning? Will you be happier or less happy tomorrow once you’ve been out for dinner, or watched your favourite team win/lose, or caught up with an old friend, or dealt with a problem at home? How anxious are you at the moment? Will that anxiety go up as you broach a difficult issue with a colleague? Will it go down again when you are mid-flow in your favourite film? I ask all these questions because I simply don’t know how we are expecting to provide what is being called ‘meaningful data’ on the rather shaky assumption that, as one commentator argues, ‘You need to be able to measure it in order to deal with the issues that we’re facing’. This is all aside from the fact that it is really rather questionable as to whether schools can have any ‘meaningful’ impact on pupils’ sleep patterns – isn’t that what parents, carers and families are for? Measuring something over and over again doesn’t necessarily make it bigger or better. Schools are already expected to measure and track anything that moves (don’t get me started on the unintended fallout of standardised testing and league tables); to add yet another responsibility to already very busy schools … well … it might make me a little less happy. Perhaps I should put a number on it.
Have a great weekend,
Matt Jenkinson
Many thanks for your support at sports day on Wednesday. The weather was pretty much perfect (well, there was a bit of cloud, but that’s rather helpful when you have a lot of children outside for hours), and there was a really tangible sense of the NCS ethos: different year groups, and houses, supporting each other, a celebration of individual progress rather than just gold medal winners. Thanks are due, of course, to Craig Bishop and his sports team for organising what is a rather fiddly event logistically, and to all my colleagues who took on their various roles with gusto.
We very much enjoyed the senior and pre-prep recitals in the auditorium on Monday evening and Wednesday afternoon. It was wonderful to see the musical talent that we can look forward to coming through to the prep school over the next few years, and at the upper end of the school to see what fabulous musicians we turn out by the end of their time here. My thanks to Tom Neal and Natalie Bath for organising and hosting the recitals, to all our music staff for preparing the boys so well, to their families for supporting practice at home, and of course to the boys themselves.
On Thursday, Year 8 went on a Geography trip to Westmill Wind and Solar Farm. They were guided around the site by two well-informed volunteers and stakeholders in the project, which supplies electricity to the national grid. The boys learnt about the wind turbines whilst standing beneath them and were able to ask questions about how they are constructed, how they work, and how the eco-conscious farmer worked tirelessly to get permission for them. The boys were also shown around the solar farm and were able to see how sheep can graze amongst the panels and how they protect biodiversity whilst supplying electricity locally and nationally. It was a highly informative trip, which the boys enjoyed, and they were praised by our hosts for their curious questions!
It’s the big today tomorrow: Wykeham Day. In advance, I would like to thank the NCSPA for all of their hard work in preparing the fete, and also to my colleagues who will be helping to run the stalls. We are looking forward to the Wykeham Day concert, featuring world-renowned tenor (and NCS alum) James Gilchrist, accompanied by Robert Quinney (there may be a couple of tickets still available: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/wykeham-day-concert-james-gilchrist-and-robert-quinney-tickets-1277884850989). Do come, too, to the special Wykeham Day evensong in chapel at 17.45.
Parents may be interested to know that the Choir of New College has just released a new album: William Mundy: Vox Patris Caelestis: “This latest album on Linn explores the rich and complex world of William Mundy, a key figure in 16th-century English music. His compositions, shaped by the religious and political upheavals of his time, offer a fascinating mix of intricate harmonies and unexpected choral textures. From the expansive Vox patris caelestis - a monument of Renaissance English polyphony - to the more intimate O Lord, the maker of all things, Mundy's music reflects both the compositional idioms of the day and its many challenges.”
Our chapel service on Wednesday 2 July will begin at the same time as usual (9.00), but will be our ‘Year’s End’ service. It will last around 45 minutes and will follow the same structure as our Spring Service (and, indeed, the carol services on which that service’s structure was based). There will be appropriate readings from Years 3 to 8, some communal hymn singing, and some performances from choirs throughout the school. All parents are very warmly encouraged to attend, especially those Year 8 parents for whom this will be their sons’ last NCS chapel service. Handkerchiefs at the ready.
Upcoming Events
Saturday, 14 June 2025
Wykeham Day
11.00 Wykeham Day Concert: James Gilchrist and Robert Quinney, New Space (tickets required)
13.00 School Fête, Playground (ends 15.00)
17.45 Wykeham Day Evensong, New College Chapel
18.30 Wykeham Day Dinner (sign-up only)
Monday, 16 June 2025
14.00 U13 Yr 7&8 Cricket House Matches, Home
Tuesday, 17 June 2025
Provisional date for ABRSM exams
16.00 Year 8 - Deadline for uploading Special Subject to AllShare
Wednesday, 18 June 2025
9.00 Chapel. Speaker: The Chaplain
10.00 Year 3 Ashmolean Shang Gallery
14.15 U11 A & U13 A Cricket v CCCS, Home
14.15 U13 B & U11 B S Cricket v CCCS, Away
14.15 U13 A Tennis 5 Pairs v CCCS, Home
Thursday, 19 June 2025
9.00 Induction for new pupils and 'move-up morning'
14.00 Year 8 TED Talks, session 1 (auditorium)
Friday, 20 June 2025
Last day of VMT music lessons
10.00 Pre-Prep Sports Day
14.00 Year 8 TED Talks, session 2 (auditorium)
19.30 Year 7 and 8 social
Saturday, 21 June 2025
University term ends
Monday, 23 June 2025
Activities Week begins
Year 5-8 trips depart
Wednesday, 25 June 2025
No chapel service
Friday, 27 June 2025
Years 5-8 trips return
9.00 Pre-Prep Cotswold Wildlife Visit, return 15.00