Headmaster's Newsletter Friday 2 May 2025
Dear Parents,
I think it was in Michaelmas that, in one of my newsletters, I confessed to my past life as maypole dancer. (Read that sentence again, carefully.) In my defence, I was ten or eleven at the time, and I don’t recall there being an ‘opt out’ from maypole dancing at my primary school. Quite the opposite, I expect. May Day was perhaps the biggest day of the school year, or at least of its ritual year. This was a village primary school that was clearly rooted in a rural calendar that it would have picked up at its foundation in the late nineteenth century – a calendar which itself would have been going for centuries prior to that. I may have mentioned it before, but do read Ronald Hutton’s excellent Rise and Fall of Merry England if you are into such things.
There are no maypoles at NCS, and I imagine the boys might thank me for that. But we are nestled in the middle of a city that clearly makes a big deal out of May Day. Those boys walking to school through the centre of town yesterday will have seen plenty of Morris dancers, for example, or bleary eyed revellers who got up early (or didn’t bother going to bed) to celebrate that ‘Now is the Month of Maying’. Days like May Day remind us of the tapestry of traditions that create our lives, and it is especially sad to think that in many schools traditions go by the wayside each year, replaced with nothing but the humdrum of every-day mundanity. I guess traditions are misinterpreted by some people, who wittily refer to them as ‘peer pressure from dead people’, but who don’t see that traditions can be reinterpreted to fit with forward-looking elements of society. Or, indeed, that traditions can provide valuable touchstones throughout one’s life, or (to add more stones), milestones that can be marked off as we progress through childhood and, perhaps to a lesser extent, adulthood.
I like to think that places like NCS show it’s perfectly possible to value one’s traditions, without being bogged down or held back by them. They aren’t millstones, while we’re on the stone track. On the contrary, traditions like our up-coming Wykeham Day provide annual opportunities for celebration of a shared past and an optimistic and open-minded look to the future. They represent an ongoing conversation with the past, keeping the good bits and eschewing the bad, to help give us a steer towards what’s next. To some this may look ‘old fashioned’ or ‘stuffy’ or ‘odd’ or ‘quaint’. Did I think that when, on May Day in 1993, I was prancing around a Kentish field dressed as St George vanquishing a dragon in some kind of pseudo-medieval history play? Maybe. Probably not. It wouldn’t have mattered either way, and it doesn’t matter now. Traditions, when treated properly, remain important, and they’ll remain important here.
Have a great bank holiday weekend,
Matt Jenkinson
On Wednesday 14 May there will be a talk by Karl Hopwood on a ‘smartphone free childhood’. https://www.childnet.com/who-we-are/staff-and-trustees/trustees/karl-hopwood/ This is scheduled to start at 18.00 in the auditorium, and there will be an opportunity for parents of different years to meet, chat, and share ideas after the talk. Karl will provide an overview of what children and young people are doing when they are online, utilising the latest research, before focusing on the real risks and challenges that they face, and then looking at solutions which are both technical and practical things that parents and carers can do to help their children. There will be discussion of the safe use of online technology, and getting the best out of it, while doing all we can to make sure that children are accessing age-appropriate material. Please note that, as there will be some sensitive issues discussed, this talk will not be appropriate for children to attend.
Our next open morning is on Friday 16 May, 10.00-12.00. All families are welcome to join us to view the school in action, chat to pupils, staff, and current parents and find out more about an NCS education. Places can be booked via https://www.newcollegeschool.org/open-day-booking. Do please pass on this information to any families you think might be interested in joining our special community. Posters and flyers were sent home in your son's school bag this week; we would be very grateful if you would display them in workplaces and the like. Keep an eye out for our adverts on social media too (www.facebook.com/newcollegeschool, www.instagram.com/newcollegeschool) and don’t be shy when it comes to pressing the ‘like’ and ‘share’ buttons. Almost 80% of respondents in our community surveys report that they first heard about NCS through word of mouth, so do please keep spreading the word. Many thanks!
On Saturday 24 May (19.30), Natalie Bath will be singing in the ‘Music in Quiet Places’ festival, at the Church of St Mary the Virgin, Church Lane, Mursley, Bucks. The programme will include Mozart, Mahler, Haydn and Handel. Tickets are £15 and available from andrewcowell@hotmail.com.
A separate Parentmail has been sent regarding the arrangements for this year’s Wykeham Day. The Wykeham Day Concert will feature the world-renowned tenor, and former NCS pupil, James Gilchrist, with our very own Robert Quinney at the piano. The concert will take place in the ‘New Space’ (in the basement of the College side of the new Gradel Quads) on Saturday 14 June, 11.00-12.00. Tickets are free for under 18s and £10 for over 18s, available via https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1277884850989?aff=oddtdtcreator
Monday, 5 May 2025
Bank and school holiday
Tuesday, 6 May 2025
9.00-11.00 Thomas Franks workshops with pre-prep
14.00 U9 Cricket v CCCS, Home
14.00 U8 Cricket v CCCS, Home
Wednesday, 7 May 2025
8.15 School Council Meeting, CLC
9.00 Chapel. Speaker: Mr Robert Quinney, Organist, New College
14.15 U11 A&B Cricket v MCS, Away
14.15 U13 A&B Cricket v Bruern Abbey, Home
14.15 U11 A & U13 A Tennis 3 Pairs v Bruern Abbey, Home
Chorister Bach concert in Sheldonian
Friday, 9 May 2025
13.3 U11 A-D Cricket 5 Pairs v St Michael's Primary, Home
Sunday, 11 May 2025
U11-13 IAPS Judo, Bishopsgate School
10.3 U11 A4 & U13 A6 Radley Tennis Tournament, Away (ends 16.00)
Monday, 12 May 2025
9.30 Whole school photograph
14.00 U13A Tennis 5 Pairs v d'Overbroeck's, North Oxford
17.15 Junior Recital (Years 3-5), Auditorium
19.00 NCSPA Meeting, CLC
Tuesday 13 May 2025
Year 7 Geography Field Trip to Sarsden (all day)
14.00 U9 A&B Cricket 4/5 Pairs v Chandlings, Home
14.00 U8 A&B Cricket 5 Pairs v Chandlings, Away
Wednesday, 14 May 2025
9.00 Chapel. Speaker: Mr Peter Brathwaite, Distinguished Visitor, Queen's College
14.15 U11 A&B Cricket v Summer Fields, Away
14.15 U13 A&B Cricket v Summer Fields, Home
18.00 Smartphone-free Childhood talk by Karl Hopwood, Auditorium
Friday, 16 May 2025
Open Morning
14.00 U11 Yr 5&6 Cricket House Matches, Home