Headmaster's Newsletter Friday 15 December 2023

Amidst all of this energetic activity, the boys have remained their usual excellent company. It is, in many ways, obviously a privilege to work in a school like NCS. One of those privileges is that I get to work alongside talented and committed colleagues, and with sparky, characterful and interesting children. Yes, we all have our moments, and that is natural in any community, and especially one in which people spend a lot of time together. But it is great to be able to look back over a term of lots of achievement, skills development, and good fun. There are various things that knit such a community together, including a united purpose, consideration for one another, good humour, loyalty, and so on. And these values transcend many of the more negative things one can find in schools these days: sharp-elbowed self-interestedness, and similar things against which I occasionally lob rhetorical volleys. Thank you all for your excellent company as we have worked to avoid such things, to navigate a long and tiring term, and to keep the boys achieving so happily. I look forward to us doing it all again in January. Before then, though, I wish you all a very happy Christmas break.

All best wishes,

Matt Jenkinson

At the end of this term we say thank you and goodbye to Pip Usher. Pip joined us as the Year 4 form teacher in March 2021 – a rather unusual time to start a post in teaching, and we are very grateful for her joining us and helping us out as we came out of the Covid lockdowns. During her time at NCS she has shown herself to be a passionate and committed teacher and she has thrown herself into a variety of different roles, whether in the classroom or on the sports field, or taking a lead directing the Year 3 and 4 play – The Jungle Book was an especial recent highlight. We wish Pip all the very best with her new adventures and thank her for all she has contributed to NCS life over the past few years. To ensure the greatest continuity for the boys, for the remainder of the academic year the Year 4 form tutoring responsibilities, and bulk of the classroom teaching (English, Maths, Greats, and Thinking & Reasoning), will be taken on by Zoe Parsons. The boys know Zoe extremely well, as she looked after them, and taught them, during Victoria Hayter’s jury service leave last academic year. Zoe studied at Oxford and the Open University before studying for her PGCE at Oxford Brookes, and she has taught at NCS since 2015. She has a wealth of experience teaching children of this age group, and her recent Master’s thesis on English teaching was highly commended by the British Educational Research Association. The science teaching will be taken on by Jan Alden who has sixteen years’ experience of teaching the subject in key stages 2 to 4, in the UK and in Canada.

Those of you who attended one of our carol services this week might still have 'Lullaby Carol' going round and round in your heads. With music by Tom Neal and words by yours truly, the carol is a homage to John Rutter and we had a go at recording it in assembly yesterday: https://youtu.be/7EOTvugRpmM

Congratulations to Herbie in 8S who has been awarded a music scholarship to d’Overbroeck’s!

We had a very busy musical weekend last weekend. On Saturday morning we had our very first Oxford Children’s Chamber Orchestra (OCCO) concert, which was a great success. It was wonderful to hear members of the orchestra, as well as some chamber groups, with representatives from NCS and further afield. Then, on Sunday evening, we enjoyed the chamber choir and choral society singing alongside the Instruments of Time and Truth in New College Chapel. There were, in total, one hundred performers, and the event was sold out. My thanks to Tom Neal, Izzy Rose, and all our music staff who made these events possible and so special. Continuing the musical theme, we send our best wishes to the choristers whose Christmas break doesn't start just yet. They are performing at St John's Smith Square in London this evening, and then in the University Church next Tuesday!