Headmaster's Newsletter
Friday 6 March 2026
Dear Parents,
It will not have escaped your notice that this Thursday was World Book Day, around which we built our NCS Literature Festival. It is customary on days like this that people like me extol the benefits of reading. The thing about working at a school like NCS is that, for the very most part, I am preaching to the converted. Our families generally don’t need convincing about the benefits of reading, and we have a school pleasantly filled with books, quite often with pupils reading them. I am not saying that we should be complacent, and we never will be, but it is reassuring that we as a community are starting (indeed, continuing) from a pretty good point. The same cannot be said for wider society, and the alarm bells in the decline of literacy ring more frequently and passionately. Quite often the arguments are solid ones, for example on the connection between children getting lost in a book and enhancing their creativity, imagination and wellbeing; or about the importance of literacy in the workplace, if young people ever want to get a job.
But in an article published a few months ago, the historian Niall Ferguson widened the scope of the importance of literacy: ‘If humans stop reading, barbarians will live among us again’. Ferguson’s article plots a consumer society harbouring a voluntary turn away from literacy. His numbers, or at least the overall message from them, are familiar. In 2004 28% of Americans read for pleasure; in 2023 it was 16%. In 2022 52% of Americans hadn’t read a book in more than a year; 10% hadn’t read a book in more than a decade. In 2023 14% of American thirteen-year-olds read for fun almost every day; it was 30% in 2004 and 37% in 1992. Such a trend is also occurring closer to home. 20% of Brits aged 16-65 can read only at or below the level expected of a ten-year-old. A third of Brits aged 8-18 enjoy reading in spare time (a 36% decrease since 2005). This trend is especially pronounced in boys aged 11-16, something compounded by a parental attitude: fewer than half of parents of children up to 13 say reading aloud to their children is ‘fun for me’. Also familiar are the arguments as to why this is occurring: the rise of smartphones; a surge in the use of emojis and visual memes to communicate; the tyranny of screen time; the rise of TikTok and podcasts; the fact that reading has become something to learn rather than something to enjoy (with society’s depressing dislocation between those two concepts). Audiobooks are good, Ferguson concedes, but they don’t help with the reading and writing bits of literacy.
The consequences of this decline in literacy, or interest in literacy, go beyond whether someone is fit for the workplace. They have a significant impact, Ferguson compellingly argues, on whether someone is fit and able to function in a civilised society: ‘At stake here is nothing less than the fate of humanity, given the intimate connection between the written word and civilisation itself’. ‘When people stop being able to read’, he argues, ‘they also lose the ability to make sense of the world’. When text occurs in communication, he says, it is increasingly replaced by improvised talk rather than carefully constructed argument. Fundamentally, considering that laws and property rights (say) are based on carefully written text, if society loses the ability to create, communicate, navigate and understand that text, then those laws and rights are eroded. ‘A society of any commercial complexity cannot function on the basis of emojis’, Ferguson pithily states. He also notes – he is an historian after all – that text also conveys civilisation’s foundation stories that keep each generation connected to the next, helping us to ‘understand our purpose in this world’. And history teaches us that literacy leads to political participation; it enables people to think for themselves. Without literacy there is a widespread growing vulnerability to fake news and conspiracy theories. If society stops reading and understanding what has come before us, ‘the next generation will have a significantly larger proportion of outright barbarism than any in the past century’ and its ability to think critically and analytically will dwindle as it loses the capacity to learn from those great writers who teach us ‘how to structure an argument so that it is clearly intelligible to others’.
All of which is to say that, yeah, it’s pretty important that we keep picking up and reading those books.
Have a great weekend, Matt Jenkinson
We are delighted to announce that New College School has been recognised in ‘The Best of the Best Prep Schools’ in the most recent The Week Independent Schools Guide. We came runner-up in the ‘Great City Prep’ category and won overall in the ‘Great for Music’ category. (A few people have pointed out to me that the winner in the ‘Great City Prep’ category was a girls’ school; so perhaps you could argue that we came top for boys!). Considering that there are over five hundred prep schools in the UK, with some pretty tough competition, we are thrilled to have the rare honour of being recognised in two categories. I would like to thank all those who contribute to making NCS such a special place, and to celebrate with them as their talents and hard work are acknowledged nationally.
At NCS, we do everything we can to encourage students to develop their love of reading. This is why, a few years ago, we decided to dedicate the morning of World Book Day to a programme of events celebrating books. Grandly, we decided to brand this "The NCS Festival of Literature"! Boys spent some time researching recent publications that may interest them (especially the Oxfordshire Book Awards shortlist). They worked in small teams to tackle our annual World Book Day Quiz. They gathered in the auditorium to listen to performances by the winners of this year's poetry recital competition. We also held a 'Drop Everything and Read' session, where both pupils and staff downed pens for half an hour to pick up (and become engrossed) in a book. Pupils eager for their next book to read could also pick one up from Elizabeth Hess's new Book Swap Station. We hope the boys enjoyed their morning! A huge thank you, too, to parents for your support with preparing imaginative and entertaining costumes! Enormous thanks to Chris Gausden and Elizabeth Hess for masterminding the day so brilliantly. Special congratulations also go to the following boys who were voted the winners of their class's poetry recital competition and who recited their poems brilliantly in front of the whole prep school on World Book Day: Harry, Arlo and Andrew (Year 3); Iacopo, Michael, Mingwei (Year 4); Auden, Theodore, Michael (Year 5); Luca, James, Chris (Year 6); Ambrose, Alexander, Frankie, Thomas (Year 7); Henry, Arran, Andrés.
Huge congratulations to Henry and Ollie for winning the junior round in the Geographical Association’s WorldWise quiz on Tuesday this week. They were up against eighteen other schools, endured seven rounds of geographical questions, and they have secured NCS the winning cup for the second year running!
The NCS Chamber Choir performed as part of the ‘Kids Go Classical’ concert at the Sheldonian Theatre on Sunday 1 March, performing to a capacity audience. A review published by Ox in a Box described the concert as a “joyful, life-affirming and magical evening,” celebrating young musical talent from across Oxfordshire. Organised by Oxford Opera Company and featuring 148 young performers, the event included well-known opera choruses performed by the massed children's choir, professional operatic soloists, and the Oxford Chamber Orchestra. NCS pupils sang the 'Evening Prayer' from Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel, the famous 'Torreador's Song' from Bizet's Carmen, and three big choruses from operas by Giuseppe Verdi: the 'Anvil chorus' from Il Trovatore, the 'Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves' from Nabucco, and the 'Grand March' from Aida.
Our SHTEAM Festival begins on Monday 9 March and runs all week. For those who are new to NCS – or to the concept of SHTEAM (STEM with the Arts and Humanities put back in) – this is an annual festival at the school during which we celebrate interdisciplinarity by taking a single theme and looking at it from as many different curricular dimensions as possible. This year’s theme is ‘Our Green Planet’ and there are dozens of events happening across the year groups: special lessons, workshops and talks covering all manner of green areas. Many thanks to all those who are contributing to the festival, and especially those NCS parents who are taking the time to come in to talk to the boys.
New College's Gradel Quadrangles, of which our new NCS building is a part, have been shortlisted in the RIBA South Awards 2026. The RIBA Regional Awards champion and celebrate the UK's best architecture that shows a commitment to design and create buildings and spaces that enhance people's lives. All shortlisted projects receive a visit from a regional jury, and the winning projects will be announced later in the spring.
Upcoming Events
Monday 09 March 2026 SHTEAM Festival on 'Our Green Planet' begins: see separate schedule for full event list Pre-Prep QED Week 14.00 U13 A-D Hockey v CCCS, St Edward's Tuesday 10 March 2026 14.00 U9 A-C Hockey v Dragon, Away Wednesday 11 March 2026 9.00 Chapel. Speaker: The Warden 14.15 U11 A-D Hockey v Beachborough, Away (Stowe) 14.00 U13 A-D Hockey v Cothill & St Hugh's, St Edward's 18.00 Holloway Lecture, Prof. Cameron Hepburn (Auditorium; ticket only) Thursday 12 March 2026 9.00 Year 8 HPV catch-up if necessary Saturday 14 March 2026 End of University Term 9.00 OCCO Composers' Workshop and Concert (Auditorium) Monday 16 March 2026 All Week: Years 3-8 PTM in ICT Suite. All Week: Pre-Prep Individual Parent Meetings 17.15 Junior Recital, Auditorium (parking from 17.00) Tuesday 17 March 2026 ABRSM exams 18.00 Year 6 French Cabaret, Dining Hall (ends 20.00) 9.30 tbc Year 3 Botanic Gardens Wednesday 18 March 2026 College Day 8.15 Eco Committee meeting, CLC 9.00 Chapel. Speaker: Mr Felix Nolan, former NCS head boy 14.00 U11 A-D Hockey v Dragon, Away 14.00 U13 A-D Hockey v Dragon, St Edward's Thursday 19 March 2026 9.45 Year 6 Science trip to Natural History Museum (return 11.30) Saturday 21 March 2026 10.00 OCCO Chamber Music Recital