Headmaster's Newsletter Friday 11 October 2024
Dear Parents,
Shameless plug alert. In 2018 I, and my predecessor as NCS headmaster, co-wrote a book called How Poems Work. Parents of boys in Years 7 and 8 may have seen copies of this book coming home in school bags; using my rather generous author discount we buy the boys their very own copies, so they can keep them forever. (I don’t get any royalties for those copies, in case anyone thinks this is a form of low-level corruption.) This isn’t just a vanity exercise; we are big believers in the boys annotating poems as they read them, so they should have their own copies to write in, without irking any future readers of the copies. How Poems Work is probably best described as an ‘annotated anthology’ in that it contains one hundred poems, in chronological order from Beowulf to the Iraq War, with short analyses of these poems. Why did we write it? Because we were both frustrated with other poetry books available for schools that seemed to do things so irritatingly wrong that they were rendered virtually unusable in the classroom. Some grouped poems by theme, so it was pretty difficult to see how poetry and its language had developed over time (including what had changed and what had remained constant). Others printed poems with virtually no reference to their poets, so it was difficult to get the historical, political and social context. Others just printed poems with no apparatus to help the reader/student, thereby leaving them stumped if the meaning wasn’t immediately obvious, or if there wasn’t someone around to help. Others used technical terms, without defining those terms, once again rendering them problematic to the novice poetry reader. We solved this by having a long list of technical terms with definitions (and references to relevant poems).
We also kept the poems in chronological order, but numbered them so we could easily have a table of, say, poetic themes with a quick list of relevant poems alongside those themes: childhood and family, the city, education, life and death, love, myths and legends, nature and the countryside, politics, religion, the sea, seasons, society, war and conflict, and writers and writing. We thought this list of themes was pretty exhaustive, and not bad for a handy (and have I mentioned reasonably priced?) little book. One theme we didn’t think of was ‘counting’, which was the theme of National Poetry Day just over a week ago. We love National Poetry Day at NCS because we’re a school that believes in culture in its various different forms; we are also the school that produced the Oxford’s very first professor of poetry, Joseph Trapp. The theme of counting was deliberately and mysteriously vague – how very poetic – which allowed us to thinking about counting as in numbers, or counting as in mattering. Elizabeth Hess’s assembly on Thursday encouraged us to revisit all those poems that we may have encountered in our youths, which had numbers in them, but also to think about the multifaceted way in which we can think of that word, ‘counting’.
Introducing the boys to poetry at a young age is important for various reasons. On an elemental, yet still crucial, level poetry is very enjoyable. Just ask pre-prep’s (and my) view of the Oi Frog! series. It was also one of the key ways that politics was navigated throughout history, which is why we read, for example, Milton’s poetry as well as his prose. It has provided us with an important source when it has come to social history. When we want to read about conditions in the trenches in World War I, it’s the war poets to whom we turn. Poetry has also been one of the ways in which humans have explored their emotions, their difficulties, their triumphs. To leave poetry inaccessible and unexplored therefore seems to verge on the criminal. The Beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, whose signed poem ‘Great American Waterfront’ hangs on the wall by my desk, argued that ‘Like a bowl of roses/ A poem should not have to be explained’. I’m not sure I agree with him, not least because our pupils are going to be asked to explain poems under exam conditions throughout their school careers; but also because there is a real joy to ‘looking under the bonnet’ of poetry, seeing how it works, which techniques work, how it has changed over the centuries, and which elements of the human condition have remained poetic constants across those centuries.
Have a great weekend,
Matt Jenkinson
Enormous thanks to all of those boys, parents and colleagues who helped out at our open morning last Saturday. As ever, there was a lovely vibe about the place and lots of prospective parents spoke in glowing terms about the boys and my colleagues. It’s always lovely to hear! I especially enjoyed watching lots of families taking advantage of the brief sunshine on the Year 3 balcony. There can’t be too many Year 3 classrooms in the world with a balcony looking out across beautiful towers and spires (we’ll gloss over Wadham library).
The first evensong of university term is this evening, 11 October, at 18.15 in New College chapel. All NCS families are very warmly invited to the service, and indeed all subsequent services in College, details of which can be found at https://www.new.ox.ac.uk/chapel. The choristers have already been in action this term, singing at graduation and gaude evensongs last weekend, and for a Netflix film. They are in excellent voice! Congratulations to the Year 5 choristers – Edward, Charlie, Albert and Avery – who will be surpliced in Sunday’s evensong!
The New College School ‘Welcome to the Foundation Service’ will be on Wednesday 16 October in New College Chapel. The service will begin at 9.00 and will take a little longer than our usual Chapel. This is the occasion when all new members of the school, boys and staff, are formally welcomed to the New College Foundation by the Headmaster and the Warden of New College, the school’s chair of governors. We would like to encourage all families of new boys to attend this important occasion if you can. Parents of new boys will be directed to seats at the altar end of the chapel, so they get a good view of the ceremony!
A heads-up that our Charity Week is coming up, commencing on Monday 21 October, in aid of Kick Start Arts. Brett Morrison will be writing to parents separately with more details of that week's fundraising activities. If any families are thinking of getting a head start on their baking for the cake sales, our customary reminder that NCS aspires to be a nut-free school, and please could all cakes arrive in Charity Week with a list of ingredients attached? Many thanks in advance.
Please note that our 23 October chapel service will start an hour later than usual: 10.00 rather than 9.00. This is to allow Years 3-8 to stay in College after the service to watch the triennial ‘Inspection of the City Walls’ ceremony (10.45 for 11.00 in the College garden).
The theme for our annual SHTEAM Festival next Hilary will be ‘Space’. We will be exploring this theme from many different angles across all our subjects, running talks and workshops, as well as incorporating the theme in our day-to-day lessons. If there are any parents, taking into account their specialist knowledge, who would like to offer a talk or workshop to the boys on an aspect of ‘Space’, do please contact emma.krebs@newcollegeschool.org.
Upcoming Events
Sunday, 13 October 2024
Start of University Term
Monday, 14 October 2024
14.00 U11 Football House Matches, Field
Tuesday, 15 October 2024
9.30 Year 1 to Botanic Garden (13.00 return)
Wednesday, 16 October 2024
9.00 Welcome to the Foundation Service, Chapel. Speaker: The Warden
14.15 U11 A-D Football vs Cothill, Away
Friday, 18 October 2024
14.00 U11 Football House Matches, Field
Monday, 21 October 2024
Charity Week begins
14.00 U13 Football House Matches, Field
Wednesday, 23 October 2024
Orders issued
10.00 Chapel. Speaker: Mr Fraser Mackenzie, former NCS pupil (note later start time)
10.45 Inspection of the City Walls
Friday, 25 October 2024
Home Clothes Day
Half term break begins at end of school day