Headmaster's Newsletter
Friday 8 May 2026
Dear Parents, I spend quite a lot of my time listening to podcasts. Depending on my mood, or (in)ability to sleep, I can be found listening to the ‘Adam Buxton Podcast’, Alan Carr’s ‘Life’s a Beach’, Max Rushden and David O’Doherty’s ‘What Did You Do Yesterday?’, Josh Widdicombe’s ‘Archive of Pop Culture’, Richard Herring’s ‘RHLSTP’, Ed Gamble and James Acaster’s ‘Off Menu’, and pretty much anything featuring an interview with David Sedaris or Mel Giedroyc. A particular favourite is Gyles Brandreth’s ‘Rosebud’, which focuses on the formative experiences of his interviewees. Perhaps this isn’t a surprise for a headmaster who is rather interested in getting education and/or childhood right, and who values qualitative evidence – the actual human experience – alongside the obsessively quantitative stuff which attempts to reduce pedagogy and growing up to a series of numbers. I also enjoy listening to Brandreth’s interviews because a lot of the interviewees are in their dotage, so they got to enjoy education before the deadening hand of regulatory uniformity slowly pressed its fingers over the mouth of the school system. (Just to clarify: I’m not against regulation, and there were many horrors in the pre-regulatory world of Brandreth’s interviewees’ schooling. But I fear for a world where individuality and idiosyncrasy are smothered out in the name of bureaucratic standardisation.)
Anyway, I recently enjoyed listening to Brandreth’s interview with NCS alum David Mitchell, who (spoiler alert) has just emerged victorious in series two of Last One Laughing. You usually take a deep breath before listening to famous alumni talking about your school, because a wide listenership might be about to hear about distant memories of (what they considered to be) awful food or nasty teachers. But, having read David Mitchell’s autobiography, Back Story, I knew I could relax into his interview on ‘Rosebud’. In that autobiography, he noted that ‘Whenever I think about the odd alchemy – the combination of planning, tradition, flexibility, inflexibility and luck – that it takes to make a functional institution, I think of New College School. And I worry that institutions like that are less likely to exist in Britain now.’ Thankfully, Mitchell carried on his encomium with Gyles Brandreth. ‘I loved that school’, he said, noting that he was ‘good at lessons’ and ‘they valued that’. He looked back affectionately at the school plays that were ‘great fun’ and a ‘big deal’. His stage debut was in A Christmas Carol; his starring role later on was as Rabbit in Winnie the Pooh. Mitchell noted that he had ‘a lot of nice teachers’, and his favourite subject was History (yay), which was ‘most interesting’, ‘well-taught’ and introduced him at the age of ten to sophisticated concepts like historiography. Mitchell also noted that his NCS was a school where people like him – ‘thoughtful, academic and shy’ – could find like-minded friends and bond with them.
I have been thinking about David Mitchell this week because of our Wellbeing theme, and the amusing irony that he makes much of his living by (in a nice way) acting against it. That theme is ‘I behave in an honest way which means people can trust me’, and the programme in which Mitchell features is Would I Lie to You?. For those of you who haven’t seen it, the premise is simple: the panellists are, without any previous notice, handed a statement about them which is either true or false. They then have to convince the opposing team that the statement is true. Mitchell’s nemesis is Bob Mortimer, whose statements have included ‘I once set fire to my house with a box of fireworks’, ‘The police once ordered me to leave town because I was frightening the locals’, ‘For the past fifteen years, I have performed my own dentistry’, and ‘Following advice from Chris Rea, I always crack an egg into my bath’. I’ll leave you to deduce which ones you think are true or false.
Have a great weekend,
Matt Jenkinson
Well done to Thomas in Year 7 who was named runner-up in the Oxford University Classics Faculty and Ashmolean Creative Writing Competition for his poem about the ‘Boxer’ bronze. Very best of luck to all those boys, colleagues and parents who are running the Town and Gown on Sunday morning! We have seven NCS staff running (a record!) and about twenty-five boys. Refreshments will be served at our lovely new gazebo, kindly donated by the NCSPA. Do please come along and support our runners. The boys’ warm up will be at 8.50 for a 9.15 start, while the adults' race starts at 10.00. My thanks to Victoria Hayter and Craig Bishop for coordinating the NCS contribution to the event. During Trinity the Eco and Charity Committees work collaboratively, thinking about how our local environment can be enhanced through fundraising. Just outside of Oxfordshire, in Maidenhead, an incredible children’s charity called the Alexander Devine Hospice provides care and support for children with life-limiting conditions. They have a sensory garden which needs maintaining so the boys have decided this would be an appropriate project to support during our upcoming Charity Week (w/c 18 May). As ever there will be a cake competition (garden or eco themed) and we really appreciate your support. Our next open morning is on Friday 15 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. 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!
We are delighted to welcome back violinist Timon Bergmann, a former NCS pupil, to give this year’s Wykeham Day Recital. The recital will take place on Saturday 13 June at 11am in The New Space. Wykeham Day then continues at 13.00 with the school fete in the playground and sports hall (until 15.00). There is then a special evensong in chapel at 17.45, to which current and former NCS families are very warmly invited. There is then a dinner at 18.30, in the medieval College dining hall, which is sign-up only. You can sign up for the concert and dinner via https://www.newcollegeschool.org/wykeham-day-2026
Sports roundup: As we approach the mid-way point of the first half of Trinity, it is great to be able to report on some wonderful sporting encounters. The new NCS table tennis team kicked things off this term with our first attempt at the IAPS national table tennis tournament. The team did extremely well in their first outing and the boys each enjoyed some good wins and impressive performances against some extremely strong competition. It was great to see one of the number making it to the quarter-finals in the knockout stages. On the tennis courts, things are progressing well. The NCS tennis team at both U11 and U13 is full of promise and talent, and as their game management skills improve, we are confident that the results will begin to swing our way a little more.
On the cricket pitches, we have enjoyed a mixed bag of results, with two of the NCS teams still unbeaten. Both the U9 and U13 A teams have played two and won two games, with the U9s winning against MCS and Summer Fields, and the U13s beating Christ Church and Bruern Abbey. The U11 teams showed skill and passion against MCS and, with a little more disciplined running, I am sure that the victories will come their way. As we move into the weekend, we wish the U11 boys all the best as they play in the County Cup event on Friday, and the NCS judo team as they compete in the IAPS national finals on Sunday.
Upcoming Events
Monday 11 May 2026 13.30 U13 A&B Cricket vs MCS, Home 13.40 U13 A Tennis vs MCS, Away 17.15 Junior Recital (Years 3-5), Auditorium Tuesday 12 May 2026 Year 7 Geography Field Trip to the Earth Trust 14.15 U9 A&B Cricket vs Chandlings, Home 14.15 U8 A&B Cricket vs Chandlings, Away Wednesday 13 May 2026 9.00 Chapel. Speaker: Matthew Albrighton, NCS Governor and Headmaster of Burford School 14.00 U13 A&B Cricket vs Summer Fields, Away 14.00 U11 A&B Cricket vs Summer Fields, Home Thursday 14 May 2026 8.45 Year 5 Beating the Bounds (return 11.10) 13.30 U8&9 A&B Cricket vs St Michael's, Home Friday 15 May 2026 Open Morning 14.00 U11 Cricket House Matches (Yrs 5&6), Field Saturday 16 May 2026 OCCO concert, Chapel Monday 18 May 2026 National Walk to School Week Charity week Years 3-4 form assessments start Pre-Prep QED Week begins 14.00 U13 Cricket House Matches (Yrs 7&8), Field 17.15 Senior Recital (Years 6-7 only), Auditorium Tuesday 19 May 2026 Year 6 Geography Field Trip 14.00 U9 Cricket House Matches (Yrs 3&4), Field Wednesday 20 May 2026 8.15 Eco-Committee Meeting, CLC 9.00 Chapel. Speaker: James Hodgson, NCS Governor and Headmaster of Bedford School 14.15 U11 A&B Cricket vs Bruern Abbey, Away 14.15 U13 A&B Cricket vs Bruern Abbey, Home 14.15 U13 A Tennis vs Bruern Abbey, Home 17.30 Governors' Meeting, McGregor Matthews Room Friday 22 May 2026 Orders in Years 3-8 issued Half term break begins at end of school day