Headteacher's Bulletin 8th December 2023
NSB has been rejoicing in the Christmas Spirit this week, underpinned by a fabulous Christmas Concert on Thursday, played out to a packed Cripps Theatre. The audience hugely enjoyed a vast repertoire of student festive musicianship with the breadth of ensembles and the general standard of play at an astonishingly high level. It was heart-warming to see so many students from different year groups involved - there was barely enough room on the Stage for the last number when the Symphonic Winds and the Symphony Orchestra combined together! An all round brilliant evening with a fantastic warm atmosphere emanating from the audience in vivid support of NSB Music.
On the festive front, both the Cripps and the 1911 Hall have been transformed into magical Christmas Wonderlands thanks to the creativity and the hard work of Mrs Welch and the Admin Team, ably helped by a number of students. Special thanks to local florists - 'Flowers and Strings' for their donation of a couple of hugely impressive wreaths and to 'Welford Christmas Tree Farm' for the donation of a towering 8-foot tree, currently glittering resplendently in the 1911 Hall.
On Tuesday, Mrs Greenaway took the Student Leadership Group across the road for a Christmas Coffee morning with the residents of the Old School House Care Home which is a much-loved annual community event. Mrs Greenaway reports:
Everyone had a wonderful time - both residents and students were buzzing and gained so much from each other. The owner emailed this morning to thank us, saying that interacting with the students gave the residents a real lift and that they were a credit to NSB. One resident said that the students were amazing - both in their talking and listening! The students loved it and also gained so much - they came back telling all the other students and wanting to go again. They even gained knowledge of future careers from the residents' stories about their life experiences. Chloe Walding and Alicia Adeleye sang four Christmas Carols which they had arranged and practised themselves. They were all beautiful, but their rendition of Silent Night gave everyone goosebumps.
Over 20 of our leading Computer Science students across all seven year groups are competing today in the 'CyberCenturion', which is a national cyber security competition for secondary school children. The students have split into a range of Junior (Years 7-9) and Senior (Ys 10-13) teams which will compete against hundreds of school teams from across the UK in finding and fixing vulnerabilities within various virtual operating systems. This fun but challenging competition, enables students to develop both their technical expertise as well as their communication, teamwork and general leadership in a competitive environment, which are essential skills to succeeding in any cyber security role in the modern world.
There has been a host of wonderful NSB sporting success to celebrate this week:
Ellis Watts in Y12 enjoyed a brilliant international sporting experience when he was selected by England Touch Rugby to play in the England Men’s Open Team in Australia in the Queensland State Cup and the New South Wales Cup. Ellis had a great tournament, finishing on a high - beating Singapore in the final game where he scored the last try.
Many congratulations also to to the seven NSB boys who were selected for the East Midlands U18’s Rugby team to play against Notts, Lincs, & Derby U18’s last Sunday, in the first 'Super Sunday' of the season, with a special well done to Thomas and George who are playing up a year. Getting selected for the region is a huge achievement and having so many boys picked is of immense pride to the school.
From left to right: Rhys Maloret, Yaris Clifford-Pyne, George Mundin, Luca Williams, Thomas Ritchings, Will Hardwick, Rueben Hanson
In last week's Bulletin, I reported that we had three Cross Country Teams running in the English Schools (ESAA Cross Country Cup Final) and I'm delighted to report that all three teams performed brilliantly to place in the top ten school teams in the country for their respective age groups. Mr Taplin reports:
The event was held at a bitterly cold and frozen underfoot Woodbridge School last weekend and I must start by thanking Gary Burton, Luke Greer, Noah Bennett and Tony Love for giving up their Saturday to support the 3 teams we had at the event.
We had high hopes for the Junior Boys, who gathered themselves well on the last lap to put in a commendable showing, finishing 9th with 192 points. They will certainly improve throughout the season and into next as most of the team were running a year young - an invaluable learning experience for them.
The Intermediate Boys thrived in the moment and finished with 144 points to secure 5th place. This was a great performance from all of them and a particular well done to Freddie Harris who secured a fantastic 6th place in a very strong field.
This was the first time we had a Senior Boys team at the final and they found themselves in a very competitive race, with most of the competitors regularly competing against men. With 165 points they finished in 6th place (only three points from a top 5 finish) and were all delighted with that result; as they should have been. A shout-out to Malachy who placed well inside the top 20, despite running a year young for the age limit.
All round, a brilliant day and a great start to the season. The national success was also emulated in the Town Championships this week with all three NSB age group teams (Y7 / Y8/9 / Y10/11) winning their events and NSB having the top runner in each race - Oliver Groves Y7 / Josh Pinney Y8/9 and Freddie Harris Y10/11. Ten of the twelve top four finishers across each of the three age ranges were NSB students.
Our rugby, football and basketball teams also enjoyed considerable success this week. The U14 rugby team won a very challenging away tie v Gresham's School in Norfolk to make it into the last 16 in the country. The U12A and U16B football teams also had wins against strong opponents in their respective National Cups and the U18 Basketball team recorded their second consecutive National College League victory by a convincing margin against Aston Manor School, Birmingham. We are very much looking forward to the U15 Rugby National Cup Last 16 tie - the East Midlands Regional Final - on Tuesday when NSB take on Ipswich School at home under the floodlights - kick off 3.45pm, as well as many other National Cup Football / Water Polo games next week.
Finally, for our Year 11 parents and carers, our Sixth Form offer for September 2024 entry has gone live today - it can be accessed from the Sixth Form section of the NSB website. Sixth Form Admissions
Richard Bernard
Headteacher
