Headteacher's Bulletin - Friday, December 20th 2024
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We say goodbye today to an incredibly long serving stalwart (30+ years) of NSB in Russ Parker who has helped thousands of NSB students to great success in Photography and Art. Russ gave a brilliant leaving speech yesterday evening, laden with wonderful stories of over 3 decades at the school and he will be sorely missed. We also thank Richard Stark who has been an invaluable asset to the Music Department - galvanising Music Technology and leaving a fantastic extra-curricular legacy of Folk Music. Richard is relocating to Bristol, and we wish him the very best of luck in his new venture in Primary Education. We also say goodbye and a huge thank you to Bridget Pittaway who has been a great member of the NSB rugby set up as Team Physio for many years and lots of students are indebted to her for swift recovery from injuries.
We have enjoyed a storm of Charity Week highlights throughout the week, including 7S raising over £300 having run/cycled a marathon, the riotous entertainment of 'I'm a teacher / House Director get me out of here', the netball girls, as per increasing tradition, beating the rugby boys in the annual netball charity match and this afternoon, the crowning event of the week - XX Factor Finals for which tickets sell faster than an Oasis comeback concert. We also had a staff reboot of Band Aid for your Christmas amusement! Click here to view
Amidst the Charity Week extravaganza there have also been some brilliant individual student successes to celebrate, not least all of the academic awards winners on Tuesday Evening where Alishia Adeleye carried off the most prestigious award - the Edward Reynolds Award for All Round Excellence after an exceptional year as Head Girl where she played a key role in masterminding a hugely successful Culture Day. The prizes were awarded by former student and best selling author Mitch Johnson.
Mac Manthata Year 12, has just been awarded a Highly Commended in the first round of the Cambridge A-Level Biology Challenge, run by Homerton College. Mac's entry on the topic of 'Does Behaviour Fossilise?' also received a badge of merit for the quality of his discussion on 'tandem running in termites' - an outstanding achievement given the quantity of and incredibly high academic calibre of entries.
Kartel Walker in Y9 has been invited to Trent Bridge by ACE - African Caribbean Engagement charity - an organisation set up to "support diverse talent from the grassroots to the elite" for cricket. Kartel will now become part of an elite ACE Academy which will include individual and group training which will hopefully advance Kartel on the road to professional cricket.
Finley Allen in 11I has passed his Trinity Drum Kit Diploma ATCL. This is equivalent to the first-year recital of an undergraduate degree, and Finley can now use the post-nominal letters ATCL - a huge achievement for a GCSE student.
Our very own Mr Bradbury (Art) has also been excelling with two of his paintings currently being exhibited in the Northampton Museum and Art gallery at the Town and County Art Society's 107th free annual exhibition - open to February 17th.
Northampton Town and County Art Society - Museums
Regular readers will know that we regularly celebrate the success of our former students and at Christmas time many NSB Dance alumni shine in the national spotlight in Christmas Pantos / media productions across the country. For those of you going to see any festive shows - see if you can spot our ex-NSB students!
Wicked has Steven Thompson and Charlie Goddard dancing in it.
Pinocchio at the Royal Stratford Theatre is starring Tok Morakinyo as Geppetto.
Better Man (New Robbie Williams film) has Elise Clinton dancing in the Take That scenes that were filmed in London and Jacob Reid and Taylor Bliss are in there somewhere in the Regent Street scenes dancing too!!
Other former student dance news.
Jacob Reid came in to do a workshop with Year 12 as he takes a Christmas break from his tour in Chicago the musical (left)
Elise Clinton has been on tour with Rita Ora to Japan (middle)
Lewis Simpson's film 'He's The One' won Best LGBTQ+ Short at the New Renaissance Film Festival (right)
Well done to the U12A,U13A and the U18B football teams who have progressed through another round of their respective National Cup this week - the U18s particularly excelling to make the Quarter finals after overcoming a very strong Samuel Whitbread Academy side who have a highly polished Post 16 football programme. We look forward to a veritable feast of National Cup fixtures when we come back from the holidays in a wide range of sports, not least in rugby where the U14/U15 and U16 teams all have Quarter Final / Round of 16 games in the first month or so back.
End of Term 2 reports for students in every year group are issued via AIM after school today for parents / carers to access.
Finally, I hope everyone connected to the school has a fantastic Christmas break, and we look forward to welcoming the students back on Monday, January 6th.
Richard Bernard
Headteacher
