Headteacher's Bulletin - Friday, October 18th 2024
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It's been an action packed penultimate week of Term with wide ranging activity across many curriculum areas.
On Wednesday we had a huge boost to our Careers Education when we were visited by the BBC. Miss Rickaby, Careers Lead for the school reports:
On Wednesday the BBC Bitesize Careers Roadshow visited the school and Years 8-11 enjoyed the opportunity to hear from our panel of guest speakers: Jasmine Takhar - BBC Asian Network host, Chris Freestone - National Development Manager for the EFL, Oliver Conopo - BBC Northampton Journalist and Charlotte Wilkes - Robotics Technician for UK Atomic Energy Authority.
Students learnt about the careers of each member of the panel and received valuable insight into the ever changing nature of a career and each panel member spoke passionately about the importance of their education in helping them to get to where they are now. Each guest speaker also shared a 'what I wish I'd done' segment about their time at school and what they find the most rewarding aspects about their jobs now - knowing a foreign language and embracing international travel opportunities were common themes at the top of the list of advice from each panel member!
Students took part in an interactive quiz to discover what type of technician they might be in the future and engaged in a thrilling Q&A session with the panel using a foam rugby ball with a built in microphone - a very popular tool!
A fantastic day full of insight and advice for our students, and the feedback from students, staff and the BBC was outstanding! A huge thank you to the BBC for coming to NSB.
The Cripps Theatre enjoyed a spectacular Movie themed concert on Thursday with wonderful creativity and talent demonstrated throughout the evening both in terms of musicianship and costume making, with perhaps the inflatable 'Jaws' stealing the show in the latter department! The evening was resplendent with outstanding renditions across a huge variety of filmic themes ranging from the deeply melodic harp - played exquisitely by Elizabeth Groves (Y13) who enchanted the audience with the Prologue from Beauty and the Beast and Moon River (Breakfast at Tiffany's), to the deeply jarring Prelude from Alfred Hitchcock's 'Psycho' thriller - performed magnificently by the String Ensemble.
NSB Netball is in fine health and earlier this week our U18 girls team (led by Miss Imison and Miss Harvey) played in the final stages of the County Cup competition - Miss Harvey has sent the report below. Special mention also to Maltilda Hinde who has recently been named in the London Mavericks Player U19 Development Programme which is a wonderful achievement especially as Matilda is currently U17 and so still has two years left in this age group.
The U18 netball team made their way to Oundle School on Tuesday for their first tournament of the season - the County Cup. The team had four strong wins, featuring outstanding performances by Matilda Hinde and Emily Gates and an excellent all round squad effort - the future looks very bright for netball at NSB!
We have also enjoyed significant success in Cross Country this week. Mr Taplin reports:
Thursday 17th Oct saw two NSB teams participate in the County round of the ESAA Cross Country Cup. We had to travel to Princes Risborough School in Buckinghamshire on what was a glorious day for a cross country event. The Junior (Y7 and 8) and Intermediate (Y9 and 10) boys teams both finished in the top 10 at last years National Final and were looking for a repeat in 2024.
Conditions could not have been better and the Junior Boys finished in the following positions:
Oliver Groves (pictured below) - 4th
Will Davey - 5th
Alex Kampta - 11th
Jan Remmington - 13th
Charlie Matthews - 20th
Adam Burnley - 31st.
This was a high quality field and all of the runners ran sensibly and finished strong, meaning the points total of 33 took first place. Incidentally, it was Jan, Charlie and Adam's first race for NSB which is also very pleasing.
The Intermediate Boys finished:
Joshua Pinney (pictured below) - 1st in a superbly judged race
Freddie Love - 7th
Thomas Leeson - 10th
Reuben Walter - 13th
Monty Whitehead - 49th
Louie Birkett - 59th
As with the Junior team the score of 31 secured first place meaning that both teams go into the Regional Final at the start of January (where they will be joined by the senior (Y11, 12 and 13) boys and girls teams as County Round winners (for Buckinghamshire). Special mention to Josh Pinney who looked every inch the winner in a very controlled performance - not bad for the U15 Rugby team's hooker!!
We have waved off the U15 / U16 and U18 rugby teams today as they head off to three highly prestigious tournaments - the U15s are playing at the St Joseph's Festival (Friday/Saturday), the U16s are at Millfield School, Somerset for The Schools Championship U16 National Festival and the U18s are playing in the first ever National U18 State School's Festival at the John Fisher School in Croydon - both the U16s and U18s are playing Saturday / Sunday. There is live stream coverage with commentary of the U15s and U18s on the NextGenXV website NextGenXV – The Home of Grassroots Rugby
Many congratulations to the following teams who have all progressed in their respective National Cups this week - U14 rugby, U16 rugby, U16A football and to the U18 basketball team who edged a thriller against Leeds by 51 points to 50.
We look forward to Personal Development Week (Y7/8/9/11,13), Work Experience Week (Y10) and the Residentials (Y8/12) next week, with a reminder that it is Staff Training Day on Monday (only residential students to come to school for their trip departure).
Richard Bernard
Headteacher
