Headteacher's Bulletin - Friday, January 24th 2025
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NSB have been ranked second in the country for competitive State School Sport by School Sport Magazine based on National Cup results in all sports throughout the past year - we were second to Cooper's Company, London, a year after we topped the rankings in January 2024 - an incredible achievement and a huge thanks and well done to all students, parents, sponsors, staff and coaches involved in the fantastic juggernaut of NSB Sport.
Maintaining the sporting theme, a major school highlight of this week has been our Girls Rugby Sevens A&B teams who took on Rugby School yesterday in the first girls sevens fixture of the season. The two NSB teams performed brilliantly with explosive and highly skilled dynamic athleticism evident all over the field. Head Coaches for the game, Miss Child and Mr Bradbury have delivered this report:
The highly anticipated season debut of the A and B girls’ 7’s teams proved to be a thrilling showcase of skill, determination, and sportsmanship. Both NSB and Rugby School displayed commendable effort and defensive grit as they took to the field, setting the tone for what promises to be a bright future for our girls' rugby teams.
The A team’s experience and cohesion shone throughout, with a bruising defence and offload game leading to victory.
However, the B team’s commitment to the contest was continuously evident, as they tackled with ferocity and refused to back down against experienced opposition. Many of the B team were stepping on to the playing field for their first ever competitive match.
Player of the afternoon went to Emily Gates whose evasive running and hard, impenetrable defence were key match winning factors in the A Team game and both captains - Imogen Morlidge (As) and Amy Halford-Smith (Bs) led their sides brilliantly from the front.
The before and after pictures show just how competitively fought the games were! A very promising season awaits this hugely talented squad with the Saints Sevens competition coming up quickly on the horizon!
There were other notable rugby successes this week with the U16s continuing their menacingly good form with a comprehensive win over Berkhamsted to make the National Cup Quarter Finals, the First and Second V11 Boys beat their counterparts from Haileybury School and the U17s / U16Bs / U15As / U13As / U13Bs / U12As / U12Bs were all victorious against Whitgift School who are always strong opponents. The U14 As have looked very sharp all season after an unbeaten Y8 but were edged out of the National Cup this week by Warwick School - they will come back stronger for the experience in next year's competition.
Additionally in NSB rugby, Six Nations player, Ollie Sleightholme has reflected on his NSB school experiences in this interesting article: Where did England's Top Rugby Players go to School
Elsewhere in NSB school sport, the U13 Water Polo Team had a clean sweep of 4 victories from 4 games in their ESSA Semi-final Group and they will now contest the Championship Final in May and there were also good National Cup wins for the U15Bs and the U13Bs in football.
In other news, Year 13 have comfortably beaten the UCAS deadline of next Wednesday with over 250 applications now safely sent off to the Universities of choice and the cohort can expect a flurry of offers over the next few months with Oxford offers already released. An ever-increasing number of Year 13s are considering apprenticeships and Mrs Howard's brilliant 'NSB Apprenticeship Academy' with the support of Miss Rickaby, has been instrumental in helping many of our students in achieving placements at leading local, national and international firms - a flavour of which is given in the article below. The Academy uses alumni and wider professional links to enrich a student's understanding, signposting and selection of aspirational apprenticeship routes which match their skill set - further information can be found here: Post 18 choices information
Finally, we are very much looking forward to the Key Stage 3 performance of 'A Monster Calls' next week in the Cripps Theatre on Thursday, January 30th and Friday, January 31st - tickets available from the NSB Box Office.
Richard Bernard
Headteacher
