Culture Week 2025 was a vibrant event celebrating different traditions from around the world that are represented in our NSB community. On Wednesday, there was a World Fair featuring stalls from India, Moldova, and Greece and many more! Offering delicious food, traditional crafts, and interesting facts about their cultures. People enjoyed exploring each stall and learning and tasting something new. 

The week continued with an exciting showcase featuring music, dance, and fashion from different cultures, bringing everyone together in a joyful celebration. It highlighted the importance of inclusivity at our school, showing that everyone’s culture is valued and appreciated.

 

The end of last term saw the final of the House Expressive Arts Competition. Mrs Greenaway reports:

All 4 Houses put together a great show based on eras - 1920s, 40s, 60s and 80s. It was wonderful to see students from Year 7 through to Year 13 working together with their House Director. Each House had 3 weeks to create a 15 minute performance which included acting, singing, dancing, live music, art and photography. They were marked on entertainment value, professionalism, relevance to theme, quality of performance and creativity/imagination. Judge feedback highlighted the outstanding technical aspects of the performances and the incredible effort required to produce such comprehensive / complex pieces. This year we had 3 staff judges who unanimously awarded Brightwell as the 2025's winners with an awesome performance of Born in the 80s.

Thank you to all staff and students involved!!!

Three students from The Student Leadership Group; Will Hunter, Tom Buglass and Kanthika Bandara have been volunteering to help at The McCarthy-Dixon Foundation (TMDF), one of our chosen charities this year to support, with deliveries of food to families in need.  Mrs Greenaway was delighted to receive the following report from the TDMF:

"The students were fantastic! They got stuck straight in and worked well with everyone. They were an absolute pleasure to have with us this morning and they are always welcome back at any time."  

Mr Bradbury masterminds NSB's annual contribution to the nation's RSPB's Bird Watch and he has written the report below. 

"It was a pleasure to personally be able to contribute to this year's count when I came out of a late evening meeting to be met by a Grey Heron relaxing on the Top Level before soaring into the sky, aided by its regal 6 feet wingspan!

The school have once again taken part in the Big Schools Birdwatch contributing to the world's largest wildlife survey for the RSPB. Students from a range of year groups helped collate the data which, again, shown the black headed gull to be the most common bird to share our grounds but there were a rich feast of other avian visitors: "

The Cripps Theatre audience were grandly entertained last night by the KS4/5 Production 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time'.  Miss Bason reports:

This week, the Senior Production was brought to life by an amazing group of students who successfully staged The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.

Ethen Powell played the main character, Christopher, and delivered an outstanding portrayal of his journey to solve the mystery of who killed his neighbour's dog, Wellington. Ethen truly understood the depth of this character, and the audience was captivated by his remarkable interpretation. His performance authentically reflected the way Christopher, as an autistic person, experiences the world.

A huge thank you to my incredible cast and crew for working so hard to bring this production to life!!!

 

Over the holidays a large NSB skiing party hit the slopes. Trip Leader , Mr Winfield reports: 

Over the half term break a group of 79 students and 10 staff were lucky enough to enjoy what skiing in Austria had to offer! 

We embarked on a 29 hour journey to stay at Jugendgästehaus Gerlosplatte in Hochkrimml. The weather couldn't have been better, ranging from 5°C during the day to -9°C at night, with a small amount of snow falling after our first day!

Most of the students who attended the trip had only taken part in some taster sessions at Snozone earlier in the academic year. It was incredible to see all students making such great progress as the week went on. Students came away from the slopes each day with some fantastic stories about their experience, keen to share them with their friends and family.

All of the boys were a credit to the school. It was an absolute pleasure taking them on this trip.

A special thanks to the NSB staff who accompanied me; Mr Elder, Mr Hewitt, Mr Hughes, Mrs Hollobon, Mrs Thomson, Mrs Wilborn, Mr Hammond, Miss Alderson, and Mr Hepher."

 

As per the weekly tradition, there are some exceptional sports results to report back on.

The Year 9 football team are one of just 4 sides remaining from the starting 674 in the U14 National Schools Cup after a fantastic Round 8 performance against 'The Hamble School, Winchester' on Thursday. Their 2-0 victory puts them just one step away from the National Final. 

 

The U18 Water Polo and U16 Rugby Teams are both celebrating the phenomenal achievement of reaching their respective National Finals after some incredible wins this week.

In the Pool, the NSB team showed great passion and skilful patterns of play to defeat strong opposition from KES and Bedford School respectively to ease into the National Final later this Term. 

Following a drama fuelled U15 fixture against the same opponents last year,  it really was a case for the NSB U16s of entering the lion's den away at Stamford School for their National Cup U16 Rugby Semi-Final. It was a tremendous battle, with a vociferous home crowd bolstering the energy levels of a fiercely determined and highly skilful Stamford XV but the NSB team's trademark strengths of skill, physicality and core of steel levels of belief and resilience saw them overturn a 12-8 deficit to triumph 21-17. We wish the U15s the best of luck on Sunday in their Semi-Final at Aylesbury Rugby Club (3.45pm) against Hymers College, Hull as NSB go for a third consecutive National Cup U15 final. Spectators are welcome and the match will also be live streamed with commentary - NSB V Hymers Live Stream

On the theme of rugby, there is an excellent write up this week of NSB's rugby programme being a shining light of the State School sector in the Daily Telegraph, written by Senior Rugby Writer, Charlie Morgan. The NSB section (within the article Labour's private school plan is an 'existential threat' to English rugby) is entitled 'East Midlands anomaly' with the leading paragraph (before a lengthy analysis of the school's rugby provision) - as set out below:

'The tale of NSB, a state school which counts Courtney Lawes and Ollie Sleightholme on its roll of honour, is immensely heartening and ground-breaking.'

 

NSB Basketball players have been storming through the National Cup rounds in all age groups. Director of Sport, Mr Burton reports below:

It has been a busy few months for the basketball programme as they have participated in 48 games since the start of October. Now that we begin Term 4, many of the teams are embarking on the knockout rounds of their competitions after winning through the group phases. 

The U14 and U16 teams this week travelled to Shireland Collegiate Academy and Bromsgrove School, respectively with both teams coming from behind to edge closely-fought wins against strong opponents. 

The Year 7 + Year 8 teams have progressed to the Town league finals which will be held at NSB in March. These teams also sit undefeated in the JrNBA leagues and are favourites to progress as top of the league to the knockout regional stages. 

Our senior players who compete in the College Basketball League Tier 2 have had a tough season this year. With lots of new players in the team and all players being Year 12 competing against mostly Year 13 and Year 14 students, the team have fought valiantly in most games but find themselves facing the relegation play-offs in March. In more positive news for this age group, they are into the Quarter Finals of the U17 Dynamic Schools league after beating St Peters High School, Gloucester on the road last week. The team now face a challenging trip to Charnwood. 

I would also like to say a huge thank you Alumni Student Chris Parkes who kindly sponsored the team this season providing them with a team tracksuit. 

Chris is a former student of the school who excelled in basketball and athletics from 1967-1974 and recently came back to the school for a visit with his former class and teammates and met with this years senior basketball team.

Chris is second from the right in this picture, next to our Chair of The NSB Trust, Peter Bason who visited the school alongside his basketball teammates from the class of 1970-1974. Former Director of Sport and Head Basketball Coach Pete Dewsnap is also pictured far left. 

I was delighted to receive the following report from the rapidly expanding Northampton Wrestling Club about the English Junior Wrestling Championships, which took place over the holidays.

Three NSB pupils competed in the English National wrestling championships on 23rd February. Joseph Lewis (Y8) took home silver, losing a tightly contested final in his category. Jacob Lewis (Y10) took home bronze having topped his group before a points loss in the semi-final; he then won a tough third-place match by pin. NSB Y12 student Andreea Evtodiev took home the gold medal for the second year running at the nationals with a stylish win in her final. Earlier during the half-term Andreea was selected to train and compete with the British Wrestling national squad at the prestigious Flatz competition in Austria gaining invaluable experience. The three victorious NSB students are shown below.

 

The very best of luck to our Junior and Senior Boys Cross Country Teams who are competing in the re-arranged ESAA Cross Country National cup Final in Leeds on Saturday.

 

Y11 have been given their English "Study Buddy" and information for parents, including the attached image, has been sent to parents via AIM. 

Finally, we have several big Cripps events to look forward to over the coming weeks, with the second showing of the KS4/5 Production tonight, the NSB Dance extravaganza - Junction 25 next Friday and Saturday night and the NSB Spring Music Concert on Wednesday, May 12th.

 

 

Richard Bernard
Headteacher