Headteacher's Bulletin - Friday, March 7th 2025
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The school has proudly been celebrating tomorrow's International Women's Day with a prime focus on our inspirational female staff and students throughout today. Mrs Bradley-Brophy reports:
In celebration of International Women’s Day, our school proudly acknowledges the incredible achievements of women throughout history and in our own community. Since the mid-1990s, girls have been an integral part of our Sixth Form, and today, we are proud to have women making up a third of the Sixth Form student body. This year, our NSB Female Lead Society took the initiative to organise the day’s events, creating a vibrant atmosphere filled with purple ribbons on jackets and in hair, symbolising our support for gender equality. The school was transformed into a sea of purple, with bunting hanging in the halls and posters celebrating inspirational women from various fields. The society also created heartfelt postcards for all female staff with the headline, “We Recognise You,” acknowledging their contributions and leadership. Each lesson began with a tribute to influential women in those subjects, ensuring we all reflected on the impact women have made in shaping our world. It was a day of empowerment, recognition, and unity.
One of our highest achieving female students in the Sixth Form is Sarah Matei from Year 12 who has successfully gained the position of High Sheriff Cadet in Northamptonshire
after winning through a tough round of interviews against six other candidates, who were all shortlisted after dozens of applications were initially submitted. The position is drawn from the Northamptonshire Emergency Services Cadets. Sarah will assist the High Sheriff of Northamptonshire during their year in office, acting as a Sword Bearer at ceremonial events and she will also accompany the High Sheriff to other engagements across the County. Sarah will be aiming in her role to make a real difference to the local community via her attendance and contributions to local Council meetings where she will be proposing initiatives and cascading feedback to help drive down youth crime in Northamptonshire as well as to increase recreational and employment opportunities for young people.
We are hosting our annual Dance Festival this weekend with the NSB only show on Friday evening and then NSB and a range of other local schools and clubs performing on Saturday evening. Junction is just one shining light of the thriving Dance provision at NSB - Miss Clinton reports on recent NSB Dance successes and dates for the diary:
Junction, 7th and 8th March
This year Junction will be in a new format. On Friday 7th March at 7pm the performance will be NSB dancers only. This will include all of our extra-curricular groups and our Year 9, GCSE and A-Level dancers. Both shows are now sold out.
On Saturday 8th March at 7pm our extra-curricular, GCSE and A-Level dancers will be joined by Kingsthorpe College, Northampton College, Oncore, EC Dance, Defined Dance Company, Abbeyfield, Northampton School for Girls and Northampton School. Tickets are sold out but you can join the waiting list
Applause Youth Dance Festival, Saturday 22nd March
This event is a new dance festival run by FABRIC that invites dance groups and schools from the East and West Midlands to submit applications to take part in classes and workshops before performing at The Hippodrome in Birmingham. It is an event that runs as part of the selection process for the National Youth Dance Festival (U.Dance). Our Key Stage 4 Elite group were successful in being invited to be part of the event and will perform their piece 'Fight or Flight' based on the physical and psychological effects that young men experience when they are called up to fight for their country.
Great Big Dance Off, Monday 24th March
Our Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 5 Elite groups will be competing in the Great Big Dance Off Midlands heats at The Alexandra Theatre in Birmingham. This is a schools competition and two groups from each category are offered the chance to win a place in the National finals in July.
Unite, Saturday 29th March
Our Key Stage 5 Elite group will be performing at the Unite Dance Festival hosted by Northampton School for Girls - support for our NSB dancers will be very welcome!
Our Northampton Teacher Training Partnership (NTTP) has recently been in the press for a successful bid to be part of a new national initiative encouraging diversity in the teaching profession. Director of the NTTP and Assistant Headteacher, Mrs Druker reports:
The NTTP recently received an 'Outstanding' in all areas Ofsted inspection and we are very proud of our 100% employment record. Our current cohort of trainees are in their second placement and are making strong progress towards becoming excellent teachers. We are,
however, constantly improving our programme and are currently focused on widening access to the teaching profession. To this end, we have been selected to take part in a national project: 'Diversity in ITT' (Initial Teacher Training). The project is supported by the Chartered College of Teaching, Chiltern Learning Trust and Being Luminary and is funded by Mission 44: a global foundation established by Lewis Hamilton. We start in September 2025 and we are very much looking forward to working with colleagues across the country and sharing the impact of our work with the NSB community.
If you are interested in joining the NTTP, whose exceptionally strong and trusted reputation has trained more than 450 trainees, visit: www.nttp.co.uk or contact us at nttp@nsbtrust.school
There has, yet again, been some amazing NSB sporting success to celebrate over the past week. We are immensely looking forward to our third consecutive National U15 Cup Final in rugby after the current squad powered to an impressive Semi-Final win against Hymer's College last Sunday by 58 points to 7. There will be a final run through at the Saints on Monday before the boys head to Ealing to play Lord Wandsworth College on Tuesday in the Final. The U15 Semi-Final was live-streamed with commentary last Sunday and can be seen here - NSB v Hymers College - the NSB try by Fin Shields (watch from 6 hours.14 minutes and 25 seconds into the video) should cheer even the most ardent of non-rugby fans! The Chronicle & Echo have also delivered a write up of this fantastic achievement: NSB Going for National Cup Glory .
The NSB U16 rugby team have their own Grandstand Match the following week when they will take on Stowe School in the Final of the U16 National Cup, with the game being held at Lord Wandsworth College on Wednesday, March 19th. Huge congratulations also in rugby to the NSB Girls V11s team who comprehensively won the Saints Sevens Plate on Wednesday with some dominant performances throughout the tournament.
Many congratulations to the Year 8A and B football teams who have followed their Year 
9 Counterparts into the Semi-Finals of their respective National Cup competitions after fantastic wins in Guildford against The Howard of Effingham School for the As and for the Bs at home against Standish School, Wigan. Both NSB teams scored some great goals with the first clip showing the stunning winner by Ezra Graham in the A Team tie and the second a great team goal finished off clinically by Harvey Walsh in the B Team match.
Ezra Graham Goal - A Team
Harvey Walsh Goal - B Team
With four teams safely into the last 4 in England, there is one National Cup football Quarter-Final left when our U15 Elite team play against Thomas Telford School in a couple of weeks.
Last week, I mentioned that our Junior Boys and Senior Boys were running in the National Cross Country Final which was held in Leeds last weekend. Mr Taplin reports:
The Junior Boys finished a very creditable 12th overall (especially considering one of the strongest runners was injured) with Will Davey excelling to come individually in the top 20. Our Senior Boys performed brilliantly taking overall 5th place, only 1 point off 4th with Year 11 Freddie Harris leading the way, placing as one of the top Year 11 runners in the country within a field of generally much older U19 athletes. Huge thanks to Luke Greer for coaching the teams and for his efforts on the day and to Tony Love for his inspirational advice. Massive thanks as well to 'Able mortgages' for sponsoring the team for the second year. Many of the athletes who ran in Leeds (and others) will be representing Northamptonshire at the English Schools Championships in Sussex in two weeks time which will finish off the long, tough season!
Finally, a reminder to all parents and carers of Year 9 students that we are holding the Key Stage 4 Subject Preferences Evening on Thursday, March 13th from 5pm-6pm in the Cripps Theatre. Further details were sent out by email through AIM yesterday.
Richard Bernard
Headteacher
