Headmaster's Newsletter Friday 16 June 2023
Dear Parents,
There is a very good headline in the satirical newspaper The Onion: ‘6-Year-Old Hoping It’s Not Too Late To Shift Career Path from Astronaut to Firefighter’. It summarises beautifully the open-minded and wondrous ambition of children, while bringing in the all-to-real adult concern about the practicalities of navigating careers. The joy of teaching prep-school-aged children and teenagers is that we get to remain at the start of this process – the wide-eyed and excited – while not yet having to worry too much about the more tedious aspects of how one actually gets to the first day at work and the remuneration. We are also at the stage when the boys get to change their minds each day if they like; there are very few people out there who start out very early with a fixed idea of ‘what they want to be when they grow up’, and even fewer who – when they get there – don’t wish they’d thought a little more broadly. Add to this the fact that we are frequently told that future generations will have multiple jobs, potentially in several different areas, and quite probably in areas that we don’t yet know how to describe. So this early stage of career exploration is a good time to reflect on individual personality characteristics and interests, and to stick thinking about the kinds of things that the boys might be interested in when they enter the world of work, all the while preserving a nimble and flexible state of mind that will enable them to pivot as and when they need to in the future. Simple as that. Anyway, that is one of the reasons that our older boys have been enjoying some careers talks this week – reflecting on what certain careers look like, and how one might get into them – but at the same time making it clear that transferrable thinking skills and personality traits will be vital alongside subject knowledge.
There is another amusing career-related graphic doing the rounds at the moment: a Venn diagram in which the three circles are labelled ‘jobs I am good at’, ‘jobs I am interested in’ and ‘jobs that pay well’. In this diagram, the first two labels intersect, while the third remains resolutely separate from the others. This does bring us to the other, very real, aspect of career choice among future generations, especially those who have become used to a certain standard of living. It is an important part of my job (and the jobs of my colleagues) to encourage the boys in directions that will lead them to a happy and fulfilled life. That is why we talk about finding jobs with a purpose. I may have mentioned before the book by William Damon called The Path to Purpose: a study of the world of work based on a survey of 1,200 people aged between 12 and 26. 74% of Damon’s respondents said that ‘being very well-off financially’ was ‘essential’ or ‘very important’; 42% said that ‘developing a meaningful philosophy of life’ was ‘essential’ or ‘very important’. The search for meaning in one’s life came a clear second to high financial gain as young people’s central priority. But, in Damon’s study, this did not result in any particular happiness. Quite the opposite: material acquisition as an end in itself led to a ‘dispiriting sense of emptiness once the initial glow of self-gratification had worn off’. Instead, Damon argues, there needs to be an ‘ultimate concern’ in our lives, bigger than financial gain, that he calls ‘purpose’: ‘a stable and generalized intention to accomplish something that is at the time meaningful to the self and consequential for the world beyond the self’. This was not heeded by young people who either derived notions of ‘success’ from reality television or – totally understandably – felt pressured into pursuing highly remunerated careers because that was/is the only way they were/are going to buy a house.
Damon offers two telling accounts of cohorts he encountered during his study. The first is of a group of trainee teachers, the older among whom had given up their jobs in business, medicine or the law. ‘They had not failed in the eyes of the world’, Damon notes, but ‘they never acquired a sense that they were doing something that really mattered to them’. They felt, he says, ‘empty and inauthentic’, spending their time ‘on activities that did not reflect their own highest aspirations in life’. They had pursued the route of affluence and status, but this had not resulted in any overall happiness. The second cohort is of twelve young people who stood out in his study as being particularly ‘purposeful’ and, therefore, fulfilled. They included: someone who was garnering support for political candidates with solutions to peace in the Middle East; someone fundraising for clean drinking water in Africa; someone lobbying for better environmental regulation; someone creating new jazz scales; someone raising money for cancer research. A very small minority gained their sense of purpose out of commercial entrepreneurship; hardly any, if any at all, were driven primarily by financial gain. They were looking beyond themselves, to find something challenging and engaging that had a positive impact on the world at large. Which is all very well and lovely; the challenge for us is to help the boys develop futures in which the circles in the aforementioned Venn diagram very clearly overlap. There are many people out there, some of whom will be reading this, lucky enough to have achieved that Venn diagram. Do let us know and we’ll add you to our list of future careers speakers for the boys!
Have a great weekend,
Matt Jenkinson
Congratulations to all those boys who took part in our composers’ workshop last Saturday. The boys got to hear their pieces played by two professional pianists, who then gave suggestions for the compositions’ further development. They were wowed by the standard of the compositions which, it was noted, would not have been at all out of place in an A-Level music classroom.
Well done, too, to all of the boys in pre-prep who took part in a heart-warming summer concert yesterday. It was wonderful to hear how far the boys had progressed on their instruments and in their singing over the course of the year, laying the foundation for all the excellent music that happens in the prep school.
Speaking of wonderful music: New College Choir’s new album, ‘New College Commisions and Premieres’, will be released on Friday 23 June. It includes music by Harris, Howells, Leighton, Drayton, Pritchard, Harrison and Young. You can preview it on Spotify!
A reminder about our new Saturday morning orchestra, Oxford Children’s Chamber Orchestra (OCCO), which will be starting in September. This is open to all children (whether or not they are at NCS) between the ages of 9 and 13 who play an orchestral instrument to at least Grade 3 or equivalent. Please do pass on this information to any friends you think might be interested: https://www.newcollegeschool.org/occo-music
Thank you to all those parents, pupils and colleagues who helped out to make this morning’s open morning such a success. Our Friday open morning is the one when people come to see the school ‘in action’, so it was great to be able to welcome record numbers to our little corner of central Oxford.
We are very much looking forward to Wykeham Day tomorrow. This day brings together the whole NCS community, former and current, for a series of special events. We will begin at noon with a short and informal music recital in the hall, with performances from NCS pupils past and present. Then, at 13.00, the old boys vs 1st XI cricket will begin on Field, followed at 14.00 by the school fete, adjacent to the cricket on Field. The fete will end at 16.00, giving attendees time to head back to Holywell Street for a special Wykeham Day evensong in New College chapel at 17.45. For those who have signed up, there will then be drinks in the College gardens, before our very special Wykeham Day dinner in New College hall. Full details can be found at https://www.newcollegeschool.org/wykeham-association
On Sunday 18 June at 19.00, NCS alum and member of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Peter Mallinson, will be performing in a concert for two violas in the Holywell Music Room. The concert will feature the world premiere of a new work by German composer Detlev Glanert, as well as works by Bach, Bridge, Deborah Pritchard, and an introduction to the world of the Shidaiqu (a form of Chinese popular music that was heavily influenced by American jazz and Holywood). Tickets are £10 cash on the door, and it's a chance to hear one of the most underexplored mediums in the chamber music repertoire as well as see a wonderful range of musical styles.
As we head towards the end of the school year, please could families take a look at home for any library books that need returning before term finishes? Many thanks.
Upcoming Events
Saturday, 17 June 2023
NB No Music Academy
Wykeham Day
12.00 Old Boys' Concert
13.00 Cricket begins, Field
14.00 School Fête, Field (ends 16.00)
17.45 Evensong
18.30 Pre-dinner drinks and canapes (ticket only)
19.15 Wykeham Day Dinner, College Hall (ticket only)
Sunday, 18 June 2023
University term ends
16.00 Last Evensong, New College Chapel
Monday, 19 June 2023
14.00 Year 3-4 play dress rehearsal
Tuesday, 20 June 2023
10.00 LAMDA Examinations, Dragon School
14.00 U9 A&B Cricket vs MCS, Home
14.00 U8 A-C 6-a-side Cricket vs MCS, Away
14.00 Year 8 TED Talks, session 1 (hall)
Wednesday, 21 June 2023
9.00 Chapel. Speaker: Sammy Jarvis, former NCS Head Boy
14.15 U13 A (3 pairs) Tennis vs Abingdon Prep, Away
14.15 U13A Cricket vs Bruern Abbey, Home
14.15 U13 B Cricket vs Dragon, Home
14.15 U11 A&B Cricket vs Sibford, Away
Thursday, 22 June 2023
9.00 Induction for new pupils and 'move-up morning'
14.00 Year 7 visit to the Ashmolean
14.00 Year 8 TED Talks, session 2 (hall)
18.00 Years 3 and 4 performance of The Jungle Book (hall)
Friday, 23 June 2023
Final day of VMT music lessons
8.50 Year 7 talk in Science, Professor Nick Lakin
AM Pre-Prep Sports Day, Field
14.00 Years 3 and 4 performance of The Jungle Book (hall)
17.30 Year 8 Play Reading: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, New College Cloisters
18.30 Summer Drinks Evening, New College Cloisters
Saturday, 24 June 2023
10.00 Music Academy (Orchestra only)
Monday, 26 June 2023
Activities Week begins
Year 4 depart for Malvern Hills
Year 5 depart for Isle of Wight
Year 6 depart for France
Year 7 depart for Peak District
Year 8 depart for Sicily
Wednesday, 28 June 2023
No School Service
Summer Banquet for Pre-Prep and Year 3
Year 4 return from Malvern Hills
Friday, 30 June 2023
Years 5-8 return from trips
Pre-Prep activities week outing