Headmaster's Newsletter Friday 18th March 2022
Dear Parents,
“This world is of a single piece; yet, we invent nets to trap it for our inspection. Then we mistake our nets for the reality of the piece. In these nets we catch the fishes of the intellect but the sea of wholeness forever eludes our grasp. So, we forget our original intent and then mistake the nets for the sea … We conclude they are different because we call them by different names. Thus, they are apt to remain forever separated with nothing bonding them together. It is not the nets that are at fault but rather our misunderstanding of their function as nets. They do catch the fishes but never the sea, and it is the sea that we ultimately desire.”
There are lots of nets and fishes in this extract from Universal Patterns by Rochelle Newman and Martha Boles, but I like the extended metaphor. We try to understand and make sense of the world, and we try to teach our children about that world, by cutting the curriculum up into discrete chunks. There are many good reasons for that, not least the fact that it would be very difficult to teach maths, English, science, history et al if we didn’t cut the school day up into separate periods for separate subjects. Nonetheless, we need to guard against the temptation to see these subjects as totally distinct, as having no cross-curricular virtues. Because the exact opposite is true: we can learn a huge amount across disciplines, even if they might be taught in different rooms at different times.
In any given week, then, my colleagues and I make cross-curricular links between our subjects, to enhance the understanding of those subjects, how they fit together, and how they contribute to our broader understanding of how the world works, or how it might work better. But each year we take a week more directly to celebrate interdisciplinarity, to take a broad theme and then see how every single area of the school can see how it relates to that theme. Hence this week was our SHTEAM Festival – STEM with the Arts and Humanities put back in (we’re people too). It has been a very busy and incredibly stimulating week. I don’t have the space here to list everything that has happened, but we’ve had: live animal displays; lessons on gardens and the natural world in seventeenth-century England; the installation of our SHTEAM mural; a series of assemblies on how the natural world relates to mental health, mathematics and music. Perhaps the highlight of the week was our annual Holloway Lecture, open for free to all pupils in Oxfordshire, a cornerstone of our partnership work, which this year was given by Professor Ashleigh Griffin. Professor Griffin had an audience of all ages fascinated by her discussion of evolutionary biology, inspired by the Dutch biologist Niko Tinbergen. This lecture also marked the culmination of our College Day on Wednesday, during which the boys had the run of New College and its environs, again using these pretty unrivalled resources to explore our natural world theme. Our chapel service included the blessing of the foundation stone of our new building – a stone which will be laid on Wykeham Day later in the year. The Warden and Senior Tutor both spoke very movingly, placing the new quad in the context of the history of the school and college, with the close symbiosis of the two.
Every week at NCS is a busy week, but we can look back on this one with a real sense of tired fulfilment. I would like to thank all of our guest speakers and my colleagues for the ingenious ways in which they incorporated the natural world theme into their day-to-day lessons (as well as organising special events), especially to Miss Krebs who masterminded the week.
Have a great weekend,
Matt Jenkinson
Very best of luck to the choristers who are performing in the Sheldonian this evening, as part of the Three Choirs concert alongside Christ Church and Magdalen. This is, for obvious reasons, the first of these events for some time, and it will be wonderful to hear the combined forces in such an iconic Oxford building.
New College Choir will also be performing Bach’s St John Passion in chapel on Sunday 27 March at 17.00. Tickets are now on sale from Eventbrite https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/bach-st-john-passion-tickets-271007900927. Robert Quinney directs, and former New College Choir chorister James Gilchrist sings the Evangelist. Arias will be sung by members of the choir. Full details are available at https://www.newcollegechoir.com/
Please could you encourage your sons to look for any NCS library books at home, and to return them to the library before the end of term? Many thanks.
Upcoming Events
Monday, 21 March 2022
17.30 Senior Recitals, Sports Hall
13.45 French Play tech rehearsal, Hall
Tuesday, 22 March 2022
14.00 U9 A-C Hockey v Thorngrove, Iffley
Wednesday, 23 March 2022
9.00 Chapel. Speaker: Mr Mike Windsor, Headmaster of Abingdon School
17.30 Pre-Prep Parents' evening (please note change from date in parent handbook)
8.15 Eco committee meeting, library
13.45 French Play dress rehearsal, Hall
Thursday, 24 March 2022
14.00 Pre-Prep Poetry Recitation and ‘Show and Tell’
ABRSM Music Exams
Monday, 28 March 2022
No Activities in final week of term.
Tuesday, 29 March 2022
8.00 HPV Vaccines Year 8 pupils
13.30 Yr 3&4 Hockey House Match Finals, Iffley
18.00 Years 5 & 6 French Play and Café, School Hall and Sports Hall
Wednesday, 30 March 2022
8.00 U11 A Hockey South Regionals, Woking (depending on qualifying)
9.00 Music practice in Chapel for Words and Music (no school service)
14.00 Pre-Prep Spring Concert
Orders in Years 3-8 issued
18.00 Years 5 & 6 French Play and Café, School Hall and Sports Hall
Thursday, 31 March 2022
9.00 Poetry practice for Words and Music, New College Chapel
13.30 Gig for Y7/8 Band
Friday, 1 April 2022
11.00 Words and Music, New College Chapel
12.00 End of term 12 noon