Headmaster's Newsletter Friday 3rd February 2023
Dear Parents,
Self-awareness is big in the business world at the moment. There are TED Talks about it, articles in Harvard Business Review, and features in such publications as Success Magazine (for the aspirational coffee table). It is also increasingly seen as something to be cultivated for good mental health and wellbeing. Being self-aware apparently makes us more likely to be confident, creative and honest, with better relationships and decision-making and communication skills. But, as with many buzzwords, it can be difficult to pin down exactly what we mean by ‘self-awareness’. The aforementioned HBR article gave me a headache as it started to talk about ‘internal self-awareness’, ‘external self-awareness’, before breaking down the four ‘self-awareness archetypes’: the aware, the introspectors, the seekers and the pleasers. At least I was aware I was getting a headache, I suppose.
If we were to cut through the terminological thickets, I suppose we could settle on a straightforward definition that focused on our ability to see and interpret our thoughts, emotions and behaviours in an objective fashion – standing beside or outside ourselves to healthily interrogate what we are doing and feeling. This can indeed be a very powerful skill when it comes to self-improvement. We could, I suppose, rely on other people to tell us how we are doing and how we might do it better. But that relies on the extrinsic and on the fact that there will always be someone there either as our cheerleader or critic (or both). That simply isn’t the case, which is one of the reasons why we build the boys’ independence during their time at NCS. One day, not too far off, they will be in worlds of work, or interpersonal relationships, that will require a great degree of individual drive and awareness. It is easier to deal with professional progress, and personal friendships, if we aware of what we need to improve on, pre-empting critical reviews or the loss of those friendships due to negative behaviour. There won’t always be a teacher or parent there checking their prep or explaining why Behaviour A has led to Result B.
This is all much, much easier said than done, and some people find it easier than others. All the more reason, then, to get the boys more and more used to doing it as they go up the year groups. This is one of the reasons that the boys are currently in the process of self-reviewing their progress across the curriculum, with those reviews increasing in detail and sophistication as they progress through the prep school. We are, of course, very happy to give the boys attainment and effort grades: twice in Michaelmas, at the end of Hilary, and twice in Trinity. But those extrinsic observations can only go so far in marking and encouraging the boys’ development. Standing outside of themselves, half-way through the school year, is another powerful way in which they can learn to see, understand and take ownership of their progress. We are there to prop and guide along the way, naturally, but the reality is that a large part of education is learning what to do, and how to thrive, as those props are ever so gradually taken away.
Have a great weekend,
Matt Jenkinson
Congratulations to NCS-Club-7 who won the NCSPA quiz last Friday evening at the end of a very close-fought competition, which came down to the final round (and judicious use of a ‘Joker’ card; you had to be there for that statement to make sense). I would like to thank the NCSPA committee for working so hard on the logistics to make the evening such a success, the Year 8 boys for quizzing so valiantly against adults with multiple higher degrees, and to my SLT colleagues for helping to set the questions. We can’t wait to do it all again next year!
A reminder that ticket sales are now available for the Zeelo bus service from the start of Trinity via https://app.zeelo.co/rides/new-college-school. The size of vehicle that Zeelo put on the service will depend on sign-ups over the coming days (there is a ‘soft deadline’ of 6 February), so do please register your interest as soon as possible.
I am delighted to announce that Stephen Potts has been appointed sports coach at NCS from September 2023. Stephen has FA Level 3 football coaching qualifications (UEFA B licence) and has been head coach at the Cheltenham Town FC Academy (U11), Forest Green Rovers (U12) and Bristol City Academy (U9). He is the managing director of Next Generation Soccer Schools and the technical director of Teddy Soccer. Stephen has a lot of experience teaching children aged 2-14, enjoying football, hockey, basketball, cricket, tennis and athletics. He is currently sports coach at CCCS in Oxford. We look forward to welcoming him and his family to NCS and I am sure that he will make a great contribution to our sport and enrichment activities programmes.
You will have seen Brett Morrison’s separate Parentmail outlining our activities for Charity Week in aid of the Oxford Hub next week. We are looking forward to the cake sales (please provide an ingredients list, and do remember that we are a nut-free school), the NCS Bake Off competition, home clothes on Friday, and the staff vs Year 8 basketball.
7 February is Safer Internet Day. To mark that day, during wellbeing lessons several year groups are looking at areas to help pupils stay safe online. Topics covered include: the appropriate amount of time spent online, managing online relationships, judging the validity of online information, and why age limits are put in place for different types of media. Whilst pupils will be familiar with these messages from Coding lessons, we feel it is important to speak about these areas often. Pupils are also regularly reminded that they can always turn to staff at school if they are facing difficulties in the digital world. Internet Matters is a website which offers straightforward guides to pupils, parents and carers and sound advice: https://www.internetmatters.org/resources/online-gaming-advice/ Please don’t hesitate to get in touch if you would like to discuss any aspects of your child’s online activity.
World Book Day is on 2 March, and will be upon us before we know it after half term. As ever, we will be joining schools around the country in encouraging boys to come in dressed as a literary character (though not one who looks, say, surprisingly like a prep school boy in home clothes). Please do not go to any great effort or expense for this; imaginative and recycled costumes are often the best ones!
Wadham College has generously agreed that NCS families cycling from the north of the city can walk their bikes through Wadham, exiting their garden gate adjacent to NCS on Love Lane, as an alternative to cycling through the Gradel Quad building works. This will be for the remainder of the academic year. If you would like to take advantage of this new route, please email office@newcollegeschool.org and we will give you more details (including gate codes) as to how this works.
Best of luck to our Year 8s who will be sitting their mock exams next week!
We wish the choristers well, too, as they sing BBC Radio 3’s choral evensong next Wednesday at 16.00. You can read more about listening to the service via https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006tp7r
Please find below the link to buy tickets for the next NCS Chamber Choir and Choral Society concert, with the Instruments of Time and Truth. It will take place on Saturday 25 March at 19.00 in New College Chapel. The programme will feature J.S. Bach’s Markus-Passion (BWV 247), reconstructed by Malcolm Bruno. https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/j-s-bach-st-mark-passion-tickets-525465450307
From Mr Bishop: Over the past seven days or so a great deal of brilliant hockey action has been played out by the NCS teams. It has been wonderful to see all ages playing high quality and intense sport as they push to improve their skills and performances. Last week saw the U13 teams in action on Wednesday afternoon and throughout the day we played 6 games against Summer Fields and St Hugh’s respectively. On the C and D pitches we enjoyed a win and a draw with Herbie in goal being simply magnificent. On the A and B pitches we got off to a slow start against St Hugh’s and, despite a spirited come back in the second half, a positive result eluded us. In the second round of fantastic games, the A team game was a 0-0 draw with the B team won 2-1. Later that week the U13 A team played in a highly competitive Oxfordshire County Cup event on Friday evening. The team had been ravaged by recent illnesses but they refused to give up and forfeit the event. They fought bravely and a fifth-place finish in the county was a strong result for a small school. As usual our captain Dan C was inspirational and I’d like to also mention Gary Z, who played despite feeling under the weather and was as brave all afternoon long.
The new week saw the U8 boys playing in their first hockey fixture against MCS. They enjoyed three amazing games of hockey. Mr Morrison and Mr Swanepoel were both extremely proud of all the boys and, having seen them train these past few weeks myself, I know they have a bright future in the sport. On Wednesday afternoon the U11 teams also played MCS. They enjoyed four brilliant games of hockey. On this occasion the results did not quite go our way but each game was only decided by the odd goal and with a little more ruthlessness in front of goal, I know these teams can turn things around in the return fixture. Special mentions go to Peter K in goal for the B team, showing great potential for the future and William E who simply tackled everything!
Also on Wednesday afternoon the U13 A and B teams played host to Hatherop Castle. In the B team game Henry W in goal was in great form and kept another clean sheet to help the team to a 3-0 win. Emil Y on his B team debut capped off a great afternoon with his first goal of the season and, as usual, Benji W was a superb leader as he managed his side throughout the afternoon. Mr Rose was extremely proud of the team’s performance. On the A team pitch the game started with a 10-minute barrage of Hatherop attacks and the NCS team just managed to hold on to a 0-0 score line thanks to brilliant defending and even better goalkeeping from Max B. However, at the end of the 15-minute quarter we found ourselves 4-0 up thanks to some inspirational striking from Rishaan as he bagged a well-deserved and ruthless hattrick. A final fifteen minutes of frenetic play was a very entertaining way to finish the game but, despite Hatherop’s attempts on goal, they only managed to breach the defence a couple of times. A final score of 5-2 to NCS was a brilliant result and in no small part due to the heroics of Max in goal (our player of the match this week) closely followed by Didrik who, on his first team debut this season, was a brilliant defender and put in a stunning performance.
Lastly this week, the U11 team made us all very proud as they achieved something that no other NCS team has managed before. In the recent past, yes, we have had teams represent the school at national finals in both hockey and football. However, no NCS team has ever gone to these finals as tournament winners. On Thursday, they did just that, at the IAPS regional tournament. Mr Swanepoel is the lead coach for the U11 team and he had the following to say about the team: ‘In the group stages the boys performed well. They ended up playing four games, back-to-back, which pushed them physically but they managed to pull off some good results. The group Stage record was two wins and two draws, only conceding one goal. We progressed into the cup semi-final after finishing second in our group on goal difference to Stamford. We rushed into our semi-final against Warwick where the boys demonstrated good discipline, work rate and nerve to take the match into extra time. The format included golden goal in extra time which caused a few spikes in heart rates amongst the boys and staff. However, the boys stuck to doing their basics, they played with belief, and their efforts were rewarded with a penalty corner which was slotted home by Xander to take us into the final. The final against Ashfold was a team performance with everyone carrying on from the hard work that they displayed in the semi-final. We went on to score early in the first half through good build-up play and hard running from our midfield line. The boys’ belief shone through and kept on growing as the match went on and I am proud to say that, thanks to all of their efforts, NCS won U11 IAPS. Thank you to Max, Tristan, Thomas, Tom, George, Hugo, Noah and Xander for all their commitment throughout the day. We look forward to the next stage of the competition taking place in March!’
Upcoming Events
Monday, 6 February 2023
Charity Week begins
Start of Year 8/8S PSB/scholarship mocks week
Year 3-8 mid-year self-reviews completed and sent home this week
14.00 U13 House Matches. St Edward's
Tuesday, 7 February 2023
Safer Internet Day
13.30 U8 & U9 Hockey vs Manor Prep. Iffley Rd
16.00 U9, U11, U13 Chess vs Dragon
Wednesday, 8 February 2023
9.00 Chapel. Speaker: The Revd Professor William Whyte, Professor of Social and Architectural History, St John's College
14.30 U11 A-D Hockey vs Manor Prep, Venue TBC
14.00 U13 A-D Hockey vs Summer Fields. St Edward's
Friday, 10 February 2023
9.00 U13 A IAPS Hockey Regionals. Cheltenham College
15.30 U11 A Hockey Oxon County Cup. Hawks
Saturday, 11 February 2023
Start of Half-Term
Monday, 20 February 2023
14.00 U13 Hockey House Matches. St Edward's
17:30 Drama Club Presents Toad of Toad Hall
Tuesday, 21 February 2023
14.30 U8&9 A-C Football vs Ashfold. Away
14.30 U9 A Football vs Ashfold. Home
Wednesday, 22 February 2023
9.00 Chapel. Speaker: The Chaplain
14.15 U11 A-D Hockey vs Ashfold. St Edward's
14.15 U13 A- D Hockey vs Ashfold. Away
Friday, 24 February 2023
10.00-12.00 Year 4 Mosque visit
14.00 U11 Hockey House Matches. St Edward's