As part of our International Women's Day celebrations, Mini and Paty, the Chief Executive Editors of the NSB Science Journal, are excited to share the latest edition of the NSB Science Journal. This special issue was released on Monday to mark NSB's celebrations of International Women’s Day and celebrates the incredible contributions of women in STEM. Inside, you’ll find inspiring articles about pioneering scientists, engineers, and medical innovators. From Marie Curie and Emmy Noether to Katherine Johnson and Elizabeth Blackburn, alongside powerful stories about women shaping medicine, technology, and life sciences.

We hope these articles highlight the achievements, resilience, and impact of these remarkable women.

 

Huge thanks to everyone who watched and supported Junction 26 on Friday / Saturday - both evenings were an absolute triumph with an outstanding standard of dance on display performed in front of capacity audiences - an absolute true feel - good event which is a firmly embedded annual jewel in our calendar.

 

Wednesday's Music concert was a triumph with a particularly inspirational segment of the programme when NSB current students played former student Will Donaldson's Piano Concerto.  Mrs Yates reports:

Thank you to everyone involved in such an amazing concert.  I could really hear (and see) the progress the groups have made since Christmas, there were some really great moments on stage last night, some laugh out loud moments, some whooping from the audience and some parts that left the audience simply entranced and in awe.  

I can't wait to hear most of it again at the Regional Music For Youth Finals next week!   I look forward to doing it all again for our Summer Concert - Thursday 2 July - picnic on the lawn!  

NSB made history last weekend by becoming the first school to ever qualify for 3 of the 4 National Cup School Finals available in English school age group rugby. Many congratulations to everyone who contributes to such a stratospherically successful programme.

The trilogy of Semi-Finals last week all swung NSB's way - most comfortable to watch was the U14 game with a 17-0 win over Sedbergh. However, there was a short turnaround to the final played this Tuesday at Oundle School. The NSB boys, after a strong first half, could unfortunately not do quite enough to get the better of a very strong Ysgol Glantaf School. It has, however been a sensational National Cup Run to the final and great credit goes to all players and coaching staff who have enjoyed such a fantastic season.

The level of drama in the U18 and U15 Semi- Finals last weekend was so intense that several NSB coaches needed post-match reviving! If you haven't seen the games and even if you don't particularly like rugby, I would strongly recommend watching the last ten minutes of each. The U18 Final will be played at Twickenham on Thursday, March 19^th at 4.30pm v Epsom College and the U15 Final at Ealing TrailFinders on Wednesday, March 18^th at 3pm v Whitgift School. Both games will be live-streamed with commentary - available through the English RFU website.

U15 National Cup Semi Final v Warwick - watch from 6 hours 25 minutes

U18 National Cup Semi Final v Campion -watch from 4hours 42 minutes

Two of the U18 squad have been selected to represent England U18s v France tomorrow  - Aiden Reid and Jack Lewis. After three spectacular appearances for the Saints First Team this month, Jack was also awarded the Saints Player of the Month in a special assembly at school this week!

 

Huge congratulations to the U13 rugby team who carried off the Winchester Sevens Tournament title last Saturday at the same time as the U18s were winning their Semi-Final. This is the third year in a row that we have won this prestigious competition!

On the theme of sport, a huge well done to Jacob Adiamah Y9 who was one half of a J14 double scull that took part in the Eastern Region Junior Inter-regional Regatta trials on 8 March 2026 in Peterborough. The duo landed first place and qualified for the finals on 25 April 2026 at the National Water Sports Centre in Nottingham.

There has been some extraordinary Maths success to celebrate this week as our top Year 8 and 9 mathematicians overcame extensive State and Private School opposition to win the UK Team Maths Challenge Regional Final. Team Coach, Mr Hatton Perkins reports:  

Tuesday the 10^th saw our two best Mathematicians in Year 8 and Year 9 team-up to take on the Team Maths Challenge in Milton Keynes. Team NSB were joined by sixteen other schools all battling it out for one spot in the National Final; nerves were high, but the team of Sebastian Bloomer, Max Panton, James Utteridge and Jiahao Ao were keen to tackle it. 

A morning session of Maths, with a focus on problem solving, saw a Group Round score of 51/60 and a Cross-number score of 60/62 putting us firmly in the top 5 at the break for lunch with 10 points separating the top 10 schools. It was a close affair!

The afternoon saw two speed rounds in the Shuttle Round and the Relay. A huge effort saw an excellent score of 55/60 in the shuttle round, the team picking up 9 crucial bonus points for speed. The relay saw a nervy start, 7 of the 30 minutes spent on the first question, once that had been dealt with the boys flew, scoring an impressive 44/60 at what looked to be a tough round.

A final score of 210/242 saw NSB take first place at the end of the day and qualify for the National Finals! A massive achievement that all boys should be immensely proud of. A trip to Manchester in June to compete with the best in the country awaits!

 

It has been an incredibly rich week of Personal Development Activities. Mrs Greenaway who oversees the whole school Personal Development Programme reports:

Student Conference on Social Media

14 students from Y9 - 12 attended the For Students By Student Conference on Social Media: Friend or Foe? Arranged by Quinton House, this took place at Frankin Gardens this week with schools from across Northamptonshire. The programme was full with a vast array of speakers from a myriad of fields but all with their focus today on Social Media:

Tir Dhondy - journalist and documentary filmmaker, recently interviewing the men behind IT Sex Scams 

Caroline Strawson, founder of the Mental Wellbeing Company

Dr Catherine Knibbs, influencer for Online Harm, psychotherapist, author

Matthew Lovegrove, educational technologist

Kahvan Bryan, education leader, facilitator and content creator

Detective Superintendent Seb Adjei-Addoh

Topics were hard hitting and thought provoking, eliciting much discussion around Fake news, Sextortion and the use of AI, banning social media for under 16s, the impact of Social Media on our brains and wellbeing alongside connectedness and the benefits of using social media to network. Lots of pros and lots of cons! The issues were discussed maturely and sensitively with students from other schools and the day ended with a heated Q&A, very much like question time! Everyone was left with much food for thoughts and now the students will prepare to feed back what they have learnt to the wider NSB community.

Commonwealth Day Event

On Monday morning, 5 students from the Leadership Team; Charlie, Angus, Stanley, Erin and Aadya gathered alongside Dr David Jones, General Secretary (honorary), Commonwealth Organisation for Social Work and 2 local social workers, who now live in the UK but who were originally from Malawi. The students were privileged to be part of a live zoom link to Malawi with Stephano, a social worker in Malawi, who talked of how they benefit from the Commonwealth through sharing ideas/structures and training in relation to social work and Hard who was at the embassy in Malawi at their Commonwealth celebrations.

The students read passages relating to The Commonwealth and asked questions of the guests and then the questions were turned to them, and they were asked: What did the Commonwealth mean to them? The students were eloquent in their replies, seeing that, at a time when we might see the world as fractured and disconnected, the Commonwealth was a symbol of unity, support and affinity.

A key take away was the concept of Ubuntu - an African philosophy which can be called different things in different African cultures but essentially meaning togetherness. Anstance talked of Desmond Tutu who said, "I am, because we are", conveying this as a translation of Ubuntu; highlighting the notion of interconnectedness; communal identity and accountability, compassion and shared destiny/humanity. Thank you to all who took the time to connect, it was such a positive and enlightening experience.

 

Jakub Wojcik - County PD Honour

Jakub Wojcik has been honoured with a Breaking Barriers Award from the Northamptonshire Youth Awards, recognising his resilience and positive attitude in the face of adversity,  for never letting his cheerful soul and pure strength flicker despite his struggles with health. 

 

 

West Northants Youth Advisory Trip to the Houses of Parliament

Two NSB students - Michal Wojcik and Kyla Mpofu were part of a recent Youth Advisory Council visit to Parliament - West Northants - on return Michal reported " It was an awesome visit, Parliament was magnificent, and seeing the debate in the House of Commons was amazing! "

 

 

Campfire Northampton

Many congratulations to NSB students Zakk Carpenter, Filip Walczak, Matei Nedelcu, Ryan Carpenter who took full responsibility for putting together and running a hugely successful and inspirational recent community event.

The aim of Campfire was to bring students from across West Northants together with the goal of teaching them how to code and create their own games. It was part of Hack Club's Campfire - a series of student-led events running in 200 cities on the same date. Amongst these, Campfire Northampton achieved a 100% project submission rate, meaning all attendees successfully made and submitted a game, which is a testament to the hard work and dedication the lads put into not just organising, but also running it on the day.

In tIn the months leading up to the event, the students took on a huge amount of responsibility, securing the venue and sponsorship (including 40 YubiKeys from Yubico), advertising fundraising, managing communications with attendees, updating the website, completing a risk assessment, organising supervision, planning allergen-aware catering, budgeting, marketing and coordinating the full schedule. The level of commitment and organisation he demonstrated was exceptional.

On the day of the event, all the boys worked exceptionally hard in ensuring participants were engaged and enjoying themselves. Matei and Filip did an amazing job with the opening presentation, ensuring to include safety and fire procedures whilst also keeping it fun and engaging. All of them were also very attentive to the younger participants and ensured they were comfortable throughout. 

Thank you also to Mrs Rice and the resources team for their support as well as special thanks to Mr Lehman who gave up his Saturday afternoon to help supervise the event. 

 

Finally, a message from Director of Trust Reading, Mrs Barlow:

The award-winning author Tom Palmer is visiting school on Thursday 30th April to speak to students in Years 7 and 8 about his books, his career and his writing inspiration. To celebrate the day, Tom will be signing copies of his new book: "If the Invader Comes". If parents wish to purchase a copy for students to have signed on the day, these are available on ParentPay to purchase until Thursday 26th March.

 

Richard Bernard

Headteacher