We enjoyed a wonderful Comedy Store Production last night, overseen by Miss Bason. Findlay Normanton (Year 11) was an outstanding compere and had the audience in regular hysterics. All performers were excellent with young  Max Harris from Year 7 particularly bringing the house down with a wonderful Tommy Cooper set- just like that! In addition, the audience enjoyed extracts from Dad's Army, Only Fools and Horses, The Two Ronnies, Fawlty Towers, to name but a few- and endless jokes from Findlay in between! On the acting theme, we were also delighted to hear this week that Lucy Brooks in Year 13 will be performing in a play at The Cockpit Theatre in London in December as part of a ‘Theatre in the Pound’ showcase where the Theatre opens its doors to groups and individuals to showcase new work to a full audience.

In my bulletin last week I mentioned that the Year 12 debating team were pitting their wits against other schools in the Spencer Perceval Sixth Form debating competition organised by local MP, Andrew Lewer. I’m pleased to report that the team of  Alex Do, Saffron Smith, Matthew Timlin and Honey Adedoyin Yakubb performed brilliantly, winning through three rounds before being pipped in the final. The team were described as ‘slick and fiercely intelligent’ by the organisers and deserve great credit for their achievements, especially given that they were a year younger than the majority of the other participants.

The subject spotlight this week falls upon History which is an incredibly popular and high achieving subject at the school at both GCSE and A Level. The piece is written by Curriculum Team Leader, John Marshall and focuses on recent Year 11 study into the form and function of castles as well as the module undertaken by Year 8 into the English Civil War, centring around the pivotal battle held in Northamptonshire at Nasby. 

The NSB U15 Water Polo Team were on fine form on Thursday, winning 3 matches and drawing 1 in the First Round of the National Water Polo Cup. As one of the two top ranked teams after these matches in Round 1, they now progress through to the Regional Finals of the top tier of the competition. The U12 Water Polo Team also showed huge promise in their victory over Haberdashers’ Boys’ School and there were strong wins in the National Cups for the U12A and the U15A Football teams and the U14A Rugby Team.

We are starting to build up a sizable pile of lost property in Student Services. Anything named is immediately returned to students and it is hugely helpful if parents  / carers can name all uniform items in case they do get lost! If students are missing unnamed items they should visit student services as soon as possible.

Finally, we are looking forward to welcoming Year 6 students to the school tomorrow for the annual Admission Testing. The school continues to be very popular with well over 900 applications received for a place in next year’s Year 7.

Richard Bernard

Headmaster

Northampton School for Boys