Academic Highlights

Enrichment

The start of the academic year brought a sense of optimism and excitement as we returned to some sense of normality following the restrictions of the previous years due to the pandemic. Student-led events, a central pillar of the enrichment programme at NLCS, could recommence, alongside Music, Drama, and Sports, with students in every year group taking part in a rich and diverse menu of opportunities.

Our key priorities for Academic Development throughout the year focused on the following:

• Enabling students to excel through quality formative assessment and feedback. • Inspiring subject passion, intellectual curiosity and excellence through active learning within the classroom. • Re-establishing our community and connections through academically ambitious and student-led enrichment.

VISITING SPEAKERS

Throughout the year, we welcomed more than 200 visiting speakers for a range of events, from lunchtime and after-school meetings to Senior Societies, Science Café, and Evening Talks. Our Keynote Lecture, delivered by Alan Rusbridger, former editor of The Guardian, commenced the annual Senior Societies programme. His erudite discussion examined changes in the press over the past decade and the problems facing the industry in an age of social media.

Other speakers this year have included:

• Sophie Scott, Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at UCL, gave a lively and engaging lecture on the science of laughter. • Sir Andrew Large, previous Deputy Governor for Financial Stability at the Bank of England and a member of its Monetary Policy Committee, spoke about ‘what central banks do and how they do it’. • Professor Giles Yeo, 2013 winner of The JBS Haldane Lecture, an award which recognises an individual for outstanding ability to communicate topical subjects in genetics research, discussed the link between genetics and obesity at Science Café, followed by 2021 winner Professor

Matthew Cobb, who discussed the history of our ideas about brain and behaviour at Senior

Societies. • Betty Webb, a former decoder at Bletchley Park, spoke about her experiences as a woman in the

Armed Forces, how feminism has changed since the early 20th century and offered a fascinating insight into her career at Bletchley.

COMPETITIONS

Stretching our students beyond the prescribed curriculum and embedding subject scholarship and passion has enabled students to achieve excellence across many areas, and there have been many examples of success across departments this year: • We received the School’s best-ever results in the IMC Junior Maths Challenge, with a record number of students (110) qualifying for the second round in the Intermediate

Mathematical Olympiad. • In Computer Science, 14 students reached the second round of the Perse Coding Challenge (attaining a rank within the top 25% of 6000 entries). • NLCS qualified for the final of the International

Cyber Centurion competition as the top female-only team.

• NLCS entered all six VEX competitions, with one team receiving a Judge’s Award. • A team from NLCS won the National

Spanish Debating

Competition, and students were awarded

Silver and Bronze certificates in the

UK Linguistics

Olympiad. • Two students won The Royal Institute of

Philosophy Essay Competition, and our MFL department had two students win the Anthea

Bell prize run by Queen’s College, Oxford. • Four students competed in the final of the

University of Cambridge Translation Bee. • A student in Year 10 was awarded first prize in the Oxford University Creative Writing

Competition.

STUDENT PUBLICATIONS

Student-led journals and publications have also been a feature of the Enrichment programme. Across the year, over 40 publications have been created and can be read online HERE. In addition, some of our societies have created specialist blogs and podcasts: Our Mental Health & Wellbeing Committee created a fortnightly podcast featuring interviews and discussions, and our scientists created ‘NLCS TechTalk’ a future-looking online tech magazine.

In addition to our celebration and commemoration of annual events, such as Holocaust Memorial Day, Pride Month, Neurodiversity Week, World Book Day and International Women’s Day, several subject-focus weeks have taken place. For many of these, students ran events, invited speakers, held seminars, and produced outstanding journals. Subject weeks have included History and Politics, Languages, Science and Classics, all providing fascinating opportunities for students to explore topics and their passions beyond the current curriculum.

SCIENCE WEEK

Growth was the theme of this year’s event, and to celebrate, a plethora of lectures, activities and interactive sessions were organised. Middle School Science Club enjoyed a Vaccine Hunt, which matched different vaccines with their respective diseases, hidden around the School. Young Medics club explored cloning with cauliflower experiments before learning about the science behind Dolly the Sheep. Other activities included a Middle School Science Discussion Group, exploring the mysterious title “Drugs, Chemistry and Mirror Images”, a hands-on session on the theme of ‘Growth in the Context of Chemical Reactions’, a Science Café talk on the topic of regenerative medicine including the synthesis of artificial tissues and organs and a mind-blowing discussion hosted by the Space and Astronomy Club about the expansion of the universe from the Big Bang.

LANGUAGES WEEK

We hosted a vibrant and dynamic languages week on Language Diversity. The week opened with a thought-provoking assembly on Cockney rhyming slang to illustrate that language diversity is all around us. A Modern Foreign Languages Symposium focused on the understanding of Pidgins, Creoles, Dialects and Minority Languages with a talk from Lecturer in Linguistics, Dr Melody Pattinson from Cardiff University, and the power of Catalan, delivered by Dr Isabel Crespí and Professor John London from the Department of Linguistics at Queen Mary University, London. A highlight of the week was the IX Hispanic Theatre Festival. The quality of the performances and the incredible effort of all participants were outstanding. NLCS participants were once more recognised for their brilliance with many accolades.

It was not only diversity in languages celebrated all around the School; different societies embraced the theme through the Science of phonemes or dialects in Ancient Roman and Greek Civilisation.

SUMMER FESTIVAL

MODEL UNITED NATIONS

MUN has continued to move from strength to strength, winning many accolades across all events, including the Highly Commended, Distinguished Team and Best Delegate categories.

Following the success of our Senior School NLCSMUN conference in 2020, we introduced the activity to our Junior School students. Most schools only offer the MUN club to older students as it is a challenging and complex simulation of United Nations Conferences, but our Year 6 students engaged with great enthusiasm, taking on the challenge with poise. Following the success of the event, we launched our inaugural mini-NLCSMUN conference welcoming Year 5 students from Bute House, Pembridge Hall, and St Christopher’s to join NLCS pupils to form four committees. It was a fantastic event and was entirely student-led by our expert MUN leaders in the Sixth Form and Year 11. The year culminated in the annual Summer Festival, for which the theme this year was ‘Platinum: A Celebration of the Past Seventy Years’. This was our first Festival without the limitations imposed on us by the pandemic and across the week, over 30 events were hosted. From concerts to performances and lectures, our students led a range of events that allowed the NLCS community to engage with this theme in a highly academic and focused manner. As ever, the Festival Afternoon saw every Society lead a session for the younger students, with sessions ranging from a discussion about the nature of the monarchy to changes in attitudes to Mental Health, and debates about the Queen’s Speech. Visiting speakers included Professors from Oxbridge, with talks given on issues as complex and engaging as sentencing law over the past seventy years through to the changes in the role of women. As ever, our students had tremendous fun, with particular highlights including a treasure hunt organised by our MFL Department and Polyglot Society to find the ‘missing’ Crown Jewels and a student-led concert highlighting music from the past seventy years.

YOUNG ENTERPRISE

Three Year 12 student companies participated in the Young Enterprise North and Central London Showcase and Competition Final.

This was the first major London round in this Europe-wide competition which challenges groups of students to set up and manage their own businesses to develop and launch a product or service. The standard set on the day was incredibly high. In an exceptionally strong field, Team IRIS won the coveted ‘Best Teamwork’ award for their infectious team spirit, effective use of HR to manage challenges and their 18-strong team. Team ORNA came second place to win ‘Best Company – Runner Up’ for their ethical and sustainable tote bags, and Atlas Hoodies received high commendation for their professionalism and dedication.