Dear Old North Londoners, Every year brings new and exciting developments to North London Collegiate School, and this past year has been true to form. At the end of the summer, building was completed on our first franchise abroad, the North London Collegiate School (Jeju) campus on an island off the tip of South Korea. NLCS (Jeju) opened in September 2011 and physically echoes elements of NLCS (London), with features such as an avenue of trees, a modern version of Glassy Porch and a pergola. In addition to opening up many stimulating cultural links for the girls and professional development opportunities for our teachers, who help select and train the Jeju staff, this exciting initiative will generate additional funds for bursary places here at Canons, enabling us to maintain the tradition of offering an ambitious education to able girls, regardless of background. NLCS staff continue to work closely with state school teachers to design and run the teacher training programmes for the Prince’s Teaching Institute. Over the last 10 years, 3,300 teachers of English, History, Geography, Maths and Science have benefited from PTI residential training. Over 1000 state schools are involved in the programme which now also includes Modern Foreign Languages; Art and Music will be introduced late in 2012. In addition, 100 head teachers have taken part in the PTI leadership programme. A great school is continually looking to provide excellence for its pupils. At North London Collegiate School, we are particularly proud of our achievements. We are now faced with the need for more science laboratories, additional classrooms and improved dining facilities. To meet these needs, we are embarking on an ambitious building project of a major new teaching block which will provide additional classrooms and laboratories, social space, and a much needed extension of the Dining Room. The estimated total cost of this project is £6 million pounds. This year the school set a record for the number of girls applying for places, with over 550 applications for approximately 60 external places in Year 7. In addition, over 20 new girls will join the Sixth Form. About 7% of girls in the Senior School are on some level of bursary assistance. However, the economic climate continues to challenge us and we were unable to offer bursaries to several bright students because the school had insufficient funds. From the time of Frances Mary Buss bursary places have been available to girls and they are an integral part of the school’s history. As well as franchising income we are seeking support at any level for our bursary programme which could make a significant difference to a young girl’s future. For the Coronation in 1953, different sectors of the NLCS community planted trees in the school. We are revisiting that tradition in this Jubilee year of her accession. On Founder’s Day this year, six trees will be planted on the Canons grounds by representatives of six different NLCS constituencies – the ONLs, the Senior School girls, the Junior School girls, the Governors, the Staff and the Parents. In the summer term, we look forward to an exciting programme of events throughout the school to celebrate the Queen’s Jubilee. The girls at NLCS participate in a broad range of extracurricular programmes. Drama is always exciting at NLCS, and this year is no exception. Amongst the many wonderful productions this year, Yrs 8 & 9 performed the world premiere of ‘Juniper Dreams’, a new musical written by our Director of Drama, with music by our Assistant Director of Music. The Senior girls brought a new experience to Macbeth by staging it with an all female cast in a 21st-century media-driven world. An ONL, who finished her A levels at NLCS in July 2011, had two pieces selected for inclusion in the Saatchi Gallery – Sunday Telegraph Art Prize for Schools 2011. In this London Olympic year, I would like to highlight a few of the girls’ numerous and varied sporting achievements. Two girls, both currently on the Lacrosse first team at NLCS, have been chosen to play International Lacrosse – one for Wales U19 and the other for England Junior Lacrosse. A Year 8 girl won the gold medal at the Middlesex County Cross Country meet. The NLCS U14 and U16 badminton teams were both crowned county winners. A Year 9 girl, who trains for swimming seven days a week and trains for water polo an additional 4 days a week, has been selected for the GB Water Polo junior squad. The Junior School will hold a Sports Week at the beginning of the Summer Term during which the girls will explore the Olympic values through a wide variety of sports and co-operative activities. Following a special opening ceremony the girls will participate in fencing, golf and cheer leading. The Parents’ Guild has kindly sponsored a cycling day and there will also be a focus on skipping to increase personal fitness and fun in the playground. This special week should give the girls an opportunity to be part of the London Olympic excitement. Just last year we had the pleasure of hosting a 100th birthday party for Connie Hurran (ONL 1929). Sadly, Connie died this past autumn after a short illness. We celebrated her life and contribution to NLCS with a memorial service on the 15th of March in school. ONLs are always welcome to visit us and we greatly enjoy hearing all your news. I hope to see you at school again soon. With warmest wishes,
Bernice McCabe Headmistress
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| ONLine magazine
Academic Report Francesca Wade (2008)
I
spent three weeks on the British School at Athens’ summer course, “The Archaeology and Topography of Ancient Greece”. We stayed in Athens for ten days before travelling around the Peloponnese, visiting sites well known from history books including Mycenae, Olympia, Sparta and Pylos. Days consisted of visits to museums, monuments and sites dating from the early Bronze Age to the Roman occupation of Greece in the first centuries AD. We also had plenty of time to make the most of the beautiful weather on beaches throughout the Peloponnese and on an excursion to the island of Aegina. I particularly enjoyed our visit to the famous oracle at Delphi, and Eleusis, where mystery cults were celebrated, as well as seeing familiar objects in museums, such as the mask of Agamemnon, and visiting places further off the beaten track, like Brauron, home to a fertility cult dedicated to Artemis. The trip really brought to life my studies of Classics; it opened my eyes to a wealth of archaeological evidence which complements the literary evidence I’m more used to studying. I know that the experience will prove invaluable for my course, as well as having been a hugely enjoyable trip.