DEVELOPMENT AND ALUMNAE

We were delighted to start the academic year of 2020-21 by welcoming all the students and staff back to the School for in-person teaching. While the year continued to be unpredictable, we are extremely grateful for all the support and resilience from the NLCS community.

NLCS is dependent on philanthropic support to raise money for important capital projects and bursaries. The provision of bursary places is central to the ethos of the School, and the Bernice McCabe Bursary Fund continues to thrive, providing opportunities to transform lives. Funded by donations, franchising, and investment income, during 2020/21 the School awarded 68 bursaries, with a total value of £1,435,208; 64 students were on 100% bursaries. The School’s strategic intent is to increase bursary provision to 10% of Senior School tuition fees. We would like to thank all the outgoing Year 13 parents who donated their school deposits to the bursary fund.

Although the pandemic meant we could not host all our events in person, this did not stop us from getting the NLCS community together for a series of online events. In October 2020, we were delighted to host a 50+ ‘Zoom’ reunion for the Class of 1970, other ONLs (Old North Londoners) from previous years and some of our Frances Mary Buss Fellowship legators. We were joined by over 100 ONLs from countries across the globe, including Australia, New Zealand, the east and west coasts of the USA, and France. This was a lively event with ONLs sharing their memories of their time at school and updates on their lives since leaving. This was accompanied by a slideshow of old photos from the archives, including a section about Theatrics at NLCS.

As Christmas approached, we hosted a festive online Carol Service. ONLs joined us to watch pre-recorded videos of current students singing a variety of carols, including ‘Silent Night’ sung in German by some of the Junior School students, and Mr Lawrence’s rendition of ‘O Come, All Ye Faithful’ on the organ.

This year’s Founder’s Day was hosted online, which meant that the event was open to all ONLs, many of whom joined us to celebrate. Mrs Clark’s Founder’s Day address focused on the theme of ‘Sustainability’ at NLCS. The environmental surroundings have clearly always been important to the students at the school – Mrs Clark shared a poem written by an ONL in 1932, entitled ‘Night Traffic’, which talked about the pollution from traffic that surrounded the School in Sandall Road. It was exciting to hear her outline the School’s Environment Strategy 2020-2030 at the end her address. The online event was so well received, that future Founder’s Day services will be streamed online so that any ONL can join.

During the pandemic, the mentoring and career services programme continued to play an important role in the lives of the Sixth Form students. We would like to thank all the mentors who took the time to support and mentor these students for the next phase of their educational journey.

We continue to reach out to more and more ONLs to strengthen our network. If you are aware of any ONLs who are not receiving communications directly from the Alumnae Relations Department, please ask them to contact us at onla@nlcs.org.uk.

DEVELOPMENT AND ALUMNAE RELATIONS