Lower 6 Pupil, Melissa Hawkings, Chosen as Guest Musician for the National Youth Orchestra 2025

February 17, 2025

Following her success as an Associate Musician in 2024, Melissa Hawkings (L6) has been chosen as a Guest Musician for the National Youth Orchestra 2025! To celebrate this achievement we asked her few questions about what this entails, her experience as a musician and what she is looking forward to.


Can you tell me a little bit about what being a Guest for the National Youth Orchestra means?

It involves taking part in two NYO residencies, where I’ll work on orchestral pieces as part of the horn section and give concerts around the UK at the end of each residency. My next involvement with the orchestra is in April, where we will perform Bernstein’s West Side Story and Stravinsky’s Ballet Petrushka, which I can’t wait to play! The highlight is the Summer Residency, which will culminate in a performance at the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall. Bringing music to local communities is also a part of being an NYO Guest. For example, I’m going to Blackpool this half term, where I will perform to hundreds of young people in the Blackpool Tower and then lead creative workshops in local secondary schools.


And how long is a residency?

Each residency is around 13 days, in which the first 8 or 9 days are spent rehearsing and getting to know other musicians, and the rest is spent doing a concert tour.


Will this take place in the holidays?

Yes it will.


Do you have to do any additional things in term-time as well?

It depends on which events you get allocated to - one of my events will overlap by 2 or 3 days.


And has the school been supportive of your musical journey?

Yes, they have been really supportive! All the teachers are really helpful, both from an academic and performance perspective. They have given me loads of performance opportunities throughout the years such as recitals and masterclasses, and have also supported me in going to the Royal College of Music on Saturday, where I receive my instrumental lessons and play in the symphony orchestra and chamber groups.


And what was the process of applying like?

There are two rounds. For the first round, I filmed myself performing a piece and a few orchestral excerpts, which are famous horn moments from orchestral pieces. Following this, I was selected for a second round audition, where I performed a piece and orchestral excerpts to a live panel of NYO tutors. I also took part in ensemble workshops throughout the day. It was quite nerve racking at first, especially playing to 3 completely new people, but I got a lot out of it.


And what happened after that?

The first year I auditioned, I was offered the position of an Associate Musician, which involved taking part in the Winter and Summer Residencies. For me, the highlight of this was playing in Strauss’ Alpine Symphony and the world premiere of Dani Howard’s piece Ascent. This year, I was offered a place as a Guest Musician, which will involve playing a lot more in the orchestra.


What is the difference between a Guest and Associate Musician?

Being an associate involved performing in selected parts of the concert tours, whereas as a Guest, I will fully take part in 2 of the residencies, and perform in all of the pieces during the concert tours.


How long have you been playing?

Since I was 11. I started at the local Music Hub at CNS and I really enjoyed it, but I can’t remember why I picked the horn!


What A Levels do you study at Norwich School?

Music, English and Spanish.


What does being a musical scholar at Norwich School entail?

It’s a really exciting part of school life. I play in lots of ensembles such as Gateway Orchestra and Cathedral trumpets, and also in masterclasses that come up through the Making Musicians Programme. For example, In March I played in a masterclass with Amos Miller, who is the Head of Brass at the Royal College of Music. You can also get involved in recitals through the Making Musicians programmes, or performing in services such as Remembrance, where I played the Last Post on trumpet. It was unlike any other concert, I could only hear myself as everyone was silent, I enjoyed playing a lot.


How do you find balancing your music with your studies?

Sometimes it is challenging to keep everything going, especially last year whilst taking my GCSEs, but the school have been incredibly supportive. Music is always something I can go to relax, like when you think about it all I’m doing is blowing down a piece of tubing so it’s quite low stakes from that perspective.


What are you most excited for in your upcoming residency?

I’m really excited to get to know the horn section, which may sound a bit geeky, but its rare to come across so many horn players in one place! Most of all, I’m excited to perform the music from West Side Story in Bridgewater Hall, because one of the pieces involves shouting Mambo in the middle of it!


Are you nervous about anything in particular?

The first few days of the residency are always a bit nerve wracking because of all the new people, but you get used to it after a while.


Have you ever composed yourself?

Yes I have, although I wouldn’t really consider myself a composer (I had to do it at GCSE). I’d like to get better at it.


What are your future goals in music?

I’d really like to give more recitals, take part in some competitions, and get a place at a conservatoire.


What would you say to any young people who are thinking they might want to play the French Horn?

Do it! I think one of the best things about music is playing with other people, and the horn is suited for so many different ensembles where you can explore a variety of genres. It’s a really unique and special instrument.

Tom Little KC, ON 82-91, Returns to Norwich School

By Sonja Mitchell • September 26, 2025
We are very grateful to Tom Little for being our guest speaker at Prizegiving this year.

Professor Charles Forsdick, ON 78-87, on the Role of Languages to Build a Better World.

By Sonja Mitchell • September 26, 2025
We were delighted to hear Professor Charles Forsdick speak about the importance of languages in society at a recent Norfolk Cambridge Society lecture at Norwich School.

Girls Mentorship Programme Returns for New Academic Year

September 24, 2025
The school's first female peer-mentoring meeting of the academic year brought together fourth form students with sixth form mentors in an initiative designed to promote sisterhood and establish a strong sense of community within our female cohorts. During the session, younger students shared their academic and personal goals for the year in small discussion groups, with sixth form mentors offering guidance and encouragement drawn from their own experiences. The collaborative atmosphere allowed students to explore practical strategies for achieving their aspirations while building meaningful cross-year relationships. The session concluded with discussions surrounding the name of the programme, with students proposing to honour an inspirational woman who holds significance for them. This programme aims to foster positive female role models within the school while empowering students to support one another's growth and success. Regular meetings throughout the year will continue and this initiative represents the school's ongoing commitment to developing confident and brave young women.

Pupils from the Friedrich-Leopold-Woeste-Gymnasium Visit the Close

By Eleanor Lewis • September 22, 2025
On Monday 15 and Tuesday 16 September, 28 pupils from the Friedrich-Leopold-Woeste-Gymnasium visited Norwich School as part of their Languages trip to Norwich. On Monday, they were treated to a tour of the school in German by our U5 GCSE class and on Tuesday, the two classes were excited to see each other again and spent the afternoon speaking German and English to each other at a Language cafe in UKS, where they ended the afternoon by playing board games together. The pupils enjoyed getting to know each other and speaking each other's languages. They will keep in contact privately now that the German group has departed. Quotes from pupils are as follows: 'We were laughing with them the whole time!' 'We made some strong connections with them and will talk with them online' 'It was very nice to meet them and make some new friends!' 'It was very enjoyable and a lovely opportunity to practise our German and make new friends.' 'It was nice to meet and talk to them while practising our German.' 'We went to the city with them and loved it!' 'We learnt so much about their home in Germany.'

On the Front of the Book - An Assembly from Rev Child

By Eleanor Lewis • September 19, 2025
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?” (Matthew 6:25-27) There’s a saying that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. Years ago I met someone who doesn’t like that saying very much. That’s because his job is to design book covers. I watched him lead a really interesting seminar where he showed us some of his designs. He explained how his artwork was trying to sum up – on just one piece of laminated, folded paper - the message and themes of all the other pages in the book. Just occasionally, some book covers do this by choosing a key phrase from the book and putting it in large letters on the front. A famous example is Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell, where some editions had a cover that read: ‘Big Brother is Watching You’. If you know the story then you’ll recognise that as the sinister propaganda message that no-one can get away from. Some copies of the Lord of the Rings had printed on the front ‘One ring to rule them all’. And The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams had just two words on the cover of some editions – ‘DON’T PANIC’. It begins to make sense when you discover that some of the characters in the story are using a space travel guide (the Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) which is designed to help you through any difficult situation. And what makes the guide so successful and popular is that its first principle is on the front cover. Whatever happens – DON’T PANIC. Have a look at the cover of your hymn book for a moment. What do you think? We’ve gone for a pretty classic look. The name of our school in gold embossed lettering, and the school crest complete with a motto in Latin for a classy finish. Sometimes I wonder – entirely hypothetically – how we might redesign the cover. If you were going to put a few words on the front, one essential message that everyone in the school was going to see at the beginning of every day, what would it be? Here are a few suggestions I got from people around the school, some more serious than others: · “Show Love” · “Shine Bright!” · “Treat others as you would like to be treated” · “Do some work in your study periods” · “Wake Up!” Actually, I think the words ‘DON’T PANIC’ might work here too. I hope you’re realising, now that we’re a few weeks into term, that panicking is never worth it – and if you’re tempted to panic then sharing your problem and talking to someone almost always helps. Maybe that would be good to remember at the start of the school day. This also reminds me of one of my favourite passages from the Bible, the words of Jesus we heard just now: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? … Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?”  I’ve had times myself where those words from the Sermon on the Mount have given me some perspective. Perhaps part of that passage would work well on the front of our hymn books – that wouldn’t be a bad thing to keep remembering. We’re not about to reissue the school hymn books with a new cover any time soon. But there’s nothing stopping you imagining a message on the front of the hymn book – whatever you need that message to be. “Don’t panic.” “Do not worry.” “Show love.” Why not have a few helpful words in your mind’s eye every time you pick up these blue books in the morning?

Air Raid Shelter Open to Visitors

By Sonja Mitchell • September 19, 2025
As part of Heritage Open Days we were delighted to open the Air Raid Shelter and Norwich School Chapel to visitors this month.

Contemporary Arts group Entranced by Collaborative Artists in Blake Studio

By Eleanor Lewis • September 18, 2025
Creative Arts are strongly supported at Norwich School, and this was very much in evidence with the return to site of the well-respected local Creative Arts group, the Norfolk Contemporary Art Society (n-cas). For many years we have hosted their ground-breaking talks in the Blake Studio, and we were delighted to welcome them back on 18 September 2025. Our talk was introduced by Lisa Newby, recently appointed Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at Norfolk Museums, based at the Castle. She introduced us to Essex-based multimedia artists Daniel & Clara . Since meeting in 2010, the pair have dedicated themselves to a shared life of creative experimentation, working across moving image, photography, performance and ‘mail-art’ to explore the nature of human experience, the natural world and our perception of reality. With work recently on display at Norwich Castle Museum, this was a welcome trip to Norfolk for them and one which saw them entertain an audience of pupils, staff, alumni, n-cas members and local creatives with a visually arresting talk, including some striking images and poetic prose accompaniment. Of great interest were the selection of their short films that showcased their love of the natural world through landscapes, intriguingly crafted taxidermy imagery and appealing sound archives. In the ensuing Q&A the audience seemed very taken by their reflections on how up-and-coming creative artists, such as themselves, have to work hard to earn a living through constant innovation and multimedia versatility. Working with Norwich Castle and commissions from n-cas were undoubted highlights, readily acknowledged by Daniel & Clara. N-cas host regular talks at Norwich School. Their next talk is on 14 October – see: The Mike Toll Film Archive - three short films featuring David Jones, Michael Chapman and Oliver Creed — ncas . All those interested in the creative ats are welcome.  The next talk on site in our culturally enriching series of lectures with partner organisations sees the welcome return on 07 October of the Royal Geographical Society. Major General (Retired) Rob Thomson CBE DSO of The HALO Trust, the world’s largest mine-clearing NGO, will discuss how a changing geopolitical order marked by great power competition, increased conflict, and the retreat of multi-lateralism is affecting human development and security. See: Clearing a path through the new world disorder . All those interested in the natural world and geopolitics are very welcome.

Lower 2 Experience Stone Age Life!

By Eleanor Lewis • September 12, 2025
Lower Twos had a wonderful Stone Age Day, immersing themselves in activities such as tool-making, fishing techniques, and learning about the hides. They built a fire, cooked fish over it, which they all then tried, and some even bravely tried the eyeballs! Using tools and instruments made from bone, the children thoroughly enjoyed the experience and are eager to continue exploring this era in their Topic lessons throughout the Michaelmas term.

The role of languages to build a better world – the scintillating return of the Norfolk Cambridge Society to Norwich School

By Eleanor Lewis • September 11, 2025
Norwich School has an established tradition of working with partner organisations to host high-quality lectures on our site. We are particularly proud of our links with the prestigious Norfolk Cambridge Society, whose long-running series of 23 lectures has been amazing. The 24 th public lecture took place in the Blake Studio on 11 September 2025 in front of a capacity audience comprising school pupils, parents, staff, alumni, and interested members of the city’s intelligentsia. It was of particular interest to the Norwich School community that the speaker was one of our own: Old Norvicensian Professor Charles Forsdick , Drapers Professor of French at the University of Cambridge and Lead Fellow for Languages at the British Academy. He has published widely on travel writing, colonial history and literature, penal culture and slavery, all reflective of his lifelong humanitarianism. His topic was “The Role of Language Skills in Building a Better World“ in which he discussed the growing importance of language skills in an increasingly complex and dangerous world. Charles is well known as an academic of great insight and erudition, combined with natural talent as a brilliant communicator, a lively sense of humour and a profound social conscience. His love of languages has firm roots in the teaching he received at Norwich School. Indeed, his hometown of East Dereham featured prominently in his talk, and his links to the school and to Norfolk remain strong, Following his talk and over refreshments a lively debate continued, discussing a wide variety of thorny issues brought up in his talk. These included the short-sightedness of monolingualism, the value of languages to improving vaccine take-up during the pandemic, our woeful language proficiency versus our European neighbours and challenges with current grade boundaries in language A Levels. It was a pleasure welcoming the Norfolk Cambridge Society and an illustrious speaker of such calibre on site for such a compelling event. We greatly look forward to next term’s lecture to take place on 5 February 2025: How AI Works and How it will Transform our Lives given by Neil Lawrence , DeepMind Professor of Machine Learning at the University of Cambridge, Senior AI Fellow at the Alan Turing Institute and Visiting Professor of Machine Learning at the University of Sheffield. Booking is now open, and tickets are selling fast. See this link: Lecture: How AI Works and How it will Transform our Lives – Norfolk Cambridge Society . - Jonathan Pearson, Development Director ( jpearson@norwich-school.org.uk )

An Impressive Musical Theatre Workshop with a Trip to The Midnight Bell

By Eleanor Lewis • September 11, 2025
Middle 5 pupil, Antonia Christophi, tells us all about the dance workshop and theatre trip that took place earlier this term. On Thursday 11 September M5 and L5 pupils who had an interest in dance and musical theatre had the privilege of receiving a musical theatre workshop. This was run by Lauren she was an excellent instructor with a high level of energy that kept all of us going after a long hard-working day at school. Lauren taught us a dance from the musical ‘The Wild Party’ using the song ‘A Wild, Wild Party’. The workshop though challenging it was also an enjoyable and uplifting way to end the school day. After our workshop Miss How and Miss Smith took us all to watch the amazing dance production of The Midnight Bell, produced and choregraphed by Matthew Bourne through his company new adventures. The production of The Midnight Bell was a modern ballet inspired on the novel written by Partick Hamilton. This production was set in late 1920s in Soho and Fitzrovia London which presents the tale of several interconnected characters who are either employees or regulars at the pub ‘The Midnight Bell’. This production had an extraordinary representation of schizophrenia and other challenges that was civilians were faced with at the time; such as prostitution and homophobia. This was represented with the regulars at the pub displaying the secretiveness and hurt being attracted to those of the same gender would bring at that age period or how prostitution meant having to give your self away to keep living though other women would look down on you and men would never see you. This production was truly a life changing insight on how many people lived without being accepted or not wondering what is your consciousness or real life whilst all being communicated through precise and graceful movements that can express more than words could define. These agile movements inspired many of Norwich Schools young dancers to use more emotion to communicate through our dance.
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