Mrs Nicola Borman

Life before Stowe 
I gained my first degree from the University of Southampton and stayed in the area for several years afterwards, with a stint in London for my PGCE.  My career has taken in a range of schools in the maintained and independent sectors, beginning with a training placement at St Dunstan’s College in Catford and then following a rather circuitous route via schools in Surrey, Northants, Bucks (episode one) and Warks before arriving at Stowe in 2021. Along the way I’ve completed a Masters at the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford, had two lovely children, and moved back to the area in which I grew up. 

What do you enjoy most about your subject? 
Its infinite variety.  Yesterday, I read an extract from Fleming’s Casino Royale with the Third Form, Captain Scott’s final diary entry with the Fourth Form, and Hamlet with the Lower Sixth. 

What do you enjoy most about Stowe? 
Working with brilliant colleagues and pupils in the most beautiful school in the world. 

What is your favourite Lesson? 
In recent years I’ve really enjoyed teaching some of Browning’s Dramatic Monologues at A Level – they exemplify the way in which great writers can make language do several things at the same time. 

What do others say about you? 
Who knows?  It’s just best to remember that ‘there is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about…’. 

Other hats 
I’m a tutor in West, a Sixth Form girls’ boarding house, and I help to run our Stowe Journalism club and the Junior Literary Society.  I’m also looking forward to liaising with our two prep schools in The Stowe Group, on behalf of the English department. 

Passions 
Family, football (watching and playing), theatre, church bellringing, books, guinea pigs, coffee.