7th June 2013

Bolton School, under the direction of Mrs Linda Frew, will be overseeing a new initiative, the “Bolton Children’s Fiction Book Award”. Mrs Frew, along with other librarians at Bolton School and from schools from across the region, is currently busy reading books in order to draw up a shortlist for the Autumn Term. The event will be officially launched by Brit Writers’ Award Winner, Sufiya Ahmed at Bolton School on 4 October. After that, children in Years 7 and 8 from across the borough will be encouraged to read and vote for their favourite shortlisted books.
Hesketh House pupils have been letting their creative skills run wild for World Hunger Week, developing new recipes and designing new sandwiches. After some imaginative entries, Mrs Karen Riley and Mr Andrew Scialpi-Sullivan, who head up the School's Catering Team, settled upon three winners. Year 3 girl, Georgia McGinty, created a Cheeky Chicken Wrap and fellow Year 3 pupil, Summer Lily-Burke designed a sandwich called Meatball Delight. Year 4 girl, Chloe Ferguson, won the best recipe prize with her suggestion for producing Meatloaf. Each girl was awarded a book token and well done card from the Catering Department. The creations will all be trialled during forthcoming Junior Girls' lunchtimes. During the event, donations from the girls raised £70 for World Hunger Week.

Year 9 pupil Johanna Mercer has had a piece of her creative writing selected for publication in an anthology. The piece, entitled ‘Demonic Terror’, will feature in ‘Trick or Treat: A Collection of Ghost Stories’. Budding author Johanna is no stranger to publication, having had her first book ‘Demon Rose’ published in the Amazon Kindle store in January. And Year 12 pupil Luke Brabbin has written and published his own children’s eBook. Luke’s picture book is called ‘Jeffery, Dillon and Hugo go to the Swamp’ and is aimed at children aged 3 to 8. In the book, Luke tells the story of three monsters who go on an adventure to a swamp, and learn about morals and friendship on the way.

Filming will shortly be getting underway on Red Production Company’s second series of the BBC’s BAFTA-winning comedy drama, Last Tango in Halifax and, once again, Bolton School will be used as a backdrop. In the first series, starring Sarah Lancashire, the School featured as the independent school where she was Headmistress. Filming made use of the Headmaster’s Study, the Boys' Division Great Hall, several classrooms and offices as well as corridors, which were used to represent a quality school in the comedy drama series which also stars Sir Derek Jacobi.

And Bolton School pupils handed over a cheque for £800 to Action for Children charity, which was raised at the Battle of the Bands Competition. The winning band, Off Piste, presented the cheque to Action for Children representatives. The charity supports disadvantaged and vulnerable children in the community. Money raised on the day will be split between Action for Children and the Fabrice Muamba Defibrillator Fundraising Appeal.