28th June 2013

There were yet more Primary School visitors to Bolton School this week as over 20 local primary schools took part in a Science Festival aimed at inspiring young minds. The festival provided an opportunity for gifted young pupils from Year 5 to make use of our laboratories and resources and to absorb themselves in Science for the day. Schools entered teams of four who spent the morning in the Biology, Chemistry and Physics laboratories undertaking a number of challenging practical activities.

The Girls’ Division Year 9 Art Club, in conjunction with the Environment Club, presented the dining room staff with paving stones they have decorated for the Herb Garden this week. The paving stones were donated by Bents Garden Centre and the girls transformed them by painting them to show the variety of herbs growing in the garden. The stones have now been placed in the herb garden which grows mint, rosemary, thyme, parsley and oregano for use in the School kitchens. And art work from both Boys' and Girls' Division Year 11 to 13 students is now on show at the Best of Bolton Schools’ Art and Design Showcase, hosted by the University of Bolton. The exhibition, now in its sixth year, is a collaboration between schools in Bolton and the University and features the best work from pupils from Secondary Schools across the Borough. The exhibition is sponsored by The National Association of Decorative and Fine Arts Societies (NADFAS) who provided sponsorship for prizes which were presented at a private view evening, where Bolton School Year 13 pupil Charlotte Leigh won the Best Fine Art prize. The Bolton School's Art and Design Showcase is open to the public 10am to 4pm until 5th July, at the Innovation Factory Fine Art Studio on the Bolton University Campus.

In sport, Bolton School are Northern T20 Cricket Champions taking them through to the National Finals Day at Arundel Castle CC in Sussex on Friday 5th July by defeating St. Peter’s, York in the Northern Final held at Heywood CC. Having won their initial group stage by defeating Merchant Taylor’s ,Crosby and Lancaster RGS, Bolton gained further victories over Sedbergh School and Manchester GS to lift the Fred Kenyon Trophy as HMC North West champions and forced their way through to play the other three regional winners from the Midlands, the South West and South East. And we congratulate Year 9 pupil Anosh Bonshahi who completed the London to Brighton cycle challenge in aid of the British Heart Foundation, raising nearly 400 pounds. Anosh cycled the 54 miles from London to Brighton with his dad and was among the youngest of nearly 30000 cyclists.
Year 10 pupils in the Girls’ Division enjoyed a day of lectures and debate complementing and extending their learning in school. The intensive one day program of short lectures followed by a debate gave students the opportunity to experience very high quality learning with expert lecturers. Girls spent the morning in the Arts Centre listening to a series of lectures including Time (this gets straight to the heart of relativity), The Politics of tolerance and/or Postmodernism and Does a Snail have consciousness?, and took part in a debate entitled 'This house believes in abortion on demand'.

21 June 2013

The Independent Schools’ Inspectorate has found Bolton School’s Early Years’ Foundation Stage for children aged from birth to 5 years to be ‘outstanding’ in all areas of its provision. The Intermediate Report echoes the findings of the last full inspection in 2010. The report, covering Bolton School Nursery, Infant School (Beech House) and Kidzone, the School’s wraparound childcare service, found there to be excellent progress throughout the age groups: ‘the overall quality and standards of the early years’ provision are outstanding.’ It went on to find ‘the contribution of provision to children’s well-being is outstanding,’ and ‘the setting makes outstanding provision in meeting the needs of the range of children who attend. Excellent teaching means that children of all ages and abilities make outstanding progress.’

Having tampered with The Tempest in English lessons, Year 6 girls from Hesketh House took great delight in performing their devised pieces in the Girls' Division Theatre to parents and friends. Their interpretations of the story saw them use some of the original poetic lines from Shakespeare's play as well rewriting his work in their own scripts, including aspects of dancing and singing to modern tunes.

Talented Year 11 pupil Jainee-Khushali Patel performs in not one but two of the eight recognized and accredited National Youth Music Orchestras in the UK. Not only that but she is the first person to play in two totally diverse NYMOs (National Youth Jazz Collective and SAMYO - the National Youth Orchestra for Indian Music) with two equally diverse instruments namely Sitar and Saxophone\ in each. She is also SAMYO’s first ever musician from Bolton, and the North West of England and is one of ten girls invited to form the Creative Leadership Ensemble in the country - a scheme which will see Jainee receiving training on how to take on a leadership role within music including conducting an orchestra.

Year 7 pupils Eddy Backhouse and Dominic Aly are national winners of the Wallace and Gromit Cracking Ideas competition. Having won the regional round for England in the 12-16 age category, the boys were invited to Blackpool Pleasure Beach for the national finals on Tuesday and were crowned national winners, beating off competition from the Irish, Scottish and Welsh winners. The Cracking Ideas challenge for 2012 – 2013 was based around the subject of space and the boys came up with a wide range of creative and fun ideas, ranging from an innovative new rocket design to a space safe suit for both Wallace and Gromit.

Almost 300 pupils from twenty eight primary schools from across the region took part in the Bolton School Sports Festival this week. The annual event, now in its tenth year, saw teams from Bolton and further afield compete in a variety of sporting challenges. The overall Festival Winner was Haslam Park Primary School with second place going to Gilnow Primary and third to St Osmund and Andrew’s Primary. And a team of Junior Girls entered their first ever Schools’ Basketball Competition and won, despite their lack of experience! The girls were entered on the notion that they had previously played mini basketball in PE lessons and that they were all good netball players, with the emphasis on just having fun. Six schools took part and having made it to the final the girls went on to win 5-0 to take the title.

And Old Boy of the School, Peter H. Bennett will be presented with the American Diabetes Association’s Albert Renold Award at the World’s largest Diabetes meeting this weekend. The award is presented to an individual whose career is distinguished by outstanding achievements in the training and mentorship of diabetes research scientists and the facilitation of diabetes research.

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.