This week, Bolton School, in partnership with the Ogden Trust, played host to the Frontiers of Physics lectures, which brought together over 250 pupils, parents and staff from eight schools in the Bolton, Preston and Leyland areas. Pupils were treated to a series of lectures and given the opportunity to ask real scientists questions. For the finale of the event the great hall was linked, via video conference, to CERN in Geneva. The School also welcomed author and Brit Writers’ Award Winner, Sufiya Ahmed, to officially launch a new initiative supported by the Bolton Schools' Library Service - the “Bolton Children’s Fiction Book Award”. Over 100 pupils in Years 7 and 8 from across the region joined Bolton School pupils at the launch, where Sufiya announced the six shortlisted books and encouraged the pupils to read the shortlisted books and vote for their favourite. Bolton Public Libraries are stocking the shortlisted titles in their branch libraries. In sport, Year 7 and 8 girls at Bolton School, who completed a level 2 football training skills course earlier in the year, were treated to an access all areas tour of the Reebok stadium where they were awarded their course certificate and medal pitch side by the BWFC coaches. Year 10 pupil Georgina Owen in has been selected for the Under 17 Regional EXCEL netball squad - a high performance squad which follows an intensive training schedule with some of the country's top coaches. Further netball success to report in the Sixth Form as Georgina’s sister, Ellena Owen, and Sarah Richards have been selected to represent Cheshire County U18 Netball squad for the forthcoming season. While pupils Nalisha Patel and Haseeb Hameed were honoured at the BoSPAA Sports Awards – Nalisha was awarded ‘Sports Achiever of the Year’ and Hasseb, was runner up in the same category, both for cricket. Bolton School also sponsored the category of ‘Coach of the Year’ at the awards, which went to Lynda Grady of Bolton Trampoline Club. The U18 Boys’ Division Water polo team won all the games in their group to make it through the first round of English Schools’ competition. An impressive performance, especially given that several players were missing from the squad and a number U16/15 boys were included. Beech House pupils joined over 60 Year 1 and 2 pupils from eight other local primary schools from across the region to take part in a Ball Skills Festival where teams of eight children took part different activities ranging from sports such as football, hockey, and tennis to throwing events. And Bolton School also hosted a Maths Challenge for local Primary Schools to help get young people involved in Maths in a fun way. Bolton School Junior Boys celebrated Harvest by joining with parents for the annual Harvest festival in aid of the Drop-in Centre at St Luke's Church on Chorley Old Road. Year 7 Sailor, Matthew Kyle, took to the waves to help pay for expensive repairs to his gran’s church - and raised more than £1,100 by sailing 16km, the length of Coniston Water in the Lake District, And members of the Bolton School Concert Band performed at the Burnden Park Asda on Saturday to help raise money for Tickled Pink.
The summer holidays by no means signifies a quiet time for Bolton School! Pupils have been celebrating outstanding GCSE and A level results – at A Level in the Boys’ Division, 76.1% of results were A*, A or B and overall, students achieved a 99.4% pass rate with just under half of the grades awarded being A* or A and 89.1% of grades being at C or above. Four boys achieved 3 or more A* grades. Students in the Girls’ Division at Bolton School achieved a 100% pass rate at A Level with over half of the grades awarded being A* or A and 93% of grades being at C or above. The pass rate at A* to B was 82.3%. Six girls achieved 3 or more A* grades. 70.7% of the grades awarded at Bolton School Girls’ Division were A* or A with 33% of grades at A*. Seven girls achieved 11 A* grades and three girls achieved 10 A* grades In the Boys’ Division two out of every three grades obtained were at either A* or A; 33.6% of all grades were at A* and one in every three boys has achieved a set of A* or A grades in each of their ten subjects. Twelve Year 10 girls experienced the trip of a lifetime when they headed out to East Africa to spend two weeks learning about life in Tanzania, particularly the Maasai culture, and helping out at the KCEM Education Centre. This is the second time Bolton School girls have been to visit Tanzania, thanks to the School’s connection with LivLife, a charity which has been set up by two old boys of the School to provide free education centres in villages of Tanzania. The trip allowed the girls to fully immerse themselves in African life and provided a real cultural exchange. While nineteen Bolton School boys enjoyed three days of hockey lessons from the first team coach of German side, ETB Essen, who is also a top player in the German national league. The privilege was afforded to them during their Hockey Exchange Tour with the Essen club. During their one week stay in Germany, the boys were welcomed by the Mayor in the Town Hall and their visit even made Essen Council's newsletter. Hesketh House officially has the best U10 and U11 girls’ chess players in Britain! Chess prodigies Sharon Daniel and Mahima Raghavendra took part in the British Chess Championships in Torquay in August. Sharon became British Under 11 Girls Champion and Mahima became British Under 10 Girls Champion in the same event. It is an amazing achievement for two girls from the same School to be British Champions! Well done girls! And Year 10 pupil, Arron Davies, travelled to Nemours in France to compete in the 2013 IWWF Water Ski and Wakeboard Europe and Africa Youth Championships, and came away with a team bronze medal! Arron was one of a four strong GB Youth U14 team to compete in the competition which was held on the 21st to 25th August. Arron and his team competed in preliminary rounds in Slalom, Tricks and Jumps events to qualify for the finals, and finished in third place. Not only did Bolton School Boys’ Division pupil Haseeb Hameed achieve 3A*s, 4As, 2Bs and a C in his GCSE’s, he also had a busy and successful summer playing cricket for Lancashire and in the Under 19 England development squad. Most recently Haseeb was drafted into the England Under 19 squad for a series of games. And talented writer, Luke Cavanaugh, has penned an award-winning story! Luke’s imaginative tale about an orphan impressed judges so much he was chosen as the winner of the Words for Life Pen a Story Competition, run by the National Literacy Trust. Hundreds of young people entered the competition and Luke’s story was chosen from a shortlist of 40.