22 January 2016

The Department for Education's latest League Tables rankings were published this week, and the Girls' Division has been ranked as the best independent school in the country and the 25th best school in the country by GCSE results! The School was also ranked top in the Borough, which was reported in The Bolton News.

Year 12 Computing pupils Eleanor, Evangeline and Jessie have made it to the final of National Rail's "Could IT Be You?" Competition! They have been selected as some of the top 75 entrants in the country who have been invited to the Finalists' Day: a wonderful achievement.

Boys and girls from the Junior Schools were delighted to learn more about music with The Pop Project! The 'Understanding Music' Show gave the pupils an insight into a wide variety of musical vocabulary using popular music from the past. There was plenty of opportunities for the children to join with with singing, dancing, clapping and even performing, and they loved listening to the excellent music made by The Pop Project themselves.

On Monday, pupils from the Boys' Division had the opportunity to meet the Mayor of Bolton herself as well as the Council's Elections Manager for an informative talk on local politics. This was an opportunity for those who might be considering a political career of their own to gain a greater insight, but was also really interesting for everyone.

Beech House's School Council also met the Mayor of Bolton this week when they travelled into the town centre to visit the Mayor's Parlour. There they met the Mayor and found out more about her role and democracy in action. The boys and girls were even able to use a real ballot box to cast their own votes to see how the system works.

In the Girls' Division, Year 8 pupils got an idea of what it would be like to be blind or visually impaired. While wearing glasses to simulate different visual impairments or even blindfolds, they were challenged with completing a number of everyday tasks. Although this was a lot of fun, it also drew their attention to the real issues that people with visual impairments face on a daily basis.

Children in Reception and Year 1 were really excited to visit Blackpool Zoo this week. As well as seeing lots of exotic animals - from lions and tigers to penguins and sea lions - they also got up close to a live snake and met some friendly stick insects, which they were even able to hold for themselves. The children had a great time and returned to School bursting with new animal facts!

This week's Inspiring Mind is Professor Roy Jackson, FRS. He went on from Bolton School to study physics at Cambridge University, which was followed by several years in industry. He then too up a position at the University of Edinburgh, and his academic career has since included positions at Rice University in Houston, Texas, the University of Houston, and Princeton University, as well as sabbaticals leaves during which he was the 'Sherman Fairchild Distinguished Scholar' at Caltech and 'Visiting Fellow Commoner' at Trinity College Cambridge. In this interesting interview he talks about the incredible teachers he knew and even befriended during his time at School and the incredible different a Bolton School education made to his life.