2 December 2016

This week, the Girls' Division welcomed poet Lemn Sissay for an emotional evening of readings and recollections. He offered a series of mesmerising poems from his new collection Gold from the Stone, as well as giving a moving and personal account of his life. This was a very special event for all who attended.

The Boys' Division has achieved its goal of raising £10,000 for charity through the sponsored walk to Rivington Pike which took place at the end of the summer term. Twenty charities will now receive donations of £500 in recognition of the school's 500th anniversary.

Year 12 pupils in both Divisions recently took part in the annual Business Challenge Day. In mixed teams, they took on the task of coming up with a new business proposition which they then had to pitch to a panel of judges after just one day to come up with a complete, working business plan. The judges were very impressed with the pupils' efforts. The four winning teams will take part in the final in early December.

Five Bolton School boys have been selected for ISFA teams this year. Two pupils made it through to the National U16 and U18 sides, while three boys in Year 8 have been selected for the North West team.

Girls from nineteen  local primary schools took part in an exciting STEAM Day in the Girls' Division as part of the School's Primary Liaison Programme. The Year 6 pupils took part in Science, Technology and ICT, Engineering, Art and Maths workshops on the day, all of which were themed around the Olympics and Team GB. From finding out how much energy is in food to creating their own desk tidy to take home, there were lots of new activities for the girls to try, and they enjoyed taking part in this inspiring event.

A group of Sixth Form linguists recently competed in the Northern Schools' Modern Foreign Languages Debating Competition. Five pairs took part, debating a variety of complex topics in French, German, Spanish and Russian, with the German team progressing all the way to the semi-finals.

Guitar teacher Jon Gyjlaci will be featured on BBC Radio 3's 'In Tune' drive-time programme. He is going to play live and give a short interview at shortly before or after the 6 o'clock news on Monday 5 December.

Boys' Division pupils have enjoyed browsing and buying from the Book Fair this week. Following the success and popularity of the Book Fair last year, the library staff decided to host it once again, and the boys have been really enthusiastic in taking advantage of the wonderful deals on offer.