Bolton School Blog: 7/6 - 11/6/2010

This week Bolton School Senior Girls' Division has been getting ready to open its doors to Year 5 girls, their parents and friends after school on Monday to offer them a chance to learn more about how our School works.

On the Discovery Day there will be a treasure hunt trail around the School with various departments offering short, challenging activities with an emphasis on fun. Pupils are allowed to go around with friends, on their own or with their parents, and current Year 7 girls and Sixth Formers will be on hand to help. Tea, coffee, cold drinks and biscuits will be provided for parents in the dining hall and senior staff will be available to speak to parents and answer any queries. Prospectuses and registration forms are also available on the day.

With the warmer weather upon us, it’s this time of year that groups of pupils head off to Patterdale Hall, our outdoor pursuits centre in the Lake District where they get to try out activities such as abseiling, canoeing, orienteering, climbing and sailing, while building their confidence and team working skills.

Junior Girls have once again been having fun dressing up, this time as Vikings! Even the teachers got involved, and the Year 4 girls were mesmerised by tales from their visiting ‘Viking’. They had the chance to make Viking pottery and play a Viking game, and to learn about warfare.

Completion of the new Junior Girls’ School ‘Hesketh House’ is getting nearer and nearer, and staff were allowed for the first time to take a look inside the building which is set to be their new home and see the classrooms they will soon be teaching in.

Also this week, representatives from the School attended the Award Ceremony for the 2010 Bolton and Bury Business Awards. The school was one of the sponsors of the event and had the tough job of deciding the winner of the Young Entrepreneur of the Year category, and of presenting the award to Abdul Rahman of Bilal Poultry who won the title.

Bolton School Blog: 24/5 - 28/5/2010

Bolton’s Own Ogden Physics Teaching Fellow
An exciting week for Bolton School as it becomes the first school and only the second academic institution in the country to employ an Ogden Physics Teaching Fellow. Mr Mark Ormerod has been appointed from a highly competitive field and will begin work in September of this year. His role will focus on nurturing physics students and teachers at local schools and widening the participation in and uptake of Physics at A level. Particular focus will be on children in the 11-16 years' old age range.

On the sporting front this week Year 8 pupil Haseebullah Hammed is making his mark on Bolton School cricket, despite only being at the school since January. Talented cricketer Haseebullah has definitely found his feet - recording his first century for the team in a win against Manchester Grammar.

Maasai Tribe to Speak English with a Bolton Accent!
Girls at Bolton School are helping a Maasai tribe to speak English! The Year 9 girls have been video recording one another speaking in basic and clear English and the tapes will be used to supplement other teaching materials and sent out to rural Tanzania. The project has come about after pupils linked up with the African tribe via a Skype video connection during a Geography lesson earlier in the year. The girls had quizzed the Maasai on how they were being affected by tourism and they, in turn, had been keen to learn about life in Bolton.

As part of an off-curriculum day, Year 9 girls got to meet Bali Rai, author of many successful novels aimed at teenagers. Bali gave talks to the girls about his books and about life as an author followed by Question and Answer sessions, in order to get pupils more interested and excited by reading. He also spoke to the girls about issues surrounding multi-culturalism, ethnicity, citizenship and politics which he often covers in his books.

Also this week Bolton School Arts Centre was transformed into a kaleidoscope of colour as some marvellous models, also known as Junior Girls, paraded down the catwalk for the Parents Association Fashion Show. 64 girls took to the runway to show off the current fashions, and spectators were mesmerised by the array of different outfits provided by 'Clothes Horse Kids'.

Bolton School Blog: 17/5 - 21/5/2010

Excellent and Outstanding
Bolton School Girls' Division has been celebrating after being named "excellent" and "outstanding" in the Independent Schools Inspectorate's report. Throughout the whole school pupils' personal development was found to be exceptional, the culture was described as one in which pupils have a desire to learn and make progress, and children of all ages were seen to be involved and to learn cooperatively with their teachers and with each other.

More congratulations are in order in the Boys' Division as a team of pupils called 'The Recyclopaths' have been awarded second place in the National Final of the Toyota Technology Challenge, with their environmentally friendly robot 'The WEEE-Madillo'!

Also this week the Boys' Division hosted a Maths Challenge day for local Primary Schools to help get young people involved in Maths in a fun way. Twenty one Primary School teams took part in the Harry Potter themed challenge, which consisted of a series of different mathematic activities including creating their own Hogwart's Tower!

Year 3 pupil Lizzie Crowther has become the Bolton School Junior Girls' Young Photographer of the Year! Lizzie won the Junior Girls' photography competition with her photos which included a self-portrait photograph in a London tube station, where she cleverly used a convex mirror for effect. Also in Junior Girls this week the Year 5’s got to spend a day in the life of a Tudor by taking part in a Hautbois Workshop.

Bolton School Blog: 10/5 - 14/5/2010

Outstanding on Every Level! Bolton School has been celebrating this week as the Early Years Foundation Stage (0-5 years) is described as "outstanding" by the Independent Schools Inspectorate. It is highly unusual for a school to be found to be outstanding in all categories, but the report found: "Highly effective teaching nurtures lively independent minds, personal confidence and respect for others" in "an outstanding setting where the welfare of the children is ofextreme importance.”

Over at Park Road the Junior Boys' Division have been entered into the Speaker's School Council Awards to recognise their achievements in completing an exciting and successful project to improve their play area. The awards are run by Parliament's Education Service who launched the scheme to recognise the most inspiring and engaging achievements of School Councils across the UK.

Also in Junior Boys, PE teacher Mike Duxbury has been back in the spotlight appearing in 'When the Floodlights Fade' on MUTV. The former Manchester United defender made almost 300 appearances for United in the 80's and twice won the FA Cup, but has since swapped chaotic Saturday afternoons in front of a full house at Old Trafford for coaching the Bolton School Junior boys.

And sporting success has once again been in abundance as Sixth Formers Jonathan Topping and David Edwards have walked away with the Northern Tennis U19 Doubles' Plate and Year 10 pupil Oliver Walker has his sights set on competing in the Modern Pentathlon European Championships, after winning two out of the three qualifiers for his group. Sticking with sport, over forty teams from primary schools from Bolton and as far away as Preston, Manchester, Wigan and Leigh took part in the Crusader Cup, a five-a-side tournament organised and hosted by Bolton School.

Bolton School is very much for life and many former pupils join the Alumni. This weekend sees two reunions taking place-the Joint Scottish Dinner in Edinburgh tonight, and the Joint reunion for 1960, 1970 and 1980 leavers which will take place in the School Arts Centre tomorrow.

Bolton School Blog: 3/5 - 7/5/2010

The country may be holding its breath for the results of the General Election but Bolton School have announced their winning party is the Green Party! Over 700 boys and staff voted in the Boys' Division election on 6 May to mirror the General Election, and Green Party candidate Year 11 pupil Nicholas Fairclough was a clear winner with 221 votes - coinciding with the success of the Green Party nationally as they secured their first ever seat. Nicholas' nearest rival was Conservative candidate Matthew Trevalyan from Year 13 with 152 votes, followed by Labour's Joel Harrison-Hirst also from Year 13 with 144 votes. Liberal Democrat's Cameron Lee from Year 8 received 113 votes and UKIP, represented by Richard Hamer from Year 11 got 71 votes.

Politics aside, the Chamber Choir have been busy again this week, this time performing a free lunchtime concert at Bolton Parish Church to an appreciative audience of members of the public making the most of their lunch breaks! The performance was part of a series of concerts being held every Tuesday at the church and Bolton School return next week as the Senior and Advanced Guitar Groups get their chance to perform.

Senior Boys have been walking their way to better health and winning prizes and raising money to boot! Year 8 boys were given pedometers as part of the promotion of healthy living in PSHE lessons, and competed against each other to see who could manage the most. To get them motivated and moving some boys combined the three day pedometer competition with charitable campaigns, raising money for Cancer Research and endangered pandas.

Footage of last week’s Battle of the Bands is now up on YouTube to view, and you can find out what the Old Boys’ Association has been up to by viewing the latest instalment of President Charles Winder’s blog.

Bolton School Blog: 26/4 - 30/4/2010

This week Bolton School has been gripped by Election fever! The Boys' Division is holding its own election to mirror the General Election, and just like the real thing the vote will be held on 6 May. There are five candidates in the school election representing Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrats, UKIP and the Green Party. All parties have been busy campaigning and both teachers and pupils will be able to cast their vote on the day.

Once again there are several sporting achievements to report this week particularly on the Cricket field. The U13 Cricketers have been crowned Lancashire Indoor Champions after a successful day at Old Trafford, and the U15 Cricket Tour to the West Midlands was a resounding success with three wins in three matches giving them a 100% tour success rate!

Year 11 pupil James Roberts has gone from strength to strength with his involvement in Disability sports which has given him the opportunity to represent his country at football with a place in the England Cerebral Palsy Development Squad.

Also this week Bolton School Chamber Choir joined forces and voices with the Concert Choir from Concordia University in Canada, who are on tour in the UK at the moment, to raise money for Haiti by performing a concert at St Ann's Church in Manchester.

Bolton School's War Memorial boards have been officially documented by the UK National Inventory of War Memorials (UK NIWM), which is part of the Imperial War Museum. A representative from UK NIWM, came along to the school to photograph the boards for their on-line database, which documents the location, type, inscription and historical details of memorials around the country.

Bolton School Blog: 19/4 - 23/4/2010

Old Boy Mark Radcliffe Judges Battle of the Bands
It’s back to school after the Easter break and this week Mark Radcliffe returned to Bolton School to judge the school's annual Battle of the Bands competition. Mark left the School in 1976 and has gone on to become one of the country's most renowned broadcasters, so what better person to choose the best up and coming band at Bolton School? Four groups took to the stage, all eager to impress and in what was a close competition, Battleship Lime ran out the winners with Mark Radcliffe congratulating them on their creativity and some great drumming.

Boys Victorious in Portugal Rugby Tour
In sport, Bolton School's first and second rugby teams have returned victorious from their tour to Portugal, winning three out of the four games played on the trip to Estoril just outside Lisbon, where along with the rugby they got to visit Benfica FC Stadium and enjoy the sunshine.


BSS Coaches to the Rescue!
Like many people around the country this week, a group of pupils from Bolton School found themselves caught up in the air travel crisis caused by the cloud of volcanic ash in European Airspace. The 13 Senior girls and their teachers were stranded in Germany following an exchange visit to Padderbourne, but luckily for them the Transport Department sprang into action and quickly organised a coach to come to their rescue and bring them home!

Back at school, Senior Girls had a visit from the guide dog puppy that they named Rolo, after raising a huge £5000 over three years to ‘Name a Puppy’ for Guide Dogs for the Blind.

Once again, our Junior Girls have been getting creative as Year 5 pupils took part in a ceramic workshop to make pieces of clay artwork to display in the new school, and over in Park Road Junior Boys have been busy raising money for Haiti with a bring and buy sale.