13-17 September 2010

New £5m Junior Girls' School Opens
Bolton School Junior girls and staff are now enjoying their new state-of-the-art school, Hesketh House! The new building was ready for the start of the Autumn Term and the girls are now settling in well to their spacious and modern surroundings. The brand new purpose built school comprises eight classrooms, its own large computer suite, a science room, a well-resourced library, an art/design and technology room and a main hall. The £5m school, built by Bolton based contractors G & J Seddon, has taken just over a year to build, and is part of a £12 million investment in new buildings and facilities at Bolton School.

It has been a time of sporting success for Bolton School girls as Year 12 pupil Hannah Furey returned from the United Nations Ju-Jitsu competition with six medals including three golds, making her a triple UNJJ champion and arguably one of the best all round Ju-Jitsu competitors in the world.

Year 11 fencer Emily Ruaux is also making the headlines as she sets her sights on qualifying for the Under 17s European and World Championships. Emily broke into the women's top 30 in Britain after an impressive performance at the Senior National Championships in Sheffield in July, and only missed out on last season's Euros through injury. She is currently ranked fifth at under 17s and eighth at under 20s in the country.

Over in the Boys' Division Biology teacher Mr Marc Tillotson is going the extra mile for his pupils as he gets into serious training in order to run the Kielder Marathon on 17 October. His fundraising effort will raise money so that Sixth Form students can visit Indonesia to take part in Operation Wallacea in July 2011. Operation Wallacea is a series of biological and conservation management research programmes that operate in remote locations across the world. In the first week, students will spend time in the rainforest assisting with conservation work and research, before moving to the Wakatobi National Park to study the marine ecosystems.

6-10 September 2010

Sir Ian Back at Bolton School
GCSE Drama students at Bolton School Boys' Division enjoyed a drama class with a difference when Sir Ian McKellen, an Old Boy of the School, dropped in on their lesson.
Sir Ian was back in his old school to put his name to the boys' drama studio. After a brief unveiling of the plaque on the "McKellen Studio Theatre", Sir Ian gave a talk reminiscing about his days at Bolton School, which he attended from 1951-58. He sat in on the Drama lesson, and along with his companion for the day, fellow actor Antony Cotton (Sean Tully in Coronation Street), offered advice and tips on acting to the boys.

School Ranked Amongst Best in Country
The Daily Telegraph's 2010 ranking of independent schools by A level results has placed Bolton School Boys' Division as 62nd best school in the country and the Girls' Division as 79th. The table reflects the percentage of A level grades at A* and A. The results place the School amongst the best in the North-West and comfortably place both divisions of the school in the top 10 independent schools in the North of England.

At GCSE the Girls' Division has been placed 82nd in a league table of independent schools based on the 2010 results, as released by the Independent Schools Council, and the Boys' Division also performed exceptionally well and were placed at 148th in the table.

Two Sixth Form students at Bolton School Girls' Division, Roxanna Azimy and Megan Scott, have designed a winning fashion collection in the BBC Blast 'Your Label 2010' Fashion Design Competition, and will now get to showcase their designs at London Fashion week in September!
The competition was run in conjunction with the V&A museum and entrants had to use one of the on-line museum collections as inspiration to create their own fashion collection. The girls opted for the 'Japanese' themed collection, and their designs were chosen as one of ten national winners.

In sport, the Boys' Division First XV rugby team have got off to a terrific start for the 2010-11 season as they overcame Audenshaw 36-14.

And the last week in August saw Bolton School pupils, staff and parents join together for the first ever school mountain bike trip which took a sixteen strong group on a nine day trip in the Austrian mountains at Westendorf, Tirol.

Summer Blog 2010

New Record Set on Results Day
Bolton School is once again celebrating outstanding exam results! A new record was set at GCSE by the Girls' Division, as 40% of grades achieved were A*, and the Boys’ Division saw similar success as one third of all grades were A*s.
The A Level results were just as pleasing as the Boys' Division achieved a fantastic 100% pass rate, with 95.6% of entries graded A*- C and nearly two out of every three grades at A* or A. The Girls' Division also recorded excellent results with 93% of entries graded A*-C, 19% of entries graded A* and more than half of all entries graded A* or A.

European Gold and Commonwealth spot for Emma
Year 11 pupil Emma Saunders has returned from the European Junior Swimming Championships in Helsinki with not one but a haul of four medals, and has now been selected to represent England at the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi in October! Emma stormed to a new Championship record at the Europeans as she claimed gold in the Girls' 50m Backstroke, and not content with taking the individual title, she also helped the Great Britain team scoop three silver medals in the relays.

Other pupils have been busy over the summer - Boys' Division Sixth Form student, Luhua Yang, enjoyed a unique learning experience when he took part in a four day Power Engineering course at Aston University. Luhua had the chance to tackle a variety of practical design-and-build projects exploring the technology behind energy generation and distribution. Girls’ Division Sixth form pupil Thorrun Govind has been helping to tackle the problem of dangerous drivers by making a mini-documentary with the support of ITV. A short section of her film can be seen at http://www.itvfixers.com/ and when completed she hopes to distribute her documentary to test centres and schools.

Back at school, Former England international cricketer Dominic Cork took time out from captaining Hampshire and the commentator's box to offer his coaching tips, enthusiasm and wisdom to boys and girls taking part in the Andrew Flintoff Cricket Academy, while at the school’s Bolton Wanderers Football Academy, Lofty the Lion surprised youngsters with a visit. And there were yet more sporting stars in the grounds as Bolton School helped out the Sale Sharks by providing the school levels for them to train on after the rugby team became stuck in heavy congestion on the M6 on their way to training.

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

Most schools would think about winding down for the last few days before the summer break but it is quite the opposite at Bolton School.

Sixth Form students were mesmerised by the intricate word play of Carol Ann Duffy, the Poet Laureate. She was appearing as part of a double bill with Dr Jim Wild of the University of Lancaster, who gave a fascinating presentation entitled "In Search of the Northern Lights". The two talks were part of the Year 12 students' Gifted and Talented programme.

The Boys' Division Senior School celebrated a passion for excellence which has permeated the year at the annual Prizegiving afternoon. Old Boy Professor Malcolm Stevens OBE and FRS (Fellow of the Royal Society) was this year's special guest.

In the sporting world, Year 11 pupil, James Roberts, made his debut for England's Cerebral Palsy Development Squad in the Home Nations' Tournament in Dublin, whilst Ben Monks (Year 12) was called up to represent Lancashire Schools once again in the National Schools' Regatta.

Boys from the Senior School also presented a cheque for £2,000 to members of the Halle Orchestra, who were delighted to receive the donation on behalf of Buskaid and in the memory of Mike and Dot Hall. The money had been raised earlier in the year at a Battle of the Bands competition, which had been judged by Old Boy, Mark Radcliffe.

And finally, Bolton School, gave a fond farewell to Mrs Hilary Crawforth, who has given much of her life to the Infant Department, Beech House. She was educated there and, after studying at Cambridge, took up a teaching post there in the mid-1970s. She retired having been Head of Beech House for the past ten years. The School wishes her all the best in her retirement.

Bolton School Blog: 28/6 - 5/7/2010

The last weeks before the end of the Summer Term are always packed full of events and activities and this is no exception!

Bolton School Boys’ Division once again linked up with local primary schools to bring an evening of music to the North-West's premier musical venue the Bridgewater Hall. Over 700 children aged 7-18 years, enthralled a sell out audience on the night with performances from Bolton School's Joint Concert Band, the Senior Guitar Group, the Percussion Ensemble and a stunning piano recital from Year 13 student, Ben Smith.

This week saw the official opening of our new Infant School, Beech House by Mr Warren Smith JP, Her Majesty's Lord Lieutenant of Greater Manchester. The Lord Lieutenant addressed an audience of over 200 boys and girls aged 4 to 7 years old as well as distinguished guests including governors, former Headmistress, Miss Joyce Boston and former and current teachers as well as representatives from Cassidy and Ashton and Seddons - the designers and builders of the state-of-the-art building.

Year 13 pupil Robert Bolton returned from the regional final of the Young Engineer for Britain 2010 competition at the Big Bang Fair in Liverpool, with not one but two trophies! Robert entered his A-level Technology project the 'Progressive Brake Light' into the competition and won the overall regional event in his age category and the best product prize. He was awarded £400 prize money, and has the chance to become Young Engineer for Britain when he attends the national final in London next March.

Also this week Year 11 and 13 students from Bolton School Boys' and Girls' Division have been showing their art work at the University of Bolton, in a showcase exhibition called "Best of Bolton", organised by the university as part of its drive to interact more with local schools.

Old boy and legendary Lancashire captain of the seventies, Jack Bond, was back at Bolton School as the main guest at the annual MCC fixture, where Bolton School First Eleven cricketers took on an MCC club side and came away victorious! And there was more Cricket glory as Bolton School U14 Cricketers overcame Lancaster Grammar School with an impressive performance to win The Harold Bailey U14 Schools' Cup – an inter-school competition involving over 100 schools from Lancashire, Greater Manchester and Merseyside. The boys will now go on to represent Lancashire in the national competition next summer.

In other sport Bolton School's Year 7 water polo team has won the national Bradbury Cup for the first time in 15 years, and the Junior Boys' swim relay team have been involved in the ESSA 16th National Swimming Championship, narrowly missing out on a place in the National finals.

Our Junior Boys' Chess teams competed in the EPSCA (English Primary Schools Chess Association) regional semi-final of the National Primary Schools Chess Team Championship 2010 at Pontins in Prestatyn. The U11 A team played exceptionally well to achieve 3rd place and they are now eagerly waiting to find out if they have made it to the national finals. The U11 B team achieved equal 20th place, while the U9 A and B teams achieved equal 10th place and 23rd place respectively.

Bolton School Blog: 21/6 - 25/6/2010

It has been a very busy week for Bolton School with fundraising and famous faces all round!

Everton Captain and former England footballer Phil Neville and his wife, Julie, made a flying visit to Bolton School Junior Boys' School to thank pupils for taking part in a schools' fundraising campaign in aid of the Royal Manchester Children's Hospital. The boys took part in the Tesco Wear What U Want Day - an event in which pupils were encouraged to pay £1 in return for being able to ditch their uniform for the day and as a reward for their charity work, the pupils were given the opportunity to pose quick fire questions to the football star!

In the afternoon, the Junior Boys took to the field dressed in an array of colourful fancy dress outfits in order to raise even more money for Cancer Research and Derian House through their annual Fun Run, and it was quite an afternoon of sport as the Junior Girls were taking part in their own sports festival at the same time.

Pupils also got to meet a Nobel Prize Winner in Chemistry this week as Professor Sir Harry Kroto returned to his old school to deliver a day of workshops and talks aimed at inspiring an interest in Science amongst the region's young people. And there was more science on the menu as twenty eight Primary schools visited Bolton School for a Science Festival! The day provided an opportunity for gifted young pupils from Year 5 to make use of Bolton School's laboratories and resources and to absorb themselves in Science for the day with a number of challenging forensic and chemical practical activities including blood testing, fingerprinting, and chemical analysis of soil samples.

Finally, this weekend we would like to wish the best of luck to Year 9 Boys' Division pupil Daniel Sharif who will be representing the North West in the Inter Regional Team Ski Championships at Gloucester Ski and Snowboard Centre on Sunday 27 June.

Bolton School Blog: 14/6 - 18/6/2010

Over 200 pupils from twenty primary schools from across the region took part in this year's Bolton School Sports Festival on Thursday morning. The annual event, now in its seventh year, saw teams from Bolton and further afield including Preston, Wigan and North Manchester, competing in a variety of sporting challenges including a rugby slalom and penalty shoot-outs as well as having their golf, hockey, tennis, athletics, and cricket skills tested. Schools picked up points in each event they took part in resulting in an overall Festival Winner which this year was St Thomas Chequerbent from Westhoughton.

Also this week Bolton School held an awards evening to honour Sixth Form students who have undertaken work in the local community. Students received bronze, silver and gold certificates for 20, 50 or 100 hours worth of work in the community and one girl had even done over 1,000 hours! In order to establish more links with external groups to increase participation even further, Bolton School is holding a Volunteering Fair on Thursday 9 September at 2.00pm in the Arts Centre. Anyone interested in attending the fair and working with the School and its Sixth Form volunteer students should contact Heather Tunstall on 01204 840201 or email ht@boys.bolton.sch.uk

Year 6 Junior girls have given their opening performance of the Shakespeare play 'The Tempest' which they have been studying in English. The girls gave an outstanding performance to an audience of their families and friends after working hard all week rehearsing, and they will give their second and final performance this evening.

Bolton School's Jazz Band have been performing again this time at the Beech House (Infant School) Summer Fete 2010 - see their performance by clicking here

And we wish a big good luck to our Junior Boys' chess teams, as all four teams of six boys travel to Pontins in Prestatyn this weekend for the Northern Final of the EPSCA (English Primary Schools Chess Association) National Primary Schools Chess Team Championship 2010. If they win the regional competition they will then go on to the National Final.