21-25 March 2011

Foundation United in Red for Japan

All 2,400 children from across the Bolton School Foundation - the Nursery, the Infant School, Junior Girls, Junior Boys, Senior Girls, Senior Boys, Sixth Form Girls and Sixth Form Boys - have come together in a fundraising effort for the British Red Cross Japan Tsunami Appeal. The call for help came from the Makino family who have a boy and girl, Kei and Ai, in the Infant School and two boys, Eichi and Jei, in the Junior Boys' School. Mrs Makino used to live in the Sendai province, which is one of the worst hit areas and where she still has friends. Pupils were all asked to wear something red to show they were supporting the campaign and there was also a raffle with some very unique prizes including a Manchester United football shirt signed by Ryan Giggs, some football boots signed by Phil Neville, a t-shirt and photo signed by Amir Khan and photographs signed by Kevin Davies.

Students from the Boys’ Division made history by being part of a 100-strong team of schoolchildren who presented the first live TV broadcast from the BBC’s new base in the North on the annual BBC School Report News Day! Along with other students from across the North West and Yorkshire, the boys worked for the day from The Studios at MediaCityUK in Salford to produce a live bulletin to a national deadline of 2pm. Back at school boys from years 7 to 9 also got involved by spending the day creating video, audio and text-based news reports to publish on the website by the 4pm deadline. Simultaneously, 30,000 pupils from 800 schools across the UK were busy creating their own news reports which the BBC then linked up to when the deadline was up!

Our pupils triumphed in the face of adversity this week with their stunning performance of Aristophanes' Greek Comedy 'The Frogs', despite the show nearly being ruined by a leaky radiator! With less than a week to go until opening night, the drama studio was flooded overnight by the radiator, leaving some of the set and technical equipment damaged. Undeterred, the Maintenance team and staff got to work drying things out with dehumidifiers and repairing and replacing the scenery, and the show could go on! Pupils from Year 7 to the final year of Sixth Form, along with many teachers, have been involved in the joint production which was a huge success on opening night, and will also run tonight and tomorrow evening.

Year 5 and 6 pupils from Junior girls and boys have been training hard in the run up to the Sale Sharks Primary Tag Rugby festival, which will be held at Bolton School on Wednesday 30th March. The pupils took part in a training session with Bolton Rugby Development Officer Steph Veal who gave them a few pointers for the tournament which will involve a mixed team of Bolton boys and girls competing against 16 other local primary schools.

Also in School this week our pupils were joined by students from other local schools for an inspiring lecture on Medical Imaging by Dr Michael Wilson from the University Hospital Birmingham, and our pupils gave some excellent performances at this year's Manchester Classical Association Reading Competition where Adam Woolley was joint winner of the boys’ GCSE Greek category, Tim Varghese was joint winner of the boys’ GCSE Latin category and Lydia Hounat and Jainee Patel achieved second prize in the girls’ beginners Latin category.

And we say goodbye to Yuka Sugawara, a 2nd year student majoring in Economics at Soka University in Tokyo, who has spent four weeks at the School working with pupils of all ages as part of a programme run by the University of Manchester's Language Centre.