12-16 September 2011

Old Boy and highly respected London Business School Professor of Accounting, Chris Higson returned to Bolton School this week to deliver a well attended presentation to the local business community about how to exit the recession and reindustrialise the British economy through the nurturing of SMEs. The lunch time address focused on the positives and reminded the audience that, despite the recession, the UK is still the sixth largest manufacturer in the world and top in terms of the proportion of its exports that are high tech. Earlier in the morning, Professor Higson had worked with Sixth Form girls and Sixth Form boys as they tried to understand the causes of the recession and how the UK might exit the current situation. Old Girl Dr Joyce Tyldesley also returned to School this week with some compelling advice for those students about to go out into the world. At the Sixth Form Presentation evening, Dr Tyldesley, a renowned Egyptologist, furnished the girls with a number of wise old maxims from Ancient Egypt, including "if you spit in the sky, it will land on your head". She then brought the sage advice up to date with three key messages canvassed from a poll of Old Girls. The advice from Dr Tyldesley, a Senior Lecturer at the University of Manchester, brought to a close an evening that celebrated another highly successful year for the pupils of Bolton School Girls' Division.

Sophie Bolton and Emily Robinson, who have just started their A Levels at Bolton School, have both been selected to receive a prestigious Arkwright Scholarship. The girls were chosen in part due to their GCSE Design and Technology projects for which Sophie designed and built a retro style iPod dock and Emily a rocking horse. Only 300 scholarships were awarded from over 900 applicants from 256 schools. The Arkwright Trust supports young people during their A Levels by awarding £300 a year to assist with the purchase of materials and books. Sophie and Emily will also carry the status of ‘Arkwright Scholar’ into university.

Meanwhile, year 10 pupil Alex O'Donoughue has been selected to represent ISFA (Independent Schools, Football Association) nationally at Under 15 level. Following the U14 programme last season and a series of trials at camps held in the Summer Holidays, the final squad was selected to represent the association during the 2011/2012 season and Alex secured his place.

Also over the summer, some of our Sixth Form boys experienced the trip of a lifetime with a two week conservation trip to Indonesia. The boys undertook conservation work and research for one week in the forests of Southern Sulawesi and another week diving and inspecting coral reefs on Hoga Island, which Jacques Cousteau, by far the most famous undersea explorer of the 20th century, described as one of the best places in the world for diving!
And former Sixth Form pupil Giles Makinson was part of the winning MCC Schools side in the annual match against the England Schools' Cricket Association at Lord's. The MCC Schools team consists of schoolboys who have played against MCC during the 2011 cricket season, and whose names have been put forward by MCC Match Managers as good cricketers, in addition to being players who would make good representatives of the Club. Throughout the year the MCC play against 250 schools, meaning Giles was selected from a pool of more than 2, 500 schoolboys. The scores were ESCA 199 all out and MCC Schools 200-3, meaning Giles' team won by 7 wickets.