9 March 2012

The Boys' Division Amnesty Youth Group at Bolton School were visited this week by Gloria Pollack, who escaped from Chile to the UK in the 1970s when she and her family faced persecution under General Pinochet's dictatorship. The group, which meets weekly and is attended by pupils in Years 7-12, has recently been involved in a number of letter-writing campaigns including organising a petition for the closure of Guantanamo Bay, sent to Hillary Clinton, and sending a letter to the Justice Minister in Japan to ask for the abolition of the death penalty.
Congratulations go to Year 12 student Stephanie Gabbatt who has made the top ten long-list for Amnesty International's Young Human Rights Reporter of the Year, Sixth Form award. Her article, which focuses on child slave labour in Africa, has been chosen from over 3,000 applications from 150 schools. The long-list of ten will be whittled down to just three in the next couple of weeks and if Stephanie makes the top three, she will travel to London to attend a prestigious ceremony at Amnesty International's headquarters in central London on 9 May. And further congratulations in the Girls’ Division go to Year 10 pupil Rhiannon Fox-Rothwell who is now part of the North of England Girls' Rugby squad. Rhiannon has been playing rugby since she was three years old and played for Trafford MV and Eccles before joining current club, Tyldesley Girls. It was from there that she was scouted to play for Lancashire and she has been with the county team for the past two years. More Rugby as Bolton School played host to the first round of this year's Bolton borough rugby league competition with year 7 and 8 teams from Bolton School, Canon Slade, St.Catherine's, St Joseph's and Westhoughton Schools locking horns to get the town's rugby league back up and running. More rugby league followed with the school hosting a primary schools tag rugby festival on the levels on Thursday.
A team of four Year Eight boys has reached the final of the North-West junior 'School Challenge' quiz competition. Two teams participated in the first heat of this year's event, both of whom won their initial group stage comfortably before going on to meet each other in what would prove to be a gripping semi-final contest. The winning Boys’ Division team secured victory over Manchester Grammar School in the final. And this year's Boys' Division Young Musician of the Year evening saw the culmination of a month of superb music making. On the night, the Junior and Senior winners of seven musical categories - brass, guitar, piano, percussion, strings, wind and woodwind - battled it out for the overall award of Young Musician of the Year.