Friday 25 January 2013

25 January 2013

In the government’s latest league table of schools by English Baccalaureate (EBacc) results, Bolton School Girls’ Division has been ranked as the top performing secondary school in the North of England and the Boys’ Division was ranked as fourth best in the North of England. Nationally, the Girls’ Division is ranked as 27th best school in the country. The EBacc qualification is awarded to pupils who achieve a GCSE in the so-called “traditional” subjects of English, Maths, two Sciences, a language and either History or Geography. In the government league table ranking of secondary schools by the percentage of pupils achieving 5 A*-C grades, including English and Mathematics, Bolton School Boys’ Division has placed top in the borough. Ninety nine per cent of the 137 boys who received their GCSE results in the summer of 2012 achieved this benchmark. The Girls’ Division was ranked 2nd in the borough with 97% of their pupils making the grade. The boys’ results mean the school has also outperformed all other schools in the surrounding regions of Bury, Blackburn, Blackpool, Oldham, Rochdale, Warrington, Wigan and Salford. And yet more academic success as eleven of our Sixth Form students have received offers to study at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge from this Autumn.
Congratulations go to Bolton school 1st XV rugby captain Nathan Stansfield who has been selected for the national Independent Schools side, The Lambs. Nathan won through a tough selection process after he represented the Northern Independent Schools side. The first match for The Lambs is this weekend against Irish Exiles at Maidstone. And our Junior Boys also did the School proud at the AJIS cross country Championships at Rossall School with the year 6s finishing in first place and the year 5s just outside the top three.
Year 9 Girls’ Division pupil Johanna Mercer has had her first book ‘Demon Rose’ published in the Amazon Kindle store. It is now available for readers to buy from the website. While Boys’ Division year 9 pupil, Sam Hassall is starring in new CBBC show Junior Vets, after being chosen from more than 1000 applicants. The 10 episode series gives six ordinary schoolchildren the chance to become the first juniors to enrol at Edinburgh University’s Vet School. Watch Sam in the next episode on CCBC at 5.45pm on Monday.

Friday 18 January 2013

18th January 2013

Despite the wintery weather this week, hundreds of children made the trip to Bolton School for our entrance exam, standards were high and it was great to welcome so many talented youngsters.
An upcoming exhibition at Bolton Museum is set to feature the life and work of Constance Howarth, a former pupil of our School in the 1940s. Constance was a successful fashion designer in the 1950’s with her designs attracting attention from the fashionistas of London, Paris and New York. The exhibition, dedicated to her memory, will run from Saturday 26 January to Sunday 7 April, showcasing Constance’s sketches, designs and dresses from the 1950s onwards, so go along and take a look if you can.

And Year 10 pupil Sarah Ibberson has been raising money for the LivLife charity by busking in the Lake District. Sarah took it upon herself to give up her time and play her saxophone outside the Booths Store in Windermere over two weekends before Christmas. She played Christmas carols to the shoppers for a total of around 12 hours and managed to raise £667. Sarah chose to LivLife to support her classmates who are going out to Tanzania in the summer to see first hand the work the charity does and to offer a helping hand.

Friday 11 January 2013

11th January 2013

Just a week into the new term staff and pupils are very quickly getting back into the swing of things at Bolton School.

Not long to go now until our Entrance Exam on Thursday (17th January). We have received very strong numbers of applications this year but there is still time to apply. Contact 01204 840201 and ask to speak to the secretary of the School your child would like to attend.

Good news as Bolton School is one of only a handful of schools in the North of England to be placed in a national league table of independent schools published by The Independent newspaper. In the table of schools ranked by students' A level results in 2011-12, the Girls’ Division was positioned at 47th and the Boys’ Division at 51st in the newspaper's Top 100 Independent Schools' ranking.

Year 13 pupil Erin Taylor is celebrating success in a prestigious northern writing competition. Erin won the poetry category of the Portico Prize for Young Writers, while two other Bolton School pupils, Annie Simon and Georgia Thurston, were Highly Commended. The regional literary competition is for promising writers, mirroring the prestigious adult competition, the Portico Prize for Literature, and celebrating the region through its young writers. The girls had to produce a piece of poetry or prose on the theme ‘The North’. Erin’s winning poem was entitled ‘Stockton Heath’.

And Bolton School Old Boy, Toryn Dalton, has been cited as a co-author on a recently published Science research paper as a result of his work during an Ogden Trust internship. Toryn was an Ogden intern at the University of Durham last summer working with Dr Ifan Hughes and Lee Weller on the ‘Slow Light project’ and the recently published research paper, ‘Measuring the Stokes parameters for light transmitted by a high-density rubidium vapour in large magnetic fields’.