24th May 2013

Former Status Quo drummer, Jeff Rich, visited Bolton School Girls’ Division this week as part of a Year 8 Careers Day. Jeff spoke to pupils about the music business, the development of the drum and about his own drum kit. He played a solo on the kit before inviting the pupils up on stage to play percussion and drums with him and also invited any drummers in the audience to come up and play his kit. There were a number of other guests running sessions with the girls on the day, including some successful Old Girls - Actress Anna Northam and Project Support Engineer at Bentley Motors, Amy Durrant. On the subject of Old Girls, Jaiminee Patel who left Bolton School in 2011 has made it to the final 20 of the MTV Student of the Year competition. Jaiminee, now in her first year of Business Management at King's College London, has been shortlisted to progress to the interview finals and now needs as many votes as possible to get through! Get voting for Jaiminee!

Other visitors to School this week were 2013 Rugby League World Cup mascots Grubber and Steed who visited pupils at Beech House along with Leigh Centurions first team player Ryan Brierley, as part of the Try Reading project. The Reception children were introduced to Grubber and Steed and Ryan Brierley read them a story about the pair. Boys’ Division Year 7 pupil Luke James also went along - as a winner of the Rugby League World Cup 2013 Mascot Design competition this was the first time Luke had come face to face with his creation Grubber Bear. One of three winners, Luke’s design was chosen from over 1,000 entries from the UK and France. As part of his prize, Luke also won tickets to two World Cup matches of his choice in addition to tickets to the Rugby League World Cup Final at Old Trafford, where he and the other winners will lead the players out. And award winning author for young adults, Bali Rai, was also in School to talk to Year 9 girls about his writing.

Year 9 pupil Beth Hodkinson represented England in the European Taekwon-Do Championships in Sweden and came away with a bronze medal. Beth won the bronze medal in her individual sparring competition despite being the youngest in the England team and competing against 16 and 17 year olds. In her team event she came away with a draw but unfortunately the team lost out overall. And Junior Boys’ Year 5 pupil, Jude Ashcroft, has won the Regional Mega Final of the UK chess challenge. As the winner, he will now go on to represent the Lancashire region in the U10 age group at the Northern Giga Final in Manchester on 13 July.