Junior Girls' Review 2020-21

From the Head...

The academic year 2020 – 2021 was certainly one to remember, a challenge for all sorts of different reasons. School life was rather dominated by Covid-19, with children only mixing in small ‘bubbles’ and many activities cancelled for safety reasons. However, this did not stop us from making sure we offered the very best experience possible for our girls – it just took a bit of creativity. The pupils and staff showed great resilience, working collaboratively and with such commitment, particularly evident during periods of ‘lockdown’ and ‘isolation’ when all of our lessons had to take place online. Communication was more important than ever when there was so much less face to face contact and our girls didn’t disappoint us. Their natural curiosity and general love of learning shone through, and the work they produced, whether online or in person, was as impressive as ever. Two particular highlights for me were the compassion shown by the girls in their amazing fundraising efforts and the Summer Concert, when we finally got the whole school together, outside of course, to celebrate the end of the year and all of our achievements.

This publication is a wonderful tribute to the hard work of pupils and staff in unusual and challenging circumstances, congratulations to each and every one of them!

Carol Laverick

Curiosity - to appreciate a learning environment where asking questions and a thirst for knowledge are valued.

Hesketh House Habits

This year, the Annual Review is themed around the Hesketh House Habits: a set of eight key characteristics that encourage good habits in all aspects of life. These are threaded through all that we do at Hesketh House. To find out more, use the QR code to watch videos about all the Habits.

Creativity - to embrace creativity across all subjects in the Curriculum.

Compassion - to connect with the world around us, showing empathy and understanding.

Collaboration - to value teamwork and understand the importance of working effectively with others.

Commitment - to display a determined approach, demonstrating tenacity, perseverance and persistence.

Challenge - to welcome challenge in lessons and extra-curricular activities.

Celebration - to delight in the beauty of the world around us and recognise everyone’s talents.

Communication - to develop oracy skills, communicating confidently in discussion, debating and presenting.

Curiosity

Ancient Egypt

An online presentation from Tony North helped Year 4 girls to discover more about Pharaohs and Pyramids and expand their learning about Ancient Egypt. One of the highlights was learning to draw the Eye of Horus in seven easy steps.

Inspirational Dame

Performer, TV presenter, producer and author Baroness Floella Benjamin addressed the Junior Girls as part of a Zoom call with 170 schools. She spoke to the huge virtual gathering about her life and shared her philosophy of the 3 Cs: Consideration, Contentment and Confidence, rounded out by the 4th C, Courage.

Careers Insights

There was a wealth of careers advice available at the joint Careers Carousel. Year 6 girls were joined on Zoom by their Junior Boys’ School counterparts and a fascinating range of guest speakers: alumni Dr Natalie Rout (GP), Lieutenant Commander Rob de Maine (Royal Navy) and Hannah Earp (Marine Scientist), and representatives from UKFast (hosting and cloud provider).

Hay Festival

Girls in Year 6 made the most of the Hay Festival’s online content: they loved drawing a muscly cartoon heart in a session about anatomy with Adam Kay, discovered more about inventions, scientists and the development of an embryo with Professor Robert Winston, and listened to David Baddiel’s talk about his new book ‘Future Friend’.

Meeting an MP

A zoom Q&A with Bolton North East MP Mark Logan allowed Year 6 to pose a wide range of questions. They asked about his job, the House of Commons, and issues affecting the local area. They also shared the issues important to them, from pollution and litter, to university funding and helping disabled people.

Census 2021

Year 3 learned all about how important the Census is by ‘counting with cats’! They had fun conducting their own in-school census before the national Census on Sunday 21 March 2021.

Victorian Inventions

Year 6 discovered more about Victorian inventions through interactive demonstrations with Balestra School Workshops. Combining history and STEM subjects, they leaned about the invention of the steam train, dressed up and took pictures using a real Victorian camera and found out about the Industrial Revolution’s impact on the local area.

Parliament Workshop

In an informative workshop delivered direct from the Houses of Parliament, Year 6 learned about elections, the role of an MP, debates in the House of Commons, the House of Lords and how laws are made.

Celebrating Shakespeare

On the 405th anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth, Year 4 celebrated his wonderful stories. They read ‘Romeo and Juliet’ and ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, enjoyed a wide variety of retellings, and explored his colourful language by making ‘fortune tellers’ filled with his insults and compliments. They also created fabulous portraits of the Bard himself, including some more modern interpretations.

Life in the Legion

A visiting Centurion helped girls in Year 4 learn about the Roman Legion. They explored the experiences of auxiliary and legionary soldiers, including different armour, pay and benefits, and heard about the Romans’ deadly weapons and even deadlier tactics.

Viking Invasion

History came to life for the Junior Girls as a Viking stepped into the hall! He regaled pupils with stories of how the Vikings and Anglo-Saxons lived, showed off his weapons and other artefacts, and even performed some ‘Viking magic’ to light a fire.

Creativity

Ancient Egypt

Girls in Year 4 used all their creative skills in their learning about Ancient Egypt! They crafted Senet game boards using Egyptian designs, painted on papyrus and used tools to make digital drawings on their iPads.

Chinese New Year

In celebration of Chinese New Year, girls learned more about Chinese culture. They heard the story that is told on willow pattern plates and painted their own, as well as creating blossoming trees and fireworks in digital art apps on their iPads.

Music Recitals

Young musicians from all year groups took to the stage for a live concert in front of their peers! Though an external audience could not join them for this special occasion, the girls’ performances were filmed and the concerts released online for everyone to enjoy.

Music Festival

The annual Music Festival took place virtually in March with girls submitting recordings of their performances, which were stitched together and released online. This year there were four Piano classes split by year group, and classes for Strings, Woodwind and Vocal. All of the winners, including the winners of the Best Beginner and Duet Awards, were included in the Celebratory Concert video.

Author Talk

Girls were excited to meet Jen Carney, author of ‘The Accidental Diary of BUG’. She joined the girls in their classrooms via Zoom to share ‘biscuit eating laws’ and lead a very popular drawing session. As well as encouraging the girls to read the book, Jen’s call inspired some girls to create character descriptions based on her story!

Street Dance

Year 3 thoroughly enjoyed learning moves and expressing themselves in their dance sessions all through the Summer Term! The final performance was this year released on Twitter.

Painting

Vases in Year 3

Travelling by Tuba

At the end of the Autumn Term, all girls were treated to a workshop with the Travelling by Tuba duo. They were taken on an exciting and interactive ‘tour’ of different musical instruments and learned how to play a fast-paced and festive Samba on percussion.

Greek

Aztec headdress crafted by Year 5 Blitz artwork inspired by Year 6’s Second World War learning Firebird painting inspired by music from Stravinsky’s ballet

Illuminated ‘stained glass’ artwork made by Year 3 Silk painting in Year 4

Rainforest paintings inspired by Year 5’s reading of ‘The Explorer’ by Katherine Rundell

River Journey artworks by Year 4

Warhol-inspired pop art self-portraits by Year 3

‘Letters from the Lighthouse’ maps by Year 6, based on their reading of Emma Carroll’s book

Compassion

A Spot of Fundraising

The school had a spot-tacular time raising money for Children in Need! The Junior Girls wore their own clothes and lots of Pudsey accessories in exchange for bringing in donations and raised £453.47 with their efforts.

Harvest Collection

The school’s celebration of Harvest brought with it a reminder to think of others. A generous collection of food items donated by girls and their families was given to local charity Urban Outreach, which helps those less fortunate in the Bolton area.

Red Nose Day

The Junior Girls joined in with the national fundraising efforts for Comic Relief. They came to school dressed in their brightest clothing, with many choosing to wear red and Comic Relief accessories. Donations totalled £409.70.

(S)Miles for Malawi

The Junior Girls this year launched a campaign to raise £50,000 and build a school in Malawi. They have already achieved 10% of their target! Pupils raised over £5,000 through sponsored challenges: in a matter of weeks, the whole school collectively travelled 12,000km (the distance from Bolton School to the planned site of the school in Malawi) and Year 6 climbed 3,002m (the height of Malawi’s tallest mountain, Mulanje Massif) in a single day.

If you would like to support the (S)Miles for Malawi campaign, please donate generously on the JustGiving page: https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/smilestomalawi

Pringle Bells

Each year, Bolton School helps Urban Outreach to fill their festive hampers, which provide Christmas dinners with all the trimmings and extras to struggling families in the local area. The 2020 Hamper Challenge had pupils and their families donating tubes of Pringles! The Junior Girls donated 624 tubes, including 264 tubes of Doritos Stax from one generous dad who works at Walkers Crisps! This contributed to the School’s overall donation of 1,503 tubes and a cheque for £1,658.14.

Remembrance Day

The Remembrance Day commemoration was led in video format by Year 6: they talked about the origins of ‘poppy day’ and the importance of Remembrance, and recited the poem ‘In Flanders Fields’ by John McCrae. This was followed by two minutes of silence, during which beautiful poppy artwork created by the whole of Year 6 was displayed.

Commitment

Cross Country

Girls took part in the House Cross Country Competition in the school grounds in March. The conditions were perfect on the day and everyone really enjoyed this event..

Sports Day

The girls enjoyed a lovely afternoon on Sports Day. They competed in a wide variety of events to gain points for their House and had fun cheering on their peers as they competed in sprints, long jump, egg and spoon races, obstacle courses and lots more sporting challenges.

Squash Taster

All of the Junior Girls took on the fun challenge of learning more about a new sport with a series of squash taster sessions for each year group.

Hockey Club

Girls in Year 6 had fun with drills and friendly matches at hockey club this year. They impressed their coach with their skills and enthusiasm each week.

Tennis Competition

Year 4 girls formed two doubles teams to play in the Bolton Schools’ Tennis Competition alongside the Junior Boys. The Bolton Aces and Bolton Braves enjoyed this competitive event at Bolton Arena, and the Aces won the cup!

Virtual Mile

This year, instead of the local Cross Country League, the whole school took part in the Bolton Primary Schools’ Virtual ‘Daily Mile’ Competition. Each week, the four fastest times from each year group were sent forward to the competition organisers. The girls got more competitive over the four weeks of the competition and really pushed themselves to achieve personal bests. As a result, the Junior Girls won both the Year 3/4 and Year 5/6 competitions and five girls finished in the Top Ten in Bolton!

Collaboration

House Swimming Galas

Each year group had the opportunity to compete on behalf of their House in a Swimming Gala. Lots of fun was had by all who took part, and the overall winning House was Windermere with 141 points: just one more than the runners up, Ullswater! There was only 30 points splitting first and last place, making this a closely fought and exciting competition.

National Chess Finals

The chess team played in the online ECF National Chess Finals in March. This was a challenging event, and the girls’ first competitive fixture for over a year, but nonetheless some excellent play was noted and the girls really enjoyed the experience.

AJIS Cross Country

The annual AJIS Cross Country competition took place virtually this year with over 20 north-west independent schools taking part. Girls from Years 5 and 6 were selected to form teams and ran a one-mile course in the school grounds. Their times were submitted to the organisers at Rossall School and the Year 5 team earned an admirable third place and one individual gold medal.

Netball Masterclass

Former England Netball coach Tracey Neville visited Hesketh House to help Year 6 develop their skills. The excited team of star netballers had fun with challenging drills followed by some match action, all peppered with advice and tips from England legend Tracey.

Football Tournament

With less than half a term of training under their boots, the Year 6 footballers impressed at their very first competitive event. They listened carefully to coaching tips and improved with every game. The team was delighted to come away with second place!

Netball

In the Summer Term, the netball teams were able to play fun, friendly fixtures. For the first time, Year 5 played a school netball match and defeated their Stonyhurst College opponents 12-3! The Year 6 A and B teams also took on local club Chorley Inferno in two excellent matches that saw some girls playing against their club teammates.

Ambassadors

All girls in Year 6 take on the role of Ambassador at some point during their final year at Hesketh House. Ambassadors provide invaluable assistance to staff when needed and act as important role models for their fellow pupils. They reflect the values of the school: respect, honesty, kindness, resilience and responsibility.

Water Polo

In the Summer Term, Year 6 girls enjoyed water polo training sessions. They also played a fixture against the Junior Boys, which helped develop important skills and match play.

Challenge

Anderton Adventure

The Year 3 classes’ exciting trip to the Anderton Centre saw them wrangling the ropes course, tackling the tree climb and abseil, and taking to the water with a paddle board session! Glorious weather and helpful instructors made it an extra-special occasion.

Bikeability

The whole of Year 6 took the Bikeability cycling proficiency course to learn important safety skills and increase their road awareness capabilities. They also discovered how to perform basic maintenance on their bikes.

Santa’s Reindeer Dash

Everyone had a wonderful time on the last day before the Christmas holidays: the girls donned their best festive knitwear and headed out onto the playing fields to run in Santa’s Reindeer Dash! Staff also organised a scavenger hunt and winter-inspired team games.

Patterdale Hall

Girls in Years 4, 5 and 6 had a fantastic time when they each visited Patterdale Hall in the Lake District! On the shores of Lake Ullswater, they tried their hand at archery and the low ropes course, went on geography and nature walks to learn more about the landscape, challenged themselves to climb a crag, and tried campfire cooking and shelter building. They got out on the water aboard kayaks, sailing boats, stand-up paddle boards and canoes, and plunged in on exciting gorge walks. Year 6 also completed a conservation project as part of the John Muir Award.

Celebration

Song for the Earth

2021’s Summer Concert was held outdoors so that all of the girls could come together safely to perform, and filmed so that the whole school community could watch. The message was all about the wonders of the Earth and humans’ impact on the planet, with Goddess Gaia taking the girls and their audience on a journey around our beautiful planet. The programme included poem recitals, poignant facts about the environment, and of course plenty of music! The Summer Concert concluded with a reminder about the girls’ fundraising to build a school in Malawi: they sang and danced to ‘Waka Waka (This Time For Africa)’.

How The Grinch Stole Christmas

Girls told Dr Seuss’s classic tale through narration and song in a special filmed production at Christmas time! After weeks of fun rehearsals, pupils put on their best winter gear to perform for the cameras in class bubbles in the Girls’ Division theatre. The whole thing was stitched together and made for a spectacular celebration!

Christmas Gifts

The Parents’ Association provided funding to buy a small Christmas gift for every single Junior Girl this year.

Year 6 Leavers

As the Summer Term ended, it was time to bid a fond farewell to the Year 6 classes. The staff and Parents’ Association organised a party lunch in the Arts Centre, and they were applauded by the rest of the school as they left on their last day.

Fascinating Fact Boxes

Year 4 girls delighted in making and sharing fact boxes with one another! Each one beautifully presented the girls’ research about different aspects of science, inspiring questions, explanations and the sharing of ideas.

Youth Climate Summit

Year 3 engaged with the Youth Climate Summit: all of the girls created colourful and informative posters to promote saving the oceans. The year group also wrote a letter to the Prime Minister, informing him of their concerns and asking him to work with other leaders on a Global Ocean Treaty.

World Book Day

On World Book Day everyone enjoyed dressing up as favourite characters and snuggling up with a good book! Masked readers shared stories with their classes over Zoom and the girls got creative: making Apple Clips all about their favourite books and writing reports on fantastic beasts inspired by ‘Meet the Rhiswano-zeb-tah’ by Maria Richards.

The Oracy Project

This new initiative aims to develop important communication skills in all pupils by embedding Oracy in all areas of the curriculum. The school has created a culture of talk in lessons and an environment in which pupils can clearly express thoughts and effectively communicate ideas.

Creative Communication

Girls in all year groups used their creative art, design and writing skills to communicate ideas across many subjects through posters, stories, logs, profiles of fictional characters and historic figures, labelled diagrams and much more.