Junior Boys' Review 2016-17

BOLTON SCHOOL JUNIOR BOYS’ 2016/2017 REVIEW

From the Head...

The Boys’ Junior School that we all so affectionately refer to as Park Road, has continued to thrive this year with so much going on both within and beyond the classroom and this review provides us with a very welcome opportunity to sit back and reflect upon all that we have managed to fit in to what feels like an ever-shrinking amount of time. No sooner were we welcoming all our new boys into the Park Road hall at the start of year assembly, than we were saying farewell to the Year 6 boys who have grown into fine young men during their time with us.

We were of course all delighted, when the ISI inspection team declared what we all already knew, that our school is indeed ‘Excellent’. Whilst they confirmed what our staff, boys and parents already believe, it is good to hear that others can look into our school and see the community that we work so hard to create; one which looks to develop the boys in terms of their academic, pastoral and physical needs.

The classrooms have been busy and productive places of course. The boys have been working hard on developing all of those key skills required as they progress through school. We’ve been developing our use of technology and iPads are becoming an ever more natural part of our classroom repertoire.

Beyond the classroom we have seen a wonderful variety of activity with the boys excelling in sport, music, drama and charitable endeavour. Sport this year continues to have a feeling of breadth to it, with boys competing in a range of sports including hockey, biathlon,

basketball water polo and, of course, football. This year the U11 swimmers reached the national finals of the ESSA relay competition and were eventually placed 13th overall.

Music has continued to grow in terms of participation and performance with a wider range of ensembles in action and the quality of music improving all the time. This year the massed voices of Y6 joined with thousands of other children at the Young Voices event held in Manchester Arena, followed by a distinct change of repertoire in the Upper School Choir for a performance alongside the Friends of Bolton Choir at the Bolton Parish Church.

The Year 6 play this year was Joseph and his Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat. This really was a very colourful affair, the quality of the acting and singing was tremendous and I’m sure that the audience will be singing those songs for some time.

Thinking of others is something which we seek to promote within school and the boys, supported wonderfully by their parents, really do take this on with great relish, from the food donations for Harvest festival, to the huge sums of money donated in the Charity Fun Run. Most importantly of all though is that the boys don’t simply give to their chosen recipients, they learn more about their work and are increasingly looking for things that they can actually do to help others and this is something which we will be looking to develop further in the coming years, particularly since Bolton School was awarded The Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service earlier this year – how wonderful it will be to play our part in that.

For me, the highlight of this year is probably Sports Day. Not just because it marked the end of a very busy school year, but because on that morning we saw the character that we work so hard to develop in the boys. It was delightful to see so many of the boys quite instinctively wishing each of their opponents luck as they lined up on the start before competing with great endeavour and determination and then congratulating each other so enthusiastically upon a race well run, whether they had finished first or last. To me it sums up so simply, the strength of community and character that we work so hard to develop at Park Road and makes me proud to be Head of this school.

Mrs S Faulkner Head of the Junior Boys’ Division

BOLTON SCHOOL JUNIOR BOYS

Landscape Art Exhibition

Boys in Year 6 created a stunning array of landscape paintings in acrylic as part of their Art curriculum this year. The artwork showed a wide variety of scenes, from as far afield as Gran Canaria and Alaska and as close to home as Keld in Yorkshire and even our own Patterdale Hall! The paintings were exhibited outside the Theatre during the run of the Year 6 production for the audience to view.

Art Trips

The Art Monitors enjoyed a variety of artwork on visits to Manchester Art Gallery and Yorkshire Sculpture Park. On the Year 6 trip to Salts Mill near Bradford, as well as learning about Victorian cloth production, the boys also viewed two permanent Hockney exhibitions.

DramaJoseph and his Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat was a delight from start to finish! The Year 6 boys pulled out all the stops to do justice to Andrew Lloyd Webber’s famous musical. The whole cast gave wonderful, confident performances and sang beautifully to tell this moving Biblical tale. There was also plenty of humour, from Pharaoh’s Elvis-like style to Joseph’s brothers and their varied repertoire of songs to Potiphar’s man-eater wife! The unfurling of Joseph’s technicolour dreamcoat across the stage as the whole cast sang ‘Any Dream Will Do’ made an unforgettable finale.

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The musical life of the school is as rich as ever. In addition to year group concerts, the whole school has come together on several occasions to make and enjoy music together: highlights have included the Elton John medley at the Spring Concert and ‘Silent Night’ in four languages at Christmas! Boys in the Choir also this year had the opportunity to perform alongside the Brixi Singers, a local adult choir, and pupils have enjoyed numerous lunchtime concerts throughout the year.

Young Voices

The whole of Year 6 joined a mass choir of over 8,000 children at Manchester Arena to rehearse and perform medleys of folk, classic rock and well-loved pop songs at a Young Voices concert!

Music

‘Mass for Peace’ Concert

The Junior Boys’ Choir gave an uplifting performance at Bolton Parish Church on this moving occasion. The concert was themed around the Friends of Bolton School Choir’s rendition of ‘The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace’ by Karl Jenkins.

AJIS Proms

Five Junior Boys joined 80 fellow pupils to form the AJIS Orchestra. They had just one day to rehearse six pieces, nut nonetheless achieved a really high standard. In the evening, they put on a spectacular ‘AJIS Proms’ concert!

Charity

Fun Run

This year’s Fun Run raised a grand total of £7,521.60 for charity! This year, the boys chose which charities to support through their Houses and the money was split equally between Cash4Kids, Dementia UK, Derian House and Parkinson’s UK. A further £500 was raised on the day of the run for the We Love Manchester campaign. The boys had good weather for the run itself and were cheered on by staff and parents as they ran laps of the Senior School athletics track wearing an array of entertaining costumes!

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World’s Biggest Coffee Morning

The Parents’ Association raised over £200 by organising a Macmillan Coffee Morning in the Junior Boys’ Library. The Cubs also raised £432.11 for Macmillan with their coffee evenings.

Harvest

The Harvest Festival was a though-provoking occasion. Reverend Canon Rodger Petch from St Luke’s Church led the prayers and reminded pupils to be grateful for all that they have. Generous donations from Junior Boys and their families, which filled the stage, were given to Winter Watch. This is a scheme run by Urban Outreach in Bolton which provides homeless people with food, clothing, showers and advice.

Fighting Breast Cancer

Motivated by School Secretary Mrs Iddon being diagnosed with breast cancer a year ago, the boys resolved to raise money for the Breast Unit at Royal Bolton Hospital at the Christmas Fair by designing and selling wrapping paper and bags. Additional funds were raised at the Fair by the Parents’ Association and the school was able to donate £1,350 in total! Mrs Iddon, who is now back in school, invited her consultant to assembly to receive the cheque and talk to boys about how the money will be used.

Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service

In June, Bolton School received the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Services. This unique national honour is the highest accolade given to local volunteer groups and is equivalent to an MBE.

Fundraising

Boys wore spotty accessories with their uniform for Children in Need in exchange for a donation and raised £354.16. After the Spring Concert, the retiring collection held in support of Water Aid raised £518. There was also a collection following the Carol Service, which raised £354.50 for Oxfam’s ‘Teach a Teacher’ charity.

Sports

Throughout the year, external athletics, chess, cross country, football, hockey, swimming and water polo fixtures have allowed boys to engage their competitive spirit. There have also been House competitions in badminton, basketball, cricket, cross country, football, swimming and tennis.

A sunny Sports Day brought the year to a close with some new school records set.

Success for Swimmers

It has been a good year for the Park Road swimmers. At the AJIS Gala, several medals were won, and the boys swam well in various other inter-school Galas over the course of the year. The Year 6 boys achieved third place in the ESSA championships qualifier and so, in June, the boys travelled to Ponds Forge in Sheffield to swim in the National Primary School Championships! There they qualified for the B Final, where they came in fifth place.

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Hockey

Winners of the AJIS Trophy

Year 4 Athletics

Excited Year 3 footballers played a fun football tournament at Manchester City Football Club

The Junior Boys won the Bolton Schools’ Cross Country League jointly with the Junior Girls

Football

Boys in all age groups have played well throughout the year: working hard, putting in good performances and showing great spirit, energy and togetherness. The U9, U10 and U11 AJIS Tournaments were each particularly tough this year: the U10 A team made it to the semi-finals, and the U11s to the quarter-finals where they fell to a last minute goal. In other fixtures, there were some impressive wins across the year, particularly for Year 5.

Sports Day Water Polo

The Junior Boys’ water polo team enjoyed several fixtures this year, playing Year 7 and 8 teams and taking part in competitions. Three teams entered the ESSA U11 Cadet Competition in May, with two reaching the semi-finals and the A team winning comfortably overall! The other two teams finished third and fifth: a great success. Two teams of Year 6 boys also played in the City of Manchester Water Polo Festival, finishing sixth and twelfth of sixteen teams in the Year 7 U12s competition.

Chess

It has been a year of good sportsmanship and admirable chess for the Junior Boys. Park Road was delighted to host the annual AJIS North-West Chess Tournament, with the U11 A team continuing the school’s winning streak in that age group. The U9s also came away with a bronze medal. Later in the year, boys finished first in the U9 and U11 sections at the EPSCA qualifying tournament, winning those teams a place at the national semi-finals at Prestatyn in June! Over 400 children played at this event, which takes place over six highly competitive rounds across a whole weekend. The U11 team started the Sunday in second place, but ultimately came in a very creditable 10th out of 26 teams. The U9 team were just squeezed into 5th place by one point, narrowly missing out on a place in the final. The boys ended the year in triumph at the Bolton Primary Schools’ Chess League, finishing at the top of the leaderboard the clinching the A title.

The Athletics trophy was won by Chadwick House

Around School

Boys travelled to outer space, the centre of a volcano, the Borneo rainforest and went back to Anglo-Saxon Britain with Google Expeditions through virtual reality headsets

Nineteen Junior Boys had their stories selected for the second round of judging in BBC Radio 2’s 500 Words competition

Boys enjoyed ‘A Taste of Dahl’: excerpts from the storyteller’s famous books brought to life by an actor

Boys were thrilled to meet Group Captain Jason Appleton, an Old Boy, when he landed his Squirrel helicopter on the Levels

Olympic

Year 6 pupils quizzed Old Boy Chris Eatough about being six times World 24 hour Solo Mountain Mike Racing Champion

Performing at the Confucius Institute’s Tenth Anniversary celebration

runner Eilish McColgan spoke to boys about her career highlights and how to recover from setbacks

House Competitions

Throughout the course of this year we have continued to provide a wide range of opportunities for boys to represent their House in whatever area of strength they can. As a result, we have had a number of exciting and close competitions in many different aspects of school life.

The overall Champion House result for 2016-17 is as follows:

1st Chadwick

2nd Dobson & Lever

4th Crompton

In addition to the House Competition, the boys enjoyed taking part in two House Days during the course of the year: the now annual Great Christmas Decoration Day, which usually involves a great deal of crepe paper with just a smattering of glitter; and the Easter

House Day, which is all about teamwork and communication and ends with the House Quiz and Easter Eggstravaganza.

The Houses now form a much more integral part of school life and it is good to see the boys of different ages coming together, not only to hand in merits, but to work as a team, learn from each other and build positive relationships across the school.

Challenging a Grandmaster

Chess Grandmaster and Old Boy Nigel Short returned to Bolton School for a simultaneous chess match against twenty-three pupils from the Junior and Senior Schools. Three Junior Boys took part and Year 6 pupil Vibhav Sugumar was the penultimate pupil still playing Nigel at the end, after two and half hours of chess – an amazing achievement!

City of Trees

The Manchester City of Trees project aims to re-establish the old woodlands that once occupied the region, and this year pupils have been working with the campaign and the Woodland Trust. Some boys collected and planted seeds, and from these a tree nursery was created in school for over 100 young trees. Once the whips planted in school grounds were large enough, they were re-planted by a group of boys in Lady Mabel’s Wood, where they will eventually grow to complement neighbouring mature woodland at Haigh Hall Country Park. As well as carrying out the physical labour of the project, the boys have learned more about trees, why they are needed and why original woodlands were removed.

Mr Hough visited China to develop partnerships with schools in Wuhan, Hubei Province