The Cockerel

BOLTON SCHOOL BOYS’ DIVISION NEWSLETTER ISSUE 51 - APRIL 2025

Chapter 1 Audience enjoys Spring Concert at Bolton Parish Church

Audience enjoys Spring Concert at Bolton Parish Church

The annual Joint Spring Concert brought together the talents of Bolton School’s Boys’ and Girls’ Divisions for a very special evening of music, held in the stunning surroundings of Bolton Parish Church.

The programme for the evening featured a wide range of musical styles, from classical pieces to a Disco medley and everything in between! The Joint Orchestra opened the evening, followed by bands, ensembles, choirs and groups from across the Girls’ and Boys’ Divisions. This wonderful evening was an opportunity to enjoy the breadth of the school’s musical talents, and every section had its own moment to shine.

All of the musicians at the Spring Concert gave excellent performances on the night, and ﬁlled the impressive space of Bolton Parish Church with beautiful music.

This was a very special occasion, both for those who took part and those who gathered in the church to enjoy an evening of music.

Chapter 2 Reading for Pleasure thrives at Bolton School

Reading for Pleasure thrives at Bolton School

Counter to the recent National Literacy Trust report, students at Bolton School are keen readers and the Senior School promotes reading for pleasure through a wide variety of initiatives.

This year, the English departments started using the Sparx reader app to better track engagement with reading. The top readers and those who reach Gold Reader status on the app receive rewards for their reading, and the stats show excellent engagement, with an impressive completion percentage of 98%.

Across the Senior Schools, pupils enjoy a weekly morning form time that is set aside speciﬁcally for reading too. Reading is set as homework in Boys’ Division Literacy lessons, while in the Girls’ Division pupils enjoy fortnightly Library Lessons where they read through an anthology with their peer group.

Students are encouraged to recommend books to one another. All Year 7 boys are excited to choose a ‘Book Buzz’ book in the Autumn Term, Boys’ Division Literacy lessons begin with a book recommendation for others, and the student-led ‘Gold Reader’ newsletter also promotes reading to boys. In the Girls’ Division,

‘recommended reads’ are included as part of the curriculum. The Library encourages boys and girls in all year groups to provide recommendations to go on display amongst the shelves, so that pupils can see what their peers have been enjoying. World Book Day oﬀers yet more opportunities for students to share favourite books with one another. The Library also shares suggested reads to support the English curriculum and to encourage reading for knowledge.

In fact, the recommendations begin even before students arrive at Bolton School. This year, all incoming Year 7s received a book, ‘Wonderscape’ by Jennifer Bell, to read in the summer before they joined the school, and extra tasks were provided to extend their engagement with this story. The Library also gives new students a list of ‘7 Book to Read Before Year 7’ to give young readers more options to explore.

Bolton School pupils beneﬁt from several author talks a year, both in-person and virtual. These experiences help young readers to develop their comprehension skills by exploring these books in more depth.

Weekly Book Clubs take place in the Boys’ and Girls’ Division Libraries, oﬀering games, quizzes, crafts and even treasure hunts around the Library. Members also have additional opportunities to meet authors virtually during lunchtimes. In the Girls’ Division there are additional extra-curricular activities centred around reading, such as the Advanced Readers club in Year 9 and ‘Classics and Cake’ for Years 10 and 11.

The Library is at the heart of Bolton School’s culture of reading for pleasure, providing a safe space where pupils can read, enjoy clubs and activities, and explore wider interests. For non-ﬁction fans, there is a selection of magazines for students to browse, including Teen Breathe, various daily newspapers, sports magazines such as Match, Sky at Night, BBC History, and Scientiﬁc American. There are regular thematic displays linked to current events in school and in the wider world, such as Black History Month, Neurodiversity Month, LGBTQ+ displays, Horror at Halloween, Banned Books and more. Regular scavenger hunts around the shelves and other fun activities help students to become more familiar with and comfortable in their Library, as do extra-curricular activities like the roleplaying DnD Club, which also helps to develop oracy and encourages factual reading for fun through the use of various rule books.

Bolton School also promotes reading for pleasure more widely through the Bolton Children’s Fiction Award: an annual Award run by the school’s Librarians, which allows children across Bolton to

select their favourite book from the three shortlisted. Every year, the school hosts a Book Award Day in celebration of the books and reading, with the shortlisted authors attending to meet children from schools around Bolton. This is always a popular event, with lots of engaged children full of questions about the books!

The shortlist for the 2025 Award was recently announced after deliberations over the summer holidays. The three Shortlisted books are:

‘The Final Year’ by Matt Goodfellow

‘The Secrets of the Snakestone’ by Piu Das Gupta

‘My Brilliant plan to ﬁx everything’ by Ben Davis

Library sta ﬀ at Bolton School said:

‘While all quite distinct titles, they do have common themes running through them –determination, resilience and maintaining a sense of humour when life is challenging. We hope that everyone reading them will enjoy them as much as we have.’

Chapter 3 Scientists and Mathematicians enjoy Simon Singh talk

Scientists and Mathematicians enjoy Simon Singh talk

Young people in Bolton with an interest in science and maths visited Bolton School to hear from author, journalist and TV producer Simon Singh about his books. Around 500 pupils from 21 local schools, together with pupils from the Girls’ and Boys’ Divisions, ﬁlled the Girls’ Division Great Hall for this fascinating talk.

Simon started with a whistlestop tour of his career, from his PhD in physics to working for the BBC and writing books about maths and science. He has written books on medicine, maths, cryptography, and even the Simpsons! However, he explained that all of his books are connected by the scientiﬁc method.

He encouraged those watching to be logical rather than subjective, and to use experiments to understand how the world works. He said that this is how we get closer to the truth.

The talk continued with a brief section about each of his books, starting with the ‘The Simpsons and their Mathematical Secrets’. Simon shared some of the real, complicated maths hidden in plain sight within the popular TV show by its mathematician creators. He also discussed Fermat’s Last Theorem in some detail, talking about both his book on the subject and the BBC documentary he produced about how the Last Theorem was ﬁnally proved by mathematician Andrew Wiles.

He spoke more about the scientiﬁc method in relation to his book ‘Trick or Treatment? Alternative Medicine on Trial’, and how medicine and alternative medicine can be tested to determine the truth of what works and what does not.

Speaking more broadly about his career, he said that he was inspired to write his books because he wanted to challenge himself, and encouraged the young people listening to do the same. He advised them that if they want to make a diﬀerence in the world, they should study one of the STEM subjects: these can and do lead to all sorts of careers. He encouraged everyone to stick with subjects they love.

The talk ended with a lively Q&A session in which Simon answered questions about why he chose to study physics over maths, the inspiration behind his books, and spoke about the beneﬁts of making a conscious decision to change direction to do something better.

After the talk, pupils from seven schools stayed at Bolton School for a taster lesson in the Bolton School science labs. Simon was pleased to visit the physics, biology and chemistry sessions and chatted with pupils about the hands-on experiments they were conducting.

This was a hugely successful partnership event which was very much enjoyed by all those who took part.

Chapter 4 Boys’ Division celebrates International Women’s Day

Boys’ Division celebrates International Women’s Day

The Boys’ Division held a whole-school assembly, led by English teacher Miss Choudhury, who shared with the gathered boys the importance of marking this occasion, its history, and its continued relevance today in promoting a genderequal world.

The assembly explored how throughout history, women have been conﬁned to certain roles, particularly that of a wife and mother, and how these outdated gender roles continue to persist in today's world.

The conversation then shifted to the role young boys and men can play in helping women move beyond these limiting narratives. By acting as allies, they can challenge gender stereotypes, amplify women's voices, and use their privilege to ensure women have equal opportunities at success and respect.

Miss Choudhury therefore emphasised how the key to creating a more equitable future lies in collective action and support for one another in breaking down barriers to gender equality.

Chapter 5 Celebration of Young Musicians’ talents

Celebration of Young Musicians’ talents

At the beginning of March, the Boys’ Division held the annual Young Musician of the Year Award Final in the Great Hall.

The earlier rounds of the competition, held in January and February, selected the best musicians that the Boys’ Division had to offer. After narrowing down the field to 56 semi-finalists, one Junior (Years 7-9) and one Senior (Years 10-13) musician was selected from each of seven categories: Brass, Piano/Organ, Strings, Vocal, Woodwind, Guitar and Percussion. On the night of the final, these fourteen young men performed their pieces in front of an audience.

Already winners in their own right, each of the musicians performed at an extremely high standard and the evening was a wonderful celebration of music in the Boys’ Division.

The adjudicator, who had the unenviable task of selected just one Junior and one Senior winner, was Robert Gardiner, Programme Lead Music Education at RNCM. After much deliberation, he declared Charlie Simpson (Year 10) the Senior Young Musician for 2025 and Max Knight (Year 7) the Junior Young Musician 2025. These two overall winners received a cash prize, generously donated by Mrs and Mrs Hilton, parents of Old Boy and musician Alexander Hilton.

The Young Composer of the Year awards were also presented on the night. The Senior award was given to Tanmay Gokul (Year 10), while Aashrith Govindu (Year 8) on the Junior award.

The Most Promising Performer award is given each year to a semi-final performance which was deserving of a place in the final, but did not quite make it. This year, that trophy was presented to pianist Justin Lin (Year 7). Everyone who performed on the night also received a trophy for winning their individual category to earn a place in the final.

Junior Young Musician of the Year: Max Knight

Senior Young Musician of the Year: Charlie Simpson

Water polo success for Boys’ Division

The Under 15 Boys travelled to Northampton recently for the Water polo Plate Final and won! Congratulations to them.

The Under 18 Boys recently ﬁnished third in their plate ﬁnals at Eton College.

Our Under 13 Boys’ Division & Girls’ Division teams competed in the ESSA Open/ Mixed preliminaries in recent weeks. First place was decided in the final game between Boys’ Division and St. Ambrose. Boys’ Division were two goals behind at half time, but scored with one minute left to play to secure a 5-4 victory and first place! The Under 13 boys finished top of their group to qualify as top see for the Semi-final round.

Under 15s

Under 13s

Chapter 7 Boys enjoy success in Chemistry

Boys enjoy success in Chemistry

Boys’ Division pupils have had several enrichment opportunities in Chemistry and have enjoyed much success in recent weeks.

Year 11 took part in the Junior Chemistry Challenge, in which three students, Rith Narla, Ethan Dixon, and Abdullah Zaeem all achieved Gold.

Year 12 Chemistry students visited Lancaster University, where they took part in a range of laboratory activities and attended a lecture on Computer Use within Chemistry.

Sixth Form pupils recently participated in the Royal Society of Chemistry Olympiad and Adam Faulkner and Jamie Logan both received a Silver Award.

Congratulations to all those involved.

Chapter 8 Charlie’s Winning Start to 2025

Charlie’s Winning Start to 2025

Teenage motorsport sensation Charlie Hart (Year 12) makes an exciting step up to the GT4 European Series for 2025, after clinching two victories and six podiums on his sportscar racing debut during the competitive GT4 Winter Series.

The 16-year-old from Rivington kicked on from early karting career successes by impressing further in Ginetta Juniors over the past two years and, after earning numerous victories in a strong campaign last year, made the much-anticipated jump up to GT racing this winter as he looks towards

Photo credit: GTWS/Nexus

competing in the prestigious Le Mans 24 Hours in the future.

Bolton School student Charlie teamed up with the RAFA Racing by Race Lab team and fellow racer Callum Davies for the ﬁveround GT4 Winter Series, racing a McLaren Artura across some of Europe's most famous race tracks. With an impressive display of race craft, determination and outright pace, Charlie ﬁrmly established himself as a rising talent in the GT ranks.

His GT4 debut began with a spectacular maiden podium at Estoril in Portugal in mixed conditions to kick off the Winter Series, but it would be the second event at Portimao where Charlie showed his talents. Scoring pole position was just the start in a mightily successful second event. He bagged yet another podium finish in his own race, before combining with Davies later in the weekend to brilliantly take a first GT4 race win by 8.5s in damp conditions.

Another ﬁne pole position and podium ﬁnish followed in Round 3 at Valencia, while he showed his competitive side at the fourth event in Aragon - taking yet another trophy with third place after coming out on top in a three-wide elbows-out scrap for the podium positions in his #812 McLaren.

Charlie rounded out his Winter Series audition in fabulous style at the Barcelona ﬁnale, claiming his third pole position in ﬁve attempts and adding victory number two of the campaign following a thrilling race-long battle with a fellow McLaren rival.

With three pole positions, two wins and six podiums to his name, it ended a mightily encouraging start to his GT racing venture.

The Lancashire lad and his McLaren squad now move up to face the world's best in the ultra-competitive GT4 European Series Powered by RAFA Racing, which features six double-header events at historic circuits such as Spa-Francorchamps, Barcelona and Zandvoort in front of packed crowds.

Charlie said: 'It's been such a great start to my ﬁrst season in proper GT cars! We got a great opportunity with the RAFA Racing team to go racing in their McLaren for the Winter Series; we took it with both hands and never looked back really.

'The car was going to be a new challenge for me, but I really enjoyed the feeling of it and we've got quicker and quicker as the races have gone on. To end the season in the top three with pole positions, plenty of silverware and a couple of race wins is really encouraging for us going forward.

'I'm now incredibly excited about what's to come in 2025. We're going up to take on the world's best in GT4 Europe, and I feel that we're in a great position with the team I'm a part of. We'll be realistic with our expectations but know we've come oﬀ the back of a great winter, so we'll deﬁnitely be going for it, that's for sure!'

Charlie's new season kicks oﬀ at Circuit Paul Ricard in France across 11-13 April. All races can be streamed live at GT World on YouTube.

Five Year 8 boys enjoy ISFA Football Festival

The ISFA Football Festival took place on 31st March-2nd April at Haileybury College. There were 19 players in the North West squad and Bolton School was represented by ﬁve members of Year 8: Noah Dandy, Benji Houghton, Matthew Howarth, Stefan Kurpas and Rhys Parry.

Seven ‘mini league’ group games were played by all regions - two on the Monday afternoon, four on the Tuesday and one ﬁnal game on the Wednesday morning. The North Werst team were placed third after winning a 3rd/4th place playo ﬀ 1-0 against Herts/Essex. Selection for the National ISFA squad will be announced after Easter.

Chapter 10 A snapshot of extra-curricular school life

After a rigorous selection process, Abdullah Zaeem (11g) has been awarded an Arkwright Scholarship for the forthcoming academic year. These scholarships are the most esteemed of its type in the UK, designed to inspire students to pursue their dreams and change the world as an outstanding engineer of the future. Congratulations, Abdullah.

Ibrahim Gul was the joint winner of the Stoner Prize. The Stoner Prize is won by students who produce the best presentation on a Physics Topic of their choice. They compete in science classes and then the winners go through to a ﬁnal. The ﬁnal takes place in front of the Head and parents.

Congratulations to Will Earnshaw and Joseph Williams from Year 12 on securing Bronze Awards in the UK Linguistics Olympics. They spent a challenging afternoon putting their problem-solving skills to the test by investigating a selection of new and unfamiliar languages and demonstrated commendable attitudes in extending their academic interests beyond their A Level studies.

This term, for Sparx Reader, rewards go to those boys who have an 100% completion rate by the given deadline. This demonstrates outstanding commitment to reading as a habit. The following boys have received a £10 voucher for their eﬀorts:

Edward Bale 7d

Shriansh Tol 7e

Reihan Becic 7f

Jaxon Openshaw 7f

Yahya Seedat 7f

David Varghese 7f

Chimdiebube Oraegbunam 8a

Daniel Watch 8b

Max Simpson 8c

Jack Richardson 9a

Shoaib Ismail 9c

Tejas Neelam 9c

George Pickett 9d

Uzair Haris 9e

Congratulations to Year 8 boys Dawar Hassan, Muhammad Zain Ali and Aaryan Patel. who have read and reviewed all three books of the Shortlist for the Bolton Children’s Fiction Awards 2025. In addition to the certiﬁcate and special badge, these students were invited to attend the Book Award Celebration Day on 3rd April.

The library team will invite students who have reviewed at least two of the Shortlist and are actively reading the third.

The following boys have received a Commendation Platinum Award:

Dawar Hassan 8b

Zaidan Master 8b

Joseph Grundy 8d

Tejas Neelam 9c

Congratulations to Jamie Chen (Year 10) on being awarded ﬁrst place in the Guitar Grade 8 Class for the Bury Lions Trophy at the Ramsbottom Music Festival.

Congratulations to Oliver Zhu (Year 8) on receiving Distinction in his recent Trinity Grade 3 Piano examination, Harry Farrington (Year 9) on achieving Merit in his recent Rockschool Grade 2

Drum Kit examination, Jordy Dare (Year 11) on receiving Merit in his MTB Grade 6 Piano and Ashton Morrissey (Year 8) on receiving Merit in his ABRSM Grade 3 Piano.

Congratulations to the following boys who have been awarded their Wellbeing Ambassadors badge. They have earned their badges from completing the Wellbeing Ambassadors course on the wellbeing hub:

Year 7 Sulaiman Alomair

Year 7 Mukundh Shankar

Year 8 Ajay Peart

Year 8 Jake Dance

Year 9 Saif Karim

Year 10 Daniel Watts

Year 10 Neeraj Patel

Year 11 Laith Al Shatri

Bolton School hosted the regional ﬁnal of the British Team Chess Challenge on Thursday 13th March. Tytherington School and King’s Macclesﬁeld challenged us, each school bringing an ‘A’ and a ‘B’ team. After three rounds of blitz chess, Bolton ‘A’ were winners with 10 points from a possible 12, and Bolton ‘B’ a close second with 9.5 points – well done to all the boys who took part. The winning team will compete in the National Finals in June.

The Year 7 and Year 10 Football teams recently competed in their Town Cup ﬁxture. The Year 11 footballers are also in the Town Cup Semi-ﬁnal; well done and good luck in the next round.

The Rugby season has moved in to the 7s form of the game with all side playing in a variety of tournaments across the North West. Notable results include the Under 15s reaching the semi-ﬁnal of the Audenshaw 7s and the Under 13s winning the prestigious Stonyhurst Trophy on Wednesday. We are hosting our own Under 15 and Under 14 tournaments in the next 10 days, which will hopefully lead to more success.

It has been a very busy term on the Hockey scene, from the Under 13 Lancashire Schools Cup Competition hosted at school, to the Under 12 North of England Finals day at King’s Chester.

Congratulations go to Rohan Chitre, Raees Munshi and Teddy Morrow for their success in representing Greater Manchester and

Lancashire, respectively at the Under 12 Regional Championships last weekend.

The Under 14s and Under 18s played in the Northwest Regional Finals recently, with some success throughout the tournament for both teams. Well done to all involved.

Finally, the Under 13s played in the Lancashire Schools Hockey Cup, hosted at school. They showed great promise throughout the tournament, narrowly losing in the Semi-ﬁnals to a strong Rossall outﬁt. Standout performances went to Jan Zarobkiewicz and William Brocklehurst.

Very well done to William Colvin who completed a 2-day RYA Power Boat Level 2 course held at Coniston Sailing Club at the weekend and is now qualiﬁed to drive power boats.

Recently 11 students competed in the North West Independent Schools Climbing Competition at Summit Up in Oldham. There were over 110 students competing from eight diﬀerent schools. All students displayed great determination and perseverance with 5 students managing to gain a podium spot within their age category – Sasha Milne (Year 8), Jensen Heath (Year 9), Cyrus Wong (Year 11), Ethan Knight (Year 9) and Hugo James (Year 11).

The other boys who took part all did well and should be proud of their performances – Teddy Armer (Year 7), Cipri Prasad and Louise Healey (Year 10), Aaron Patel and Zayd Adam (Year 11) and Xavier Hawkes (Year 12). Well done!

Members of Wigan House enjoyed a wonderful House Day. Crushing victories in numerous events were punctuated by a few memorable moments of glorious failure, and everyone who took part undoubtedly enjoyed the day and made excellent contributions. We now look forward to our upcoming fundraising eﬀorts in support of Bolton Green Umbrella. Thanks for everything our members have done and continue to do.

This year Manchester House are raising money to purchase a deﬁbrillator for a local sports club. Students in years 7-10 have pledged to raise a minimum of £10 each and have been busy this term raising money via community-based fundraising activities such as gardening for the elderly, cleaning wheelie bins and recycling clothes on Vinted.

Boys in Blackburn House have enjoyed assemblies throughout the year that have built momentum for fundraising for Blackburn Foodbank. We have ﬁnished the collection process and are due to drop oﬀ the collections at the Foodbank where the essential toiletries and tinned food goods will be put to good use. Thank you to all those boys in the house who have donated. A special mention for Fin Wyatt who has donated a considerable amount.

The Foundation Iftar event was a great success and the Boys’ Division Charities Committee has decided to use the donations towards the building of a new water well in Pakistan through the Global Rahmah Foundation.

The Spring House Day money that we raised will be donated towards Bolton Animal Shelter, Epilepsy Action and Wigan and Leigh Hospice.

One of our students, Jamie Logan (Year 13), is switching from his water polo activities to running and is hoping to complete the Manchester Marathon on Sunday, 27th April. He will be running for Cancer Research UK and would greatly appreciate any donations to support the vital work that they do.

Credits

Editor: Miss K.S. Wrathmell

Contributors: Miss A. Bradshaw, Miss. A. Wilson, Mr. N.L. Ford, Mr. P.J. Britton, Mr. I.K. Forgrieve, Mr. M.G. Chilton, Mr. M. Johnson, Mr. S. Foy, Mrs. C.A. Brace, Mrs. M. Howarth, Mrs. A. Caller, Mrs. L.R. Acton, Ms. J.Z. Sigrist, Mr. C. James, Mr. T. Benbow, Dr. M. Procter

Mr. D.F. Teasdale, Miss J.M. Choudhury, Mr. P. Costello, Mr. N.R.W. Wyatt. Mr. S. Parry