A snapshot of extra-curricular school life

Well done to Ahmed Baree in 7f for winning December’s monthly mission. Well done to Muhammad-Deen Patel in 7f for winning January’s monthly mission. Super well done to Derek Leong in 7a and Jamie Chen in 8e for winning both December’s and January’s monthly missions. December’s monthly mission involved the boys creating a travel guide for a country or city of their choice. January’s monthly mission involved cooking a meal from any country of the world. Some of the best entries involved Edinburgh-style grilled salmon and vegetable stew, pineapple and prawn fried rice and an Indian curry!

Congratulations to Patrick Humphreys (10d), Jacob Collinson (10a) and Lucas Horridge (10d), who were this winners of this year’s Stoner Prize. The Stoner Prize is a competition where groups of students choose an aspect of Physics that interests them, carries out some research, prepares a presentation on it, and then delivers the presentation to their peers. The students then compete in science classes, the winner of each class goes on to compete in the final. The prize is named after Edmund Stoner, who was an old boy of the School and made a significant contribution to the field of ferromagnetism. The boys impressed the judges with their presentation and excellent knowledge of their chosen topic – Drag Coefficient. Senior Literary and Debating Society continues to run a prosperous society, both within School as well as through participation in external competitions which continue to be hosted via Zoom. Our society has recently participated in the annual MACE event which focuses on the British Parliamentary style of debating. Ewan Davies, James Wilson and Mohammed Ahmed represented the School fantastically against what was a very strong field of teams from across the North West. The first heat saw Bolton School progress to the regional heats after opposing and winning the motion ‘This House Would use proportional representation in UK national elections’. Although we did not make it through the following regional round, all participants argued their cause with great fervour and each boy should be proud of his efforts.

Congratulations to our Year 13 Boys’ French team of Barnaby

Keogh and Will Fothergill and Girls’ Spanish team (Henna & Martha) who were runners-up in the final of the North Schools’ MFL Debating Competition hosted at Cheadle Hulme School. The debating motions prepared in advance were “Digital technology is making young people’s lives better”, “Simple is better than complex” and whether “Religion has a key role in modern society.” In the final, the boys had 20 minutes to prepare an unseen motion – “Being prepared is over-rated” losing narrowly to Altrincham Grammar School for Girls, who argued against the motion having won the coin toss. The final was judged by Xavier Lavry, president of the Alliance Française, who was impressed by the standard of the competition and, of course, the finalists.

Very well done to Justin Li in 7b who scored the highest mark in Boys’ Division and has been awarded a certificate for ‘Best in School’.

Congratulations to our musicians on their recent examination successes:

Yash Anand (11b)

Trinity Rock & Pop Grade 7 Electric Guitar Merit

Amrit Mishra (11c)

Trinity Grade 6 Classical Guitar Merit

The Bebras Computing Challenge, hosted by the University of Oxford introduces computational thinking to students. It is organised in over 50 countries and designed to get students from all over the world excited about computing. Each participant answers as many questions as they can in 40 minutes that focus on problem solving, computational and logical thinking. All our Year 7 boys took part during their ICT lesson with Mrs. Fielding. Congratulations to the following boys who scored Distinctions: Ben Booth; Derek Leong; Faaz Sajid; Tanishq Das; Calvin King; Taylor Aspden; Mahad Chohan; Yahya Adbullah; Nicky Ling; Ziyad Bagasi, Justin Li.

Ben Pursey (10d)

Rockschool Grade 6 Vocals Merit

Suhayb Valli (10c)

Rockschool Grade 6 Vocals Merit

Alexander McKie (12f)

Trinity Grade 5 Singing Distinction

Charlie Simpson (8d)

Trinity Grade 5 Piano Distinction

Matthew Knight (8g)

Trinity Grade 4 Piano Pass

Marcus Law (10f)

Trinity Grade 3 Piano Distinction

George Burrows (8d)

Rockschool Grade 2 Vocals Distinction

Will Cutler (7b)

ABRSM Grade 2 Musical Theatre Merit

The Year 11 leadership and teamwork skills programme took place over the last couple of weeks at Patterdale. Congratulations to Group 2 who were the overall winners from the forms A and B cohort with 325 points. They were a team of 6 boys in 11a: Dominic Farrell, Adam Faulkner, Jonathan Frank, Yoji Haddow, Toby Holt-Gregson and Isaac Lucas. The instructors’ feedback said ‘A very calm group. Did not fail on any of the challenges. Did not argue or become heated. Pleasant, polite, organised. Had good conversations with them on the last night. Passed the leadership around between them on different activities. No passengers, everyone involved’.

Well done to our Year 7 boys Athletics Team, who competed at the Greater Manchester Indoor event at Eastlands. The team finished fourth overall against some extremely strong competition – particular well done to those that medalled in their events. Ben

Howarth Silver in 800m, Mateo Sprott Silver in 200m and Aaron Nunkoo in the High Jump.

Congratulations to Chris Frank (8f) for his medals success at the Greater Manchester Indoor Athletics Championships over the weekend – he has also been awarded the Bolton Harriers Under 13 Athlete of the Year.

Well done to the following boys who represented Bolton Borough in the Greater Manchester Cross County race at Heaton Park: Daniel Bleakley, Ben Howarth, Abbas Khambalia (all Year 7), Chris Frank (Year 8), Hugo James (Year 9), Matthew Houghton, Oliver Hatton, Liam Pijper and Harry Howarth (all Year 10).

Saturday saw the last Saturday block fixtures of the 15-a-side rugby season and overall it has been a very successful one. Participation has been excellent. 256 pupils have represented the School and we have taken part in over 100 fixtures across the North West, maintaining a 60% win record. In terms of team success, the Under 15s should be congratulated for reaching the Lancashire Plate Final, which will be played after half term. There can be doubt, however, that the team of the season is the Under 13 side. They finished the Under 13 festival at Preston Grasshoppers RUFC as third best in the county, and have gone the full season unbeaten. This is a huge achievement and certainly has not been done by a Bolton School side in some time. They should be hugely proud of what they have achieved, and this very much bodes well, for school rugby, moving forward.

There have also been notable personal successes. The following have been selected to be part of either the Sale Sharks DPP or Academy programmes:

Under 14 - Will James and Noah Haseldine

Under 15 - Dev Hasija, Corey Morgan, Cooper Atherton

Under 16 - Robert Bentham

Congratulations to the Under 13 rugby side who finished third in the Lancashire Rugby Cup tournament. Finishing second in a strong group, we faced a tough Audenshaw School side in the 3rd- 4th playoff which we narrowly edged.

The Year 9 to Year 11 Badminton team has won all of its fixtures so far in the Bolton league including fixtures against Bolton School Girls’ Division, Thornleigh and Rivington and Blackrod. They have won three out of their four matches.

The Under 18 Water polo team won their recent Semi-final tournament in Northampton. The Finals are at Haberdashers’ Aske’s Boys’ School, Elstree on Friday 24th March.

Robert Bentham, Joe Carolan and Sam Fitzsimons all represented the North West Junior Water polo team. This team won the inter-regional tournament which was held last weekend at Blackpool. All three boys competed in this event in 2019, 2021 and 2023 and the team were undefeated across all three competitions. They will attend a training camp in Romania durng half term. From the trip, a GB team will be selected to compete in the European Championship Qualification tournament in Malta in the week commencing Monday 13th March.

Well done to our Junior Swimmers for retaining the trophy at the Bolton Town Championships: James Vaughan, Ethan Blyth, Aryan Nunkoo, Egan Moore, Oliver Carter, Benjamin Quilliam, Jack Rothwell, Harry Roberts.

Our Intermediate and Senior Swimmers both placed 2nd overall. A terrific effort by everyone at The Jason Kenny Centre. Congratulations to all those boys who took part:

Intermediate team: Matthew Yeung, Will James, Peter McCreedy, Eddie Griffiths, Ben Heath, Kelsey Liu, Joseph Williams, Harry Butler

Senior Team: Seb Thompson, Matthew Reedy, Samuel Fitzsimons, Robert Bentham.

Very well done to the following boys who took part in the Fast water swimming gala recently. Well done to our lads for retaining the Cutty Sark trophy (Matthew Yeung to collect trophy on behalf of team) Read out names below

Year 7: Aryan Nunkoo, Ethan Blyth

Year 8: James Vaughan, Oliver Carter, Jack Rothwell

Year 9: Peter McCreedy, Stanley Mathieson, Will James, Matthew Yeung, Eddie Griffiths

Year 10: Kelsey Liu, Joseph Williams

Ethan Blyth in Year 7 has won the 200m breaststroke, 200m backstroke, 200m individual medley, 100m breaststroke and the 400m individual medley in the Lancashire County Championships. A fantastic achievement against extremely tough opposition. James Vaughan in Year 8 came 2nd in the 200m breaststroke and 3rd in the 100m breaststroke at the Lancashire County Finals.

Last Tuesday our Under 13 Hockey team played in the Powerplay Tournament (hosted by MGS) of all the top schools in the North of England – a great experience. Our goalkeeper Daniel Croston won the award of goalkeeper of the tournament. Very well done Daniel!

Congratulations to Oliver Hinks who is the Under 16’s winner at the Wirral G3 Christmas Open, which took place at the Wirral Tennis & Sport Centre on 21st December.