The School has delivered on its mission to provide challenge, encourage initiative, promote teamwork and develop leadership capabilities.
Last summer, students celebrated excellent exam results; A level A*-C grades rose to 91.5% from 89.1% the previous year and nine boys headed off to Oxford or Cambridge; the percentage of GCSE A*-A grades rose to 57%.
There was regional success in the in MFL debating, Science CREST awards, Chemquiz, Model United Nations and Classics reading competition. The School’s SPACE programme continued to promote wellbeing, introduced boys to community-based activities and inspired them through exposure to high-achieving former pupils and industry practitioners.
With over 100 extra-curricular clubs, every pupil discovers new interests and pursues talents. The Boys’ Division continued to dominate in water polo and won an unprecedented thirteenth consecutive national title spanning all competitive age groups. The School was U14s’ Greater Manchester badminton champions, the U13s’ football team made it to the semi-final of the national ISFA cup, there was regional table tennis success and the U15s’ rugby 7s’ team won locally.
Beyond sport, there was a Silver Certificate from the Incorporated Society of Musicians and extensive participation, both within School and further afield, at the Montreux Jazz Festival, the Royal Festival Hall (as finalists in the National Choral Competition) and with local primary school children at Bolton Victoria Hall, the Royal Northern College of Music and at Bolton’s Holocaust Memorial Service. In drama, the School collaborated with The Octagon and in-house theatre group RoughHouse as it works towards Platinum Artsmark status. Boys wrote their own play My Room, My Bolton and performed it during ‘museum takeovers’ at Port Sunlight and Manchester Art Gallery, and at the Bolton Station Community Gala. Last summer, a student was the Secondary School Saatchi Gallery Art Prize winner.
Earlier this year, Bolton School was delighted to win the TES Whole School Community Initiative of the Year. This was in respect of it being a founding member of the Bolton Sports Alliance, whose signature event is a Football Festival held at School which, this year, saw participation from over 50 local schools. Boys helped host events for local schoolchildren, which included a SHINE programme for Y5 pupils and the Bolton Children’s Fiction Award and undertook environmental work; Sixth Form students committed over 5,000 hours of volunteering. All of Y9 undertook the Bronze DofE and dozens more completed Silver and Gold Awards. Last summer Bolton School became the first school in the country to win the prestigious Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service.
The School hosted many public events including the RSC Christmas lecture, an Apple Conference (the Boys’ Division is an Apple Distinguished School), a Careers Fair and travelling theatre productions, Antigone and Penguins as well as an English Civil War battle re-enactment. Nationally, it became the Northern SCITT hub school, as part of the DfE’s teacher recruitment drive.
The School moved nearer to ‘open access’ with almost one in four pupils now receiving financial assistance. The PA introduced “Teenage Journey” talks, offering expert advice on raising boys.
