Bolton School

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Bolton School
Motto Mutare Vel Timere Sperno
(Latin: I scorn to change or to fear)
Established ante 1516
Type Independent school
Headmaster (Boys' Division) Mervyn E. W. Brooker
Headmistress (Girls' Division) Gill Richards
Chair of Governors Michael Griffiths
Location Chorley New Road
Bolton
Greater Manchester
BL1 4PB
England
Students 2500 (approx.)
Gender Boys and Girls Divisions
Ages 0 to 18
Website www.boltonschool.org
Coordinates: 53°34′48″N 2°27′18″W / 53.579868, -2.454866

Bolton School is an independent school in Bolton, Greater Manchester, in the North-West of England.

The school comprises:

  • A nursery on Dobson Road (ages 0-5)
  • A co-educational infant school, called Beech House (ages 5-7)
  • A junior independent boys' school (ages 7-11), known as Park Road
  • A junior independent girls' school (ages 7-11)
  • Two separate secondary divisions, both with 6th form provision - Bolton School Boys' Division and Bolton School Girls' Division (ages 11-18).

Established as Bolton Grammar School, it is not known exactly when the Boys' School was founded, though it is recorded as being a 'going concern' as early as 1516. In 1899, the school moved from its site next to the Parish Church in Bolton to its current site on Chorley New Road. In 1913, it was re-endowed by Viscount Leverhulme. The current buildings were begun in the 1920s though they were not completed until the late 1960s.

The Girls' School was established in 1877 as Bolton Girls' Day School and was quickly renamed to Bolton High School for Girls. In 1913 it amalgamated with Bolton Grammar School and the Bolton School Foundation was formed.

The Boys' Division came in the top 20 nationwide in GCSE examinations in 2004. It has won national titles in water polo, football and chess. In 2006 A level examinations, the Boys' Division secured a position at 110th nationwide in the Daily Telegraph league table.

The Girls' Division was ranked the 155th best school in the country for A levels in 2006 by the Daily Telegraph.

Bolton School owns its own private coach company, B.S.S. Coaches, which has routes spreading from Preston to Rochdale.

The Headmaster of the Boys' Division is Mr. M. E. W. Brooker, in post since 2003, and the Headmistress of the Girls' Division is Mrs. G. Richards, in post since 2005. The Boys' Division has announced that Mr. Brooker is to retire at the end of the next school year in order to spend more time with his family. The governing body of the school is currently searching for a replacement.

The Headmaster of the Boy's Junior Division is Mr M. Percik, in post since 1990, and the Headmistress of the Girl's Junior Division is Ms J. Yardley.

The motto of the school (used only by the Boys' Division) is Mutare Vel Timere Sperno, meaning "I scorn to change or to fear".

Both divisions of the school were featured in the 2006 edition of the Good Schools Guide.

The Boys' Division and Girls' Division Senior Schools (11-18 year olds) have over 800 students each of whom nearly 270 receive financial assistance from bursaries. The Junior Boys' and Junior Girls' schools (ages 7-11) have about 200 pupils each.

Contents

[edit] Extracurricular activities

main entrance to Bolton School
main entrance to Bolton School

The school has a varied extracurricular programme, ranging from the subject-related clubs, such as Art Club and The History Society, to wider-ranging clubs, such as Film Society and Gameshow Club. Many of these are run by the staff with the help of sixth-formers, but some have been created by the sixth-formers themselves. The lunch break is also used for sports training, along with sports-related clubs.

Bolton School maintains a large, full-time outdoor pursuits department, called Bolton School Outdoor Pursuits (BSOP). The school operates Patterdale Hall, a large residential outdoor pursuits centre in the Lake District.

Over 450 boys have an individual music lesson. Many ensembles are operated jointly with the Girls' Division. The Joint Chamber Choir has performed live on BBC Radio 4. The Senior Guitar Group has also won the Kirklees National Youth Guitar Orchestra Competition in recent years.

The Bolton School Paper is a quarterly-released newspaper, founded in 2002 and printed on tabloid newsprint. As of 2006, its circulation was 1,000. It is distributed free of charge to Bolton School students, staff, visitors and alumni. It is written solely by the students of the school - with students from Year 7 through to Year 13 taking a role in production, whether writing content, editing it or finalising the data. The newspaper also takes part in the TES Newsday competition annually. In 2006 it was Highly Commended.

Students contribute to the staff-edited Boltonian magazine, which is published annually.

In the past few years, the Boys' Division has run a "Mechatronics" club, which has given boys an opportunity to help create remote controlled vehicles for several national competitions, including Technogames and Rex Garrod's Robot Challenge. This society built the "LoonyCycle", a robotic unicycle (actually a monowheel), which won the award for "Most original concept" at the BBC-televised Technogames in 2002, the boys who originally created these machines have now moved onto University.

For eight years (1999-2007), the school undertook the construction of a concrete yacht as a millennium project ("The Third Millennium Ketch"). The boat was constructed in a temporary boat shed attached to the school. It was scheduled for (and did) launch in 2007, and is owned by the school and for use in outdoor pursuits.

The boat was originally intended to be finished in the year 2000 and was called "The Millennium Yacht". However, due to the scale of the project, the ketch wasn't finished in 2000 and the project has now been completed. As of May 2007 the boat, christened "The Tenacity of Bolton" has been finished and its boat shed removed.

On the 24th February 2008 the Year 7 Biathlon Team won the Individual and Team Gold Medal in the National Biathlon Finals in Bath.

[edit] Notable Old Boltonians

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  • The History of Bolton School, W. E. Brown M.A., Bolton School 1976, ISBN 0-9504947-0-4, with an extended essay by F. R. Poskitt, C.B.E., M.A.