| Motto | Mutare Vel Timere Sperno (Latin: I scorn to change or to fear) |
|---|---|
| Established | ante 1516 |
| Type | Independent school |
| Headmaster (Boys' Division) | Philip Britton MBE |
| Headmistress (Girls' Division) | Sue Hincks |
| Chair of Governors | Michael Griffiths |
| Founder | Viscount Leverhulme |
| Location | Chorley New Road Bolton BL1 4PA England |
| Students | 2400 (approx.) |
| Gender | Boys and Girls Divisions |
| Ages | 0–19 |
| Website | www.boltonschool.org |
Bolton School is an independent day school in Bolton, North-West England. It comprises a co-educational Nursery and Infant School (Beech House) and single sex Junior (ages 7–11) and Senior Schools (with Sixth Forms). With almost 2,400 pupils it is one of the largest independent day schools in the country.[1]
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Bolton School is one of the oldest schools in Lancashire. 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 1524 William Haigh of Wigan left land worth 33s 4d towards the maintenance of a schoolmaster to teach grammar in Bolton.[2] In 1644 it was endowed by Robert Lever and so began a long and close relationship with the Lever name. In 1899, the school moved from its site next to the parish church in central Bolton to its current site on Chorley New Road.
The Bolton Girls' Day School was established in 1877 and was one of the earliest public day schools for girls in the country. It was quickly renamed to Bolton High School for Girls and moved to the Park Road site (where the current Junior Boys' School stands) in 1891, where it was opened by the suffragist Mrs Millicent Fawcett with 67 girls.
In 1913, Sir William Hesketh Lever, later the first Viscount Leverhulme, gave a generous joint endowment to the Bolton Grammar School and the Bolton High School for Girls on condition that the two should be equal partners known as Bolton School (Girls' and Boys' Divisions). On 1 April 1915, the Bolton School Foundation formally came into existence.
The current buildings were begun in the 1930s though they were not completed until the late 1960s. The motto of the school (used only by the Boys' Division) is Mutare Vel Timere Sperno, meaning "I scorn to change or to fear".[3]
The school is consistently ranked amongst the best independent schools in the north of England.[4] In the government's EBacc ranking of schools by 2010 GCSE results, the Girls' Division was placed 23rd.[5] In the 2011 Daily Telegraph ranking of independent schools by GCSE results, the Girls' Division was 65th best and the Boys' Division was 160th. In the Daily Telegraph's 2011 A level results league table of independent schools, the Girls' Division was ranked 123rd (and 79th in 2010) and the Boys' Division was ranked 202nd (62nd in 2010) in the country.[6]
The school offers courses in Greek, Latin, Classics, Russian (Boys' Division only) and Spanish. Separate sciences are taught. Both divisions are featured in the Good Schools Guide.[7]
From September 2008, the headmaster of the Boys' Division is Mr Philip Britton MBE (alumnus of St Hugh's College, Oxford). Miss Sue Hincks (MA Oxon, alumna of Magdalen College, Oxford) became headmistress of the Girls' Division in September 2011. The head of the Boys' Junior Division is Mr Stephen Whittaker and the head of the Girls' Junior Division is Mrs Ruth Brierley. Mrs Deborah Northin is head of the Infant School.[8]
Bolton School has a private coach company, BSS Coaches which transports over 900 pupils on 22 coach routes from Preston to Warrington to North Manchester to Wigan to Rochdale. A coach route from Penwortham, Preston has run since September 2008.[9]
The school hires its buildings and services through BSSL Events and Lettings. The school is a venue for weddings - in the Arts Centre and the boys' Great Hall - and for conferences and exhibitions and a location for film shoots. The Mark of Cain (2007 film), a BAFTA Award winning television film, was filmed on the premises. The sporting facilities are utilised by local clubs and Bolton Wanderers FC and Bury FC have based their academies at the school in recent years.[10]
The school operates a pre- and post-school club for children, Kidzone, which offers childcare over the holiday periods for children from across Bolton.[11]
The 32-acre (130,000 m2) campus, 1-mile (1.6 km) to the west of Bolton town centre. A £12 million building project has been completed. On 1 June 2009, infants (boys and girls aged 4–7) moved into a new school, Beech House, alongside the School's Nursery.[12]
The Junior Boys' School on Park Road has been extended and renovated and an official opening ceremony took place on 2 December 2009.[13] The Park Road community uses an extension to the main school, comprising two Year 6 classrooms, library, changing rooms and showers, and a kitchen and dining hall.[14]A new state-of-the-art Junior Girls' School (adjacent to the Girls' Senior School), Hesketh House, opened to children on 9 September 2010. The purpose built school comprises eight classrooms, its own large computer suite, a science room, a well-resourced library, an art/design and technology room and a main hall.[15]
Work is set to begin in the summer of 2012 on a new stunning £7m Sixth Form Centre which will sit in the heart of the campus. It is due to open in September 2013.[16]
The school comprises a nursery on Dobson Road (ages 0–4); a co-educational infant school, called Beech House (ages 4–7); a junior independent girls' school (ages 7–11, known as Hesketh House; a junior independent boys' school (ages 7–11), known as Park Road and two separate secondary divisions, both with Sixth Form provision - Bolton School Girls' Division and Bolton School Boys' Division (ages 11–18) with about 850 students each. Across both divisions, over 300 pupils receive fee assistance through bursaries and many have full fee bursaries. The Junior Girls' and Junior Boys' schools (ages 7–11) have about 200 pupils each as does the Infant School. The Nursery has about 90 places and there is a waiting list.[17]
The school has extra-curricular provision with multiple activities taking place out of lesson times. Pupils are expected to be involved in the school's range of clubs and societies.
The Girls’ Division offers over 90 activities to choose from in any week. There are subject-based clubs and a Literary and Debating Society and Philosophical Film Society. Many girls undertake the Duke of Edinburgh Award and there is involvement in charitable work.
Sport is represented by athletics, lacrosse, netball, badminton and swimming. There is ongoing success in netball, swimming and lacrosse and girls regularly win town and county championships, with many pupil representing Lancashire. The U14 netball team was crowned National Champions in 2003-04 and the U17 team reached the national finals in 2007; the U15 lacrosse team was Northern Schools’ Champions in 2010 (in 2009 the U15 team were one of the best eight teams in the country) and in 2008 the U12 and U13s were Northern Schools’ Champions. The Junior School Swim Team was runners-up in the national championship in 2007. The Girls’ Division tennis team won the Aegon Schools’ Regional tennis competition in 2011. Girls have represented Great Britain in the World Athletic Championships, water polo and swimming. In 2010, a current Sixth Form student, Emma Saunders, was nominated for the BBC Young Sports’ Personality of the Year award after winning silver and bronze medals with the GB Swim Team in the Commonwealth Games in Delhi.
Girls have enjoyed success in sports outside school, including one pupil who is currently the U17 national fencing champion, another who is a triple gold medal winner at ju-jitsu (in the United Nations Games) and a pupil who, in 2008, was the U12 national chess champion. The girls’ squash team has enjoyed regional success in recent years. In 2008, Rachel Flanders became the youngest person to row across the Atlantic Ocean. In 2011, Hannah Pike captained the England U16 hockey team.
Drama productions take place in the arts centre and in the girls’ own theatre. There are annual productions with the Boys’ Division. Recent productions include Aristophanes’ The Frogs, Les Misérables, Little Shop of Horrors and Hamlet. Some girls become members of the National Youth Theatre. Many girls learn instruments – well over 300 instrument lessons are given each week - from beginners to grade 8+. There are five music teachers and 21 instrumental and vocal specialists. More merits and distinctions are recorded than straight passes in Associated Board exams.[18]
Art is an extra-curricular pastime and the school’s studios are open during lunchtime and before and after the school day. GSCE students can take part in weekend and holiday art workshops at an artist’s studio and their work and that of A level is exhibited at the University of Bolton’s Best of Bolton display.
Girls travel the world on school trips and there have been recent ski trips to France, Italy and Switzerland. Netball and lacrosse teams have toured Canada, America, Malta, Australia and Barbados. Choirs and orchestras have performed in Florence, Paris, Bruges, Barcelona and Prague.[19] In the summer of 2011, a group of Year 10 students visited the Maasai in Tanzania, having forged links with them via a Skype link-up and the internet. The visit is part of an ongoing project with the Maasai, which has seen girls help them with their English studies. The project is part of a larger concept, the Bolton School Global Village, which sees pupils making international link-ups with schools, students and organisations.
In the Boys’ Senior School, pupils in Years 7-9 are expected to attend at least three societies each week; Year 10 and 11 pupils are expected to involve themselves in at least one weekly activity. As well as the societies catering for sixth form students, there are many opportunities for members of Year 12 and Year 13 to become involved in the leadership of the activities. Aside from developing vital leadership qualities, elder students who assist members of staff in the organisation of societies are rewarded with a 'Leadership Certificate' at the end of each academic year.
Depending upon the term, there are up to 90 weekly or fortnightly clubs, societies and practices available to the boys (this number excludes the many music practices on offer). These range from subject-based clubs, such as Art Club, Science Club, Computer Club, Biology Club and The History Society to more wide-ranging societies such as Film Society, Warhammer Club, Creative Writing Club and Gameshow Club. There is also both a Junior Literary and Debating Forum and a Senior Literary and Debating Society, in which pupils of all ages can sharpen their oratorical skills.
Boys with musical and acting talents are also well-catered for. Music ensembles and drama rehearsals all take place in the lunch break and there are numerous concerts and productions every year. Over 450 boys have an individual music lesson. Many ensembles operate jointly with the Girls' Division. The school performed a joint concert at the Bridgewater Hall, Manchester in 2009, which involved over 650 pupils from Year 4 upwards. 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.
Sport plays a central role in the activities programme, it also takes up 10% of the timetable: soccer, rugby and hockey in winter, cricket in summer. There have been national victories in the Independent Schools’ FA competition in 2003 at U18 level and in 2010 at U13 level. The school boasts a number of alumni who play professional football. Current pupil James Roberts plays for the England Cerebral Palsy Development team. The school is an ISFA focus school, one of only nine in the country.
In 2011 the Year 8 rugby team won the North West Emerging Schools’ Cup Final and in 2006 the school was awarded Lancashire’s Rugby School of the Year. Both the rugby and cricket teams enjoy much regional success. Alex Davidson, who completed his A levels in 2011, plays professional rugby league for Salford Reds. Recent Old Boy Jack Forster is currently with Sale Sharks. Boys regularly represent the national independent schools’ Barbarians team. There is also regular representation for Lancashire Country Cricket Club. The U14 team were the Lancashire County Cricket winners in 2010.
A twenty five metre pool means the school is strong in water polo and swimming. There are two sports halls, one with a climbing wall, a multigym and quality games pitches on the 32-acre (130,000 m2) campus. The boys have recently won national titles in water polo, football and chess.[20] Several Old Boys play in the British water polo team and Daniel Sliwinski is a 2012 Olympic hopeful in swimming. Pupils also represent the county, region and country at pentathlon, golf, tennis, skiing, sailing and kayaking. Andrew Keat has been the British Biathlon Champion in his age group for the past five years.
The Bolton School Paper is a quarterly-released tablois newspaper founded in 2002. In 2009 its circulation was 500. 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 9 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 2007 it was awarded a Distinction.
There are also many Newsletters regarding the school libraries which the boys may write book reviews for, such as LSL Bulletin. The school also has a new BBC News cchool report Programme for the Lower School with web design and journalism aspects.
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 on the shores of Lake Ullswater in the Lake District.
As well as being a key part of the main curriculum, Outdoor Pursuits plays a central role in the extra curricular programme. Many pupils are introduced to a particular discipline via the Outdoor Education Programme and then go on to further their interest via the extra curricular programme. Pupils gain valuable experience of the world of business and commerce through the 'Business Awareness' course held each year at Patterdale Hall. The Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme is also pursued successfully by students, several having achieved the Gold Award whilst still at school.
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 launched in May 2007, and is owned by the School and is for use in outdoor pursuits. The boat, christened "Tenacity of Bolton", allows all Year 8 pupils (girls and boys) the chance for sailing lessons in the Irish Sea as part of the curriculum. Sixth Formers have also used the boat as part of their Duke of Edinburgh training.
The Old Girls' Association and Old Boltonians' Association are very active with over 9,000 members. Regular reunions are held throughout the year in Bolton, Manchester, Leeds, Oxford, Cambridge, Durham, Edinburgh, London, Bristol, Birmingham and Cumbria. Notable alumni include[21] in alphabetical order: