Acta Grammatica

Summer 2016

I would like to thank pupils, staff, parents, governors and all of Boston Grammar School’s friends for their support and efforts on our behalf during 2015/16. This has been a very busy academic year for all of the school’s pupils and staff. As I write, years 9 and 10 are in the midst of their end of year examinations. Every year group undertakes these exams in the school’s main hall in preparation for their public examinations. Hopefully, as with pupils in all other year groups, the students understand the importance of revision and hard work. From September many subject areas will be introducing new GCSE and A level courses. Controlled assessment will disappear altogether in some subjects and students will be assessed on the basis of terminal examinations instead. This makes it all the more important that students are accustomed to examination conditions of the type that they will face at the end of Y11 and Y13.

Effort is often the key to academic success. What makes Boston Grammar School so special is the willingness of so many students and staff to go the extra mile to help individuals and the whole community succeed. This week

alone, we’ve had the Y6 Intake Day, the PTA BBQ, 11+ familiarisation sessions and a guest speaker from the Bank of England (Alistair Cunningham, Regional Advisor, who addressed years 10 and 12). The Y6 Intake Day followed by the BBQ were both magnificent successes. Over 300 people attended the BBQ. It was great to see so many families enjoying good food, some fine musical entertainment and sporting activities. The many helpers at this event were ‘stars’. Our Sixth Form Prefects were brilliant on these occasions as they have been throughout the last couple of months. The new team have successfully picked up the baton from their immediate predecessors. For the first time ever, the school was represented at the Lincolnshire Show in June. Mrs Winter did a superb job of organising the school’s stalls with the help of numerous pupils. Matthew Millington, Pierce Murray, Harry Hopkins and Cameron Lynn managed to reach the final of the Junior Team Maths Challenge and came 46

th out of the 2000

secondary schools which originally entered the competition. Like Mr Poole and Mrs Cooper we are all proud of the boys’

achievement. The school is now a member of the Lincolnshire Teaching Schools Alliance. BGS is working closely in collaboration with King’s School, Grantham. The particular focus is ‘stretch and challenge’ in lessons. Much work is under way to address the issues raised by the recent Ofsted inspection. Subject Leaders and members of the Senior Leadership Team are sharing ideas and good practice with colleagues from various schools within Lincolnshire. Raising achievement at GCSE and A level is the overriding aim. The Progress 8 figure will be the key measure of a school’s relative success from August 2016. This had improved enormously from -0.58 (2014) to -0.01 (2015) but Ofsted wanted to see a three year pattern of improvement. Target grades within the school have been heightened and are based on KS2 performance data. The new targets are aspirational and will help to raise expectations. We want to ensure that every pupil has the opportunity to reach their full potential.

The school continues to grow. 109 pupils are due to join Y7 in September. This is the second largest year group to enter BGS in many years. Over 160 students have applied for a place in BGS’ Sixth Form. The response to the change to three linear A levels has

been positive. This will allow for more time to be spent on preparation for the A level courses rather than a long period being spent on AS qualifications (preparation and examination). Many schools are going down the same route, as universities are now making it clear that they do not intend to use AS qualifications as part of their admissions criteria. It is still expected that a large minority of students will continue with four or even five A level subjects but this will be decided upon on a case by case basis. Keeping Y11 in school until the end of May was a positive move. The vast majority benefited from effective revision sessions led by and supervised by their teachers. This guaranteed that students were working towards their examinations in a determined and focussed fashion. As was the case last year, there has been more intervention with Years 11 to 13 than ever before. Subject areas have once again organised and delivered revision sessions and small group ‘clinics’ to provide plenty of tapered advice / guidance for examination groups. The school’s invigilators have praised the current Y11 students as the best group they’ve ever supervised!

I would like to wish the following colleagues the very best for the future. Mrs Leworthy (Head of

English), Mrs Turner (Head of Art), Miss Docherty (RS teacher), Mr Weston (Head of Business) and Mrs Rich (Head of Music). They will leave BGS at the end of the academic year. I wish to thank Mrs Scott for her support and hard work over the last few years. She will still be part of the team, working in the Science Department, but she has decided not to continue in her role as Deputy Head.

Miss Abrams has been appointed as Head of Modern Foreign Languages from September. Mrs Collinson has been appointed as Head of Geography. Colleagues joining the staff team include Miss Roy (History), Mr File (Deputy Head), Mr Brown (Head of Computing), Mr Lyon (Head of Music), Mr Lodge (RS), Mr Slote (Business Studies) and Mr Morris (Head of Art). We look forward to welcoming them to the school.

After such a challenging year it is a real pleasure to wish everyone a restful and enjoyable summer holiday.

Mr J McHenry

Mathematics News Intermediate Maths Challenge

The Intermediate Maths Challenge took place on Thursday 4 February 2016. The results are as follows:

Best in School: Harry Hopkins Best in Year 11: Ryan Skinner Best in Year 10: Oskar Grabowski Best in Year 9: Harry Hopkins Gold Certificates: Harry Hopkins, Ryan Skinner , Neelay Sant, Pierce Murray, Zain Asif Silver Certificates: James Banks, Mursaleen Asif, George Lilley, Oskar Grabowski, Oliver Riley, William Nuttell, Dawid Przytula, James Worthington Bronze Certificates: Aaron Bradshaw, Dominic Wilson, Louis Whitlam, Matthew Leachman Harry Hopkins has qualified for the Cayley Olympiad paper. He is one of 500 students from the UK invited to take part in this next round. We are very proud of his achievements and wish him well on next round on the 10 March. Ryan Skinner and Neelay Sant have qualified for the Pink Kangaroo paper. Pierce Murray and Zain Asif have qualified for the Grey Kangaroo paper. Around 200 pupils from each year group are invited to part in this round. We are very proud of the achievements of the students and wish them well on the next round on the 17

March.

Year 10 Maths Feast On the 10 March, 8 pupils from Year 10 participated in the Annual Maths Feast organised by the Further Mathematics Support Programme. The event was held at Sir Robert Pattinson Academy in Lincoln. The pupils performed very well, winning a number of rounds and finished fourth overall, remaining the best performing school in the Boston area for the third year running.

Boston Grammar School success - top 50 performing

school! Monday 20

June started early for

four pupils and their teachers as they headed to London for the Final of the Junior Team Maths Challenge. Approximately 2000 schools entered the regional events throughout the country and 88 teams were invited to take part in the National Final. The Final was held in Lindley Hall in Westminster – owned by the Royal Horticultural Society. The pupils did themselves and the school proud achieving 46

th

position overall. “We are all so proud of the boys and this amazing achievement. To come in the top 50 of a hugely popular competition is a major achievement for a small school like ours and demonstrates the amazing talents of the students at

our school”, Mrs Cooper. Pictured is the Boston Grammar School team and their teacher.

From left to right: Matthew Millington, Pierce Murray, Mr Poole, Harry Hopkins and Cameron Lynn.

Junior Maths Challenge Best in School: Cameron Lynn Best in Year 7: Aaron Thomas Best in Year 8:Cameron Lynn Gold Certificates: Cameron Lynn Paul Tuczek Matthew Millington Ryan Carter Silver Certificates: Cavan Chambers Nathan Stopper Joel Wilson Aaron Thomas Siddharth Anand Bronze Certificate: Jake Frestle Congratulations to all those who took part in the competition. Mrs J Cooper

Erasmus+ and German exchange keep BGS busy during

March The Erasmus+ programme is funded by the European Union and enables pupils and staff to visit other countries as part of educational work. Having received funding for an Erasmus+ programme we have now sent 9 pupils abroad, six to Germany and three to Finland. The visit to Finland took place in February, and whilst having fun ice-skating and exploring new food and making new friends, the three students ( Sulaiman Dani, Adrian Kaczmareck and Nathan Emberton) also took part in rhetoric workshops lead by German pupils. A big thank you goes to Mrs Rennie and Mr Blackman for taking a week out of their lives to take the three students abroad! And in March it was BGS’ turn to host pupils and staff from Germany and Finland and provide them with a programme they would not forget. Thanks to excellent support from Mr Wilson and Ms Pettefar and three star pupils - Sulaiman Dani, Matthew Little and Harrison Dell - we offered workshops on English idioms, film analysis, writing skills and most importantly for the programme: film editing. By the end of the week, both visitors and English pupils had managed to cut scenes from a film, integrate these clips into Powerpoint and

then present their analysis in fluent English. Younger year groups also benefited from the visitors’ for example pupils from 7A had the opportunity of practising their German with the young Germans.

Outside of school the programme included a trip to Lincoln – thank you Mrs Ellis – and visit to the cinema, bowling and a trip to Skegness, where not only the seaside but Laser Quest and a quest to find a fish and chips shop helped pupils to bond! It is safe to say that we had a fantastic time and miss our friends from Germany and Finland! But just as the Eramus+ visitors were saying ‘good bye’, the German exchange – organised by Mrs Hudson – arrived, as did our very first visitors from Spain. The German visitors stayed in host families and all pupils had plenty of time to practise their German and English, oh, and have fun! The two visitors from Spain were teachers funded through the Erasmus+ programme. They were learning about the English school system and spoke to a lot of staff at

BGS. Thank you to all who were involved!

International School trips and

exchanges What BGS boys get up to, when

hanging out with German exchange partners

(written by the pupils involved) Our German visitors arrived at 2pm on a Friday. We spent the weekend in Skegness as a group. On Monday, we went around our school with the exchange students. We went to Lincoln to see the Magna Carta and to tour the castle and the Victorian Prison. We also went to the Imperial War Museum in Duxford to walk around and look at the exhibits. While in Lincoln we went shopping to show the German visitors all the English food, e.g. Cadbury's. We also took our visitors to the cinema and did other activities in the evenings. We had a leaving meal in Boston on the last evening to say good bye to our visitors.

After travelling through the night, we arrived in Saarbrücken at

around two o'clock. We met our host families. Later that day we went swimming with our exchange partners, as a group, at Calypso Waterpark. After swimming we went to one of the exchange partner's homes to have a special Barbeque, called a Schwenke. On the Sunday, we spent the day with our host families, some met up and did various activities together. On the Monday we went to the school and attended lessons with our exchange partners. The school was much bigger than ours and had many more classes in each year group. The next day, we took the train to Trier - the oldest town in the whole of Germany. In Trier we had a tour of the town and the sites in German. On Wednesday it was the Schools' 'Wandertag'. Some classes went to hike, bowling, did high ropes or visited Paris. We were in school for the other two days but after school we did the town hunt for sites in Saarbrucken. On our final evening before leaving, we went for a leaving meal. Here’s what Mrs Hudson has to

say about the exchange this year:

“The exchange with the Gymnasium am Rothenbühl was a great success again with our students learning a lot about each other’s language and culture. We have to say a big thank you to our German host school for giving our students a leaving gift in the form

of a school t-shirt with the German schools' logo on it. Two of our students, who were still in Year 9 at the time, have already expressed that they would like to go again and the Year 10 boys would also love the opportunity to go again. And, just recently we have been told that some of the German exchange students have organised their own travel to come and visit their exchange partners here in England in the summer. Well done!”

French pupils at BGS Having tried to set up an exchange with France for a while, the French department could not believe their luck when la Providence (collège and lycée) responded positively to our request. We first started a correspondence in 2014 that led to a strong bond between the schools. We exchanged Christmas and Easter cards, exploring the traditions in vigour on both sides of the Channel and sent celebratory footages of us sending our congratulations for their 20

th

anniversary; we are now on their homepage! This academic year offered an even greater opportunity as our bond strengthened. We selected a particular class to have a more meaningful friendship with pen friends. We wrote to each other back and forth for a year and not only did it enhance enjoyment of French lessons but it also increased achievement and a greater sense of purpose. In addition, we took our first step

towards an exchange by hosting 6 students from la Providence here. We spent three days showing them our town and region and they took part in our lessons with us. We now have many projects in the making for this partnership to know more successes and lead to a full exchange!

Students travel independently As part of the Erasmus+ funded project two year 11 pupils are travelling on their own to our partner school in Germany, where they will be staying with host families. They will be spending time at the German school with a view to improving their German and researching certain topics in Germany, as both of them are planning to study German at A-level. Equally, two year 12 students are re-visiting their host families from autumn last year, when they were in Germany for the Erasmus+ projected. This is fantastic news, and I hope the beginning of a long friendship!

Teachers exploring Europe Due to funding obtained through

Erasmus+, four teachers were able to travel abroad this year and expand their cultural and linguistic knowledge. Mr Poole made many friends and realised his German talents by teaching Maths in German at our partner school. The picture shows him with one of his new mates: Gary – our partner school’s mascot! Here is his account of his stay: “The Erasmus Programme was initially a European Union student exchange programme established in 1987. Through its enormous success Erasmus+, or Erasmus Plus, has grown into a new programme which fosters not only learning and understanding of the host country, but also a sense of community among students from different countries.”

So how does this work for members of staff from Boston Grammar School? Well, just over 12 months ago BGS was awarded a budget for several members of staff to experience teaching in EU schools. Fortunately, BGS was already twinned with a fantastic partner school Gymnasium am Rotenbühl in Saarbrücken

Germany. This is a mixed grammar school of approximately 1500 students from year 6 to year 13. During the May half term holidays the Languages Department took several students from BGS to the partner school. This was a great opportunity for me as a maths teacher and limited German language skills to take part in numerous maths lessons. In preparation for my visit I undertook an online German course to brush up on my language skills. The aims and expectations were to be able to observe the teaching of mathematics in a German Grammar school. To compare the style of teaching and to bring back ideas that would benefit BGS – and, of course, to improve my German speaking skills. Having arrived at the school, we were made extremely welcome and soon settled in to the daily routine. During the first few lessons, I adopted a passive stance, listening to a variety of mathematical topics being taught to various age groups. Slowly I began to pick up on key German words and symbols used in teaching basic mathematics. During the second day I became more proactive helping German students with their work. On the third day I introduced myself in my broken German to a year 7 class, explaining to them that I was here to learn how they performed in mathematics. The class were extremely enthusiastic to have an English Mathematics teacher with

them for the lesson. In fact, they were so enthusiastic; they persuaded me to give them a lesson on the final day. After agreeing to this, I soon realised that this could be perhaps the hardest thing I have ever done – teaching mathematics in German to a real German class! The mathematics wasn’t a problem of course, area of 2D shapes. But what were the names of those shapes again in German!!! Throughout the week my language skills gradually began to improve. The year 7 mathematics lesson went much better than expected. The pupils were fantastic. With support from the non-English speaking mathematics teacher, we managed to conduct a lesson in German on area of 2D shapes. To be honest, the pupils enjoyed my linguistic errors and English names of shapes far more than any equation with little written work completed. Not sure how much mathematics was learned but we all really enjoyed it. Not all work was classroom based and time was taken to enjoy some wonderful parts of this country. I returned home having a deeper appreciation of the problems students face with English as an additional language. My language skills improved immensely and although the week was hard work at times, I would highly recommend the experience. Needless to say, the pupils from BGS were

impeccably behaved and all are looking forward to their next trip. The two schools continue to forge a lasting relationship and I would say that I came back with a sense of community with the Gymnasium Am Rotenbühl School. Thank you Erasmus Plus! Mrs Turner had the pleasure of visiting a school in Finland to discover how the teachers incorporate ICT into their lessons. Here’s what she says “The school was incredibly welcoming and I felt very at home, so much so that I even had an opportunity to teach Art to a sixth form class. Both staff and teachers were very interested in Boston Grammar School and its history as some Finnish students were taking part in an exchange to visit both England and Germany and meet with our pupils. The biggest difference apart from the language was that in Finland the students take off their shoes when they arrive at school and complete the day in just slippers or socks!”

Mrs Collinson was able to spend a week in Cologne, Germany on a German language course during December 2015. Here is her

account: “The aim of the course was for me to become more fluent in my spoken and written German, in order for me to bring in elements of German language into my Geography lessons at BGS. Pupils are living in an increasingly globalised world and will undoubtedly have the possibility to work with international companies and colleagues in the future, so the opportunity to interlink foreign languages in other curriculum areas is a fantastic opportunity. To say that I was thrown in at the deep end with the course was an understatement, as my German skills were certainly a little rusty, to say the least! However, with the course lecturer speaking only in German at all times and the other students in my class being very competent, I had to learn to just get on with it! I learnt a tremendous amount during the week and I can certainly say that my German skills have improved tenfold. The next step is to work with the Languages department to work out ways in which German can be used in the Geography classroom. The boys seem very excited about this, so watch this space!

Miss Boularand currently teaches Spanish at A Level and went to Spain to up-date her knowledge. This is what she has to say about her visit: “My visit to Sagunto (Comunidad valenciana) offered me a great opportunity to refresh my knowledge of Spanish and be reassured that I was giving

my Spanish A Level class high quality lessons for them to succeed. It enhanced my historical and cultural knowledge of the country we are studying and allowed me to create firm links with excellent practitioners. There, I had the pleasure to witness how the Spanish teachers at I.E.S María Moliner -secondary and sixth form education- approached the delivery of language lessons. The experience was enriching and instilled a strong renewed desire in me to further study the languages I speak. At I.E.S María Moliner I was extremely lucky as I met a writer, a historian, a poet and a politician; all of them also teachers. I had the chance to compare educational systems; which raised a lot of questions and made me re-evaluate my teaching style, and was given the opportunity to delve into the historical and cultural evolution of Sagunto. My small contribution to their school life on that week involved my teaching French to very highly skilled students of an A Level class. I rose to the challenge, gathered my courage and delivered a French lesson in Spanish. The students were very encouraging and appreciated the difficulty of the task when my daily communication always occurs in English. They were curious about England and some students have even

expressed their desire to come and spend some time with us to improve their English. In my view, this partnership is only at its starting point and I sense it will be successful.”

Looking to the future

Mrs Collinson has been busy applying for a fascinating project. Here are her plans: “As part of our commitment towards collaborating with other schools, both locally, nationally and in other European countries, BGS has recently applied to be involved in a British Council funded scheme called ‘Connecting Classrooms’. If successful in our application, we will be embarking on a project with a new partner school in Sri Lanka. This is an incredibly exciting opportunity for pupils to get involved with, as it will enable them to learn about a diverse county and culture, whilst working on a project based around ‘Zero Hunger’. If we are not successful in our funding application at this stage, we still endeavour to run the project and apply for the funding again later in the year, so pupils will still benefit.

We will keep you posted with updates and further details as we receive them. On Friday 24 June we were informed that our application for the Lefèvre Trust, arranged through the British Council, had been accepted. This has given us funding for a sport based project with our partner school in Fécamp, Normandie France. The project will run for one academic year and pupils will be spending a week at the school in France and host French visitors in Boston for a week. This is an excellent opportunity for staff and pupils alike and the funding will ensure that the cost to the school and pupils will be minimal. Miss C Abrams

Design & Technology

Wood Turning Wood Turning lessons are almost complete for the second group this year with some fantastic work. Nathan Dunford has continued to persevere with some really nice outcomes, his latest creation is the milking stool. Eli Coonan has made a promising start to his course, and Edward Parsons has continued in great form on his second course, with a nice earing holder made for

mother’s day (pictured below).

http://www.clemansell-woodturner.moonfruit.com/ HTTPS://www.facebook.com/clemansellwoodturner?fref=ts If you are interested in your son taking part and learning this skill please contact me john.james@bostongrammarschool.co.uk

Raspberry Pi

The Raspberry Pi Club makes really good progress. Pi Powered Buggies are GO!

The Raspberry Pi club is now more popular than ever, with a host of exciting student projects underway.

The Year 7s learning Kodu/Scratch and older members learning the basics of Python and VB are certainly setting themselves up for success at GCSE. Budding electrical engineers are gaining first-hand experience of physical computing, and developing their workshop skills. The club is student run (by the members), with the opportunity to develop your own projects either individually or as part of a team. Although space is limited I would strongly recommend any student who is keen to develop practical computing/programming skills to come along and give it a go. Year 10/11 Computer Science students who are keen to develop their programming knowledge and would like the opportunity to have an active role in the club are more than welcome.

Thanks to everyone for their continual support. Mr J James, Mr G Richards & Mr T Coldwell

Music News Yet another super year in music with many pupils taking grade exams and taking part in concerts and workshops. Here are just a few.

Congratulations to: Brendan Millard: Grade 8 Guitar Georgina Fitton: Grade 8 Clarinet Emelia Hall: Grade 7 Clarinet Tom Smith: Grade 3 Piano; Grade 2 Voice Tom Vamplew: Grade 5 Clarinet Joseph McGarel: Grade 5 Saxophone Rhys Harris: Musical Theatre Vocal Exams James Worthington: Musical Theatre Vocal Exams. James Banks: Grade 4 piano Travis Higgins: Grade 4 Trumpet Andrew Sugg: Grade 5 Trumpet Lukas Hudson: Grade 3 Oboe Arthur Carr: Currently preparing for his diploma in French horn and Piano! Jeremy Lee: Piano Diploma Joshua Coe: Grade 1 Bass Apologies if anyone has been left off the list; many students have lessons outside school, musical theatre exams in voice; dance; drama and rock school guitar, drum and bass exams to name a few.

Well done to them all! Be sure to let your music teacher know what you are up to especially if you do take exams outside of school! Pupils attending an RAF workshop and concert in April. A really sad farewell from me after 6 years working at BGS leading the music department. We have achieved so much from the many concerts to 2 school productions. It’s been a steep learning curve but so much fun along the way. It has been at times challenging but mostly rewarding and I will truly miss the school. I’m looking forward to new challenges as I move into Special Education and further my studies to train as a music therapist. I would like to thank the many students who it has been an absolute pleasure to teach, you have taught me so much too. I hope that I have inspired some of you and that many of you will look back at your time studying music

with fond memories. I wish you all the best for your futures and hope that you will aspire to be the best version of yourself that you possibly can be. Enjoy your time at school and follow your dreams. Thank you for the memories. Ms R Rich

PTA News Well, we’ve crammed a whole lot of fundraising in this year and have made steady progress towards our target to build an outdoor seating area. We are still a rather small team and as always looking for new members and ideas for fundraising. The PTA meet once a term on a Monday evening for about an hour to discuss each fundraising idea. It is a very informal set up and all new members will be made to feel welcome. If you would like to join please do not hesitate to get in touch with school at any point during the year. We started off the year with a Bingo evening which went down a storm, followed by our Burn’s Night Ceilidh complete with Haggis, Neeps and Tatties – an amazingly fun night. Quiz night, Beetle Drive, more bingo, car washing and our Meet and Greet BBQ in July have all

been fun and helped raise some more funds. As I prepare to move on to pastures new I will be handing over the PTA chair to Dr Jackson in the Science department who has many plans to take things forward from September. It has been a pleasure working with the staff and parents who have helped out over the past 3 years and I wish them all the success for the future of the PTA. Thank you so much for your support, patience and ideas. It’s been fab. Ms R Rich

Quiz Club Now that the long-running GK Club has metamorphosed into Quiz Club, the enthusiastic members have been meeting on several Fridays in the year from 3:30 till 5:00 for a lively session, chaired by BGS veteran, Mr Anderson. First of all, the meetings would not be possible without the generous assistance of Mrs (and Mr!) Rennie who also provide the venue in the shape of Room T. Tried and trusted regulars from the old club now mix with various newcomers who normally take part in face to face team tournaments on the famous buzzer and light system. Points scored are totted up and added to the Quiz Club Ladder which has been masterminded this

year by Year 13's Thomas Vamplew: indeed, Thomas has spent a long time formulating a scoring system (with the help of Mr Weston) which is now up and running in black and orange colours and can be used by any school quiz teams. The club members have taken part in three outside events this year, namely the annual Old Boys' Quiz at Boston County Club, where both boys', old boys', and teachers' teams fared well, the PTA Quiz in the Sixth Form Common Room, in which the Camackazees (featuring keen quizzer, Oliver Cammack and family) finished outright winners from eight competing teams and the Senior Challenge Quiz based at the high-flying Nottingham High School. Our pupils have always shown themselves in a good light in this East Midlands Competition, offering to assist with scoring, controlling the buzzer and light systems and refereeing. However, in the past two years events outside our control have meant that our A and B teams were not able to complete the tournaments, as we needed to catch an appropriate tram and train back to Boston. The popularity of quizzes is at a peak, with so many pubs and village halls joining in and countless quiz shows on TV and radio. We therefore welcome any newcomers from all school years to attend our quizzes in future and thank the loyal Thomas

Vamplew for his service to the club over the years. Next year we hope to bring back the ever popular Brain of BGS Tournament as a fundraiser for the PTA so look out for details! Mr R Anderson (ex staff) & Mrs A G Rennie

Year 9 Heartstart Training Hearstart is a British Heart Foundation initiative to teach people what to do in a life-threatening emergency. The aim of the initiative is to save lives by providing opportunities for people to learn Emergency Life Support (ELS) skills. Mrs Scott and Mrs Ellis have been trained to deliver the Heartstart course in school. In June the Heartstart course was delivered to all of our Year 9 students. Students learnt when and how to act in a life-threatening emergency. The emphasis was on learning practical skills and the programme design provided maximum time for practice and hands-on learning using resuscitation-training manikins. During their half day course students learnt to: Demonstrate safe approach

and assessment of danger

Make a 999/112 call and ask if an AED is available

Open an airway Check for normal breathing Demonstrate the recovery

position Perform Cardiopulmonary

resuscitation (CPR) Demonstrate the management

of choking Know how to manage

someone with a suspected heart attack

Know how to deal with serious bleeding

All of the students who participated in the course received a certificate and without exception everyone agreed that the course had been very useful and informative. Mrs S Scott

BGS Year 8 STEM Day On Tuesday 12

July 2016 the year

8 students took part in our annual BGS STEM Day. The Year 8 students took part in a Mathematical Skyscrapers workshop delivered by Architecture Workshops from Cambridge. Students were challenged to design and build the tallest and most interesting skyscraper structure that they could without it collapsing. The workshop was a design and make assignment focused on

investigation, disassembly and evaluation. The workshop used design technology, maths and science to stimulate student’s imagination, interpretative and visual problem solving skills and to develop their higher order thinking skills. A winning team was chosen from each of the year 8 groups based upon their work throughout the session and the design, height and stability of their skyscraper. The day was a great success and the students were unanimous in their opinion that this should continue to be a yearly event for year 8.

Mrs S Scott

Tennis Boston Grammar took part once again in the Aegon Tennis Schools Competition for Year 10 and under and Year 8 and under for Lincolnshire. The Year 10 team was Jake

Sherrick (who won all his matches), Lucas East, Lowinn Hashim and Luke Wicks. The Year 8 team was Thomas Piggins, Joshua Coe, Rodrigo Quevedo, Neil Agrawl-Esteve and Toni Jergovic. Though both teams didn’t win they had tough matches against Grantham Priory, King’s Grammar Grantham, Horncastle, Spalding Grammar and Stamford School, who were the overall winners. Mrs C Ellis

Y12 Mystery and Mysterious

On Thursday 30 June six members

of Year 12 accompanied by Mrs

Rennie and Mr Blackman attended

a Theology and Ethics Masterclass

at Bishop Grosseteste University in

Lincoln. The subject for the day

was ‘Exploring mystery and the

mysterious’. Students looked at the

idea that there are more things in

heaven and earth than we can

hope to fully understand. This

chance to take time out of our

usual environment and think about

the unexplained was an interesting

introduction to our A2 studies into

‘Life, Death and Life After Death’.

Later we enjoyed a tour of the

college where Mrs Rennie was

very interested to learn that they

have a Disney Society!

Pictured; Bryce and James.

Owen, Bruna, Jordan and Eilidh try

to sell their ideal superpower to the

rest of the group.

Mrs A G Rennie

Physical Education News

U16 Football

The U16 have had a disappointing season after the highs of winning the County Cup last season and I am sure they will hope to improve as they enter the 1

st and 2

nd XI’s

next year. Ben Lawrence, Tapi Shahwe and Seth Greeves have all represented Lincolnshire U16’s with distinction.

U15 Football

The U15 team have had a hugely successful year suffering only one defeat all year in the last 32 in the country to eventual semi-finalist Wolfreton School from Hull. Aside from that excellent achievement they defeated King’s Grantham 2-1 in the County Cup final and beat Spalding Grammar School 4-0 in the Superzone final to cement their

position as the best U15 team in Lincolnshire. Taylor Gray and Seth Greeves have both represented Peterborough FC.

Picture of the team after their

County Cup success.

U14 Football The U14 football team had another very successful year reaching the last 64 in the country, the county cup semi-final and the superzone final where they lost one nil despite dominating for long periods of the match. The Year 9 team also won the county Futsal tournament.

U13 Football The U13 team won the Boston and district league beating all local teams but unfortunately fell short in the superzone final losing to Spalding GS.

U12 Football The U12 team made an excellent start to their careers at Boston Grammar defeating all local

opposition and getting to the Superzone final. They were narrowly beaten by Deepings and will be out for revenge next year. They also got to the last 64 in the country before losing to eventual quarter-finalists St Ivo. Pictured is the Year 7 team in the

new kit supplied by the Old

Bostonian Association.

The Year 7 team also won the

county Futsal tournament and went

onto Derby’s Soccerdome to

compete in the East Midlands

tournament. The boys were faced

with very stiff opposition but

finished a very creditable 3rd

in

their group of 6 narrowly missing

out on the quarter-finals.

Swimming

It was yet another successful year for the swimmers with two age groups winning the district title. The Year 10/11 team made up of

Gwion Joyce, Will Swain, Sam

McCloud and Oliver Abrantes took

1st place defeating arch enemies

Spalding GS.

The Year 8/9 team made up of

Cavern Chambers, Matthew

Millington, William Pettit and Kieran

Rogan won comfortably with a

number of very strong swims.

The Year 7 team gained valuable

experience and will be very strong

next year.

Basketball

The U14 team were crowned

Superzone champions for the 3rd

year running defeating Bourne

Grammar in the final. The team in-

cluded Jack Wright, Jack Lilley,

Bobby Olali, Marco Gilmour, Seb

Hiom, Karl Loeffler, Nathan Ste-

vens and Kai Skinner.

Cricket

The U12, 14 and 15’s teams have all reached the semi-finals of the County Cup with those fixtures still to be played. This is an excellent achievement considering the cali-bre of the opposition in this tourna-ment.

Athletics

Ronald Kiselov has qualified to rep-resent Lincolnshire in the upcoming Anglian Trials. Ronald qualified for the Shot Putt/Discus.

Will Swain has been selected to

represent GB in the Portuguese

National Triathlon as part of a 10

strong U17 team. He also finished

in silver recently at the National

Schools Biathlon final at Crystal

Palace representing BGS. He was

beaten by a student from Millfield

but gave him a run for his money

doing a PB in his1600m run.

Tennis Lincolnshire U14 representative – Jake Sherrick.

Golf Joshua Payne finished in the top ten in the County championships and has earned a place at the Na-tional finals.

Kickboxing Tyler Atkin representing GB at the

World championships.

The PE Department

Some photographs from Sports

Day 2016.