Saturday night at Bolton School saw over 40 local Year 5 children collect awards and enjoy a graduation dinner from this year’s SHINE: Serious Fun on Saturday mornings’ programme. Run by teachers and students at Bolton School, SHINE is part of a national programme which aims to raise the educational aspirations of young children whilst allowing them to build teamwork skills, make new friends and have fun.

The sessions, which are free for participating children from local primary schools, run over the course of eleven Saturdays and include a mix of traditional subjects in Science, the Arts, Humanities and Languages and also a range of activities and lessons that they are less likely to be familiar with including outdoor pursuits, food technology and new languages such as Russian, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, Latin and Greek. The programme ends with a day trip to the Catalyst Science Discovery Museum.

Co-organiser Miss Wrathmell reflected: “There was a lovely atmosphere during the Celebration Evening. It is always a delight to reflect how much the children have developed over the time they spend with us. They enjoy using our great facilities and appreciate the expertise of our teachers and students and are inspired to push themselves that little bit further. As ever, over the course of the graduation dinner, the girls and boys were very excited to exhibit their work and recount their favourite fun activities to their parents and teachers.”

The Mayor and Mayoress of Bolton attended the dinner and awarded a number of prizes to the pupils for their commitment and progress during the programme. The evening, attended by pupils and their parents as well as teachers and governors from Bolton School, concluded with a video of highlights from the programme, which had been compiled by the Y10-13 mentors.