Friends of BRGS 38

Bacup & Rawtenstall

Issue 38

Grammar School

Spring 2018

Friends of BRGS A newsletter produced by BRGS for former students, parents & the community

Commonwealth Games Silver Medal for Mollie Mollie Campbell started her basketball career at BRGS in 2006 and was selected to represent England at the Commonwealth Games in Australia in April.

Mollie’s dedication and commitment to developing herself in the sport has resulted in her not only playing at an international level throughout her junior years, but in her continuing her excellent performance for Team GB Senior Women’s Team throughout Europe.

Mollie gained a scholarship in the US playing Division 1 Women’s Basketball in GB Senior Women's Team throughout Europe and her current club is the Leicester Riders.

Basketball made its first appearance at this year’s Commonwealth Games since 2006, when both the men and the women’s teams were awarded bronze medals.

Preliminary matches took place in Townsville before the semi-finals and finals were held on the Gold Coast. The men’s team were in the unseeded pool against Cameroon, India and Scotland whereas the women were in the seeded group and competed against Australia, Canada and Mozambique.

The women’s team lost to a deserving host nation in a drama-fuelled final with a score of 99-55 to Australia. The Basketball England review of the match commented that “a Mollie Campbell triple to end the half breathed new life into the contest.”

Coach Jose Buceta said: “It was obvious that Australia was a very strong team so we have to be happy, even in the final I thought the team fought a lot and did a great job.”

Photos courtesy of Basketball England.

www.brgs.org.uk

1

Welcome!

Sporting successes are a theme in this term’s edition from Mollie Campbell’s Commonwealth Games selection to Phoebe Newton-Hughes competing in the European Fencing Championships in Sochi. Our BRGS PE Twitter Feed is inundated with sporting achievements and, as I write, we have just finished term with a week of fundraising sports activities for Sports Relief.

Since the last newsletter, like most of the country we have braved the Beast from the East, which caused the school to close for an unprecedented 3½ days, with huge snowdrifts blocking the site.

Some former students will reflect on the school rarely closing but with staff not always based in Rossendale and buses travelling in from Rochdale, Bury, Todmorden and Burnley, decisions become more complex. We await some Spring sunshine!

Emma Emma Gauntlett Development Director ecg@brgs.org.uk Tel: 01706 234500/01706 234502 (direct) www.brgs.org.uk

Voluntary Work in Malawi Class of 2017 leavers Anna Shepherd and Catherine Gallagher are currently on a gap year at an orphanage in Malawi.

Prior to leaving BRGS, the girls asked the sixth form and staff to bring in any toys they had at home that could be sent ahead of them to Malawi to be used as Christmas presents. The photo above shows the delight on a child's face on receiving the gifts on Christmas Day. It was a Christmas Day with a difference for Anna and Catherine with the traditional meal as a treat on the day being goat and rice. The usual diet is a maize-based substance eaten with kidney beans.

Post-Christmas, the girls have begun to set up a netball team and they are also starting to have a more active role in the children's schooling, focusing on maths and English (the language spoken by the children is Chichewa). They are also busy organising the library at the orphanage and, most importantly, spending time playing with the children outside.

The actual orphanage is situated in a village called Bangula, about two hours from the country's commercial capital of Blantyre. The orphanage has been open for over 10 years with a primary school that also accommodates over 100 local students. It was set up and is still is run by Will and Pam Phillips from Canada and America respectively. When they first arrived they lived in tents for several months and have helped the community especially by providing maize for those stranded after horrific floods in Bangula two years ago which left 200 people dead and over a thousand people homeless.

Extreme Cake Maker Molly Former student Molly Robbins (pictured next to one of her creations) demonstrates her extraordinary cake-making skills in Channel 4's Extreme Cake Makers.

Molly and a selection of elite bakers are featured in the programme as they undertake some creatives challenges with Molly tasked with designing a life-sized edible cow, a scuba diving dog cake, a keep fit-themed birthday cake, an edible coral reef and much more.

Molly's degree was in special effects make-up, a talent which she has applied to cake-making. Many of her cakes are commissions of family pets but they have included pies, pizza and even a cheese board with stilton and brie! Hours are spent airbrushing many of the cakes and using different textures of icing to ensure that they look realistic.

Molly Robbins pictured with one of her stunning cake designs

Former BRGS governor and former student Peter Fisher has digitised 40,000 photos from the Free Press archive (photo of Waterfoot Station courtesy of Rossendale Free Press) resulting in 4.4 million online hits. How many of you can remember arriving to school via train?

Take a look at the BRGS ones and many more at https://peterfisher.smugmug.com/History/BRGS/

www.brgs.org.uk

3

Challenging Cambridge University Debating Competition Four 6th form students (Mark, Joseph, James and Claudia pictured) represented BRGS in the annual Cambridge Schools' Debating Competition held at Manchester Grammar School.

The teams performed exceptionally well against some tough competition. Students are thrown in the deep end as they are given a motion to debate with only fifteen minutes preparation time to respond to a range of topics and prepare individual five minute speeches. The diverse subjects which the students had to grapple with included: This House supports penalty enhancements for hate crimes.

This House would nationalise all of Britain's railways.

This House would punish the UK for its BREXIT decision.

This House believes a minimal state is justified.

This was the first competitive debate for many of the students with BRGS teams coming first and second in some of the rounds - a great achievement!

BRGS’s Spring Music Concert featured some friendly rivalry between the Jazz and the Soul Bands with some exceptional performances from both.

A highlight of the evening was the vocal harmony group showcasing This Is Me by Pasek and Paul, one of the headline songs from the hit film The Greatest Showman.

On Monday 30 April, the Accesso Quarter, a professional string quartet will be presenting an evening concert in association with Manchester University at BRGS. The concert will start at 7.30 pm and will include a varied programme, including some music specially composed by our A Level Music students.

Tickets are available on the door: £10 for adults and free for children/students.

BRGS PTA 200 Club The 200 Club is a private lottery confined to parents of present and past students, former students, employees of BRGS and serving governors. Membership is currently limited to 200 members but the PTA has a few remaining places left. If you would like to be part of the Club, payment is £5 per month (usually by standing order) and a membership form is available at https://www.brgs.org.uk/parents-andstudents/pta/200-club.

There are 11 monthly draws where the amount awarded is 1.25 x Number of members subscribing on the first day of the month. There are also 2 yearly draws where the amount awarded is 7.5 x Number of members subscribing on the first day of the month. Proceeds, after deducting expenses for printing and stationary, are devoted to the PTA.

Humanising the Homeless Article by Ariij, Year 12.

It’s no secret that in the United Kingdom, there is a huge population of homeless people. Human beings unable to provide reliable shelter for themselves for whatever reason. The issue today is that we are so aware of the sheer number of homeless people, seeing them in town or city centres doesn’t shock us – in fact, we often just walk past without giving them a second thought. Sometimes we give them some change out of pity, but how could we ever understand their situation, unless we were in it ourselves? We can’t.

However, the least we can do is try to help these citizens get their lives back on track.

Over a quarter of a million people in the UK are living without homes. We can’t continue to turn a blind eye to such a growing issue. It could be us or our family on the streets, wishing we had someone who would help us. This is why we must take action now. It’s never too late to help someone – you could even be saving a life. How do you help all the homeless people around? You can’t. No one can, but we can start by helping one person at a time and this way, we can start to reduce the homeless population.

Rochdale Borough Housing, on behalf of Rochdale Borough Council, has a program which can assist those who are in danger of being evicted or kicked out of their homes. They offer advice on their website, as well as providing a service for people looking for temporary housing, though there are a few flaws with this.

Firstly, homeless individuals most likely do not have access to the internet, so cannot find the information needed to help them. Furthermore, housing is not available to every single homeless person – there simply isn’t enough accommodation.

This issue has been around for as long as I have been alive. So why write about it now? Why not before?

Like many people, I was guilty of dehumanising those who were homeless. It was an involuntary, subconscious reaction. There were so many homeless people and I couldn’t help them all. Today, I was in a town when I saw a man sitting outside a charity shop. He had a stool set up and a sign which read “Andy’s Free Shoe Shine, DONATIONS WELCOME.” This man who was in dire need of money was giving away a free service and hoped that in turn, people would donate some money.

I approached him and gave him all of the money I had in my pocket. It wasn’t much, but as I stood with him over the course of half an hour, I saw several people walk past as though he was invisible. Despite this, he continued to smile at everyone who walked past and even asked how they were.

We spoke and he told me how he needed around £20 pounds in order to get a room and food at a shelter for three nights, have a shower and get his clothes washed. He didn’t expect to get the money he needed for the three nights today.

“Sundays are slow,” he told me. When I asked him how much money he had, he admitted that it was less than £10 – nowhere near enough to get him into the shelter. It had started to rain.

I was so heartbroken to see Andy like this. I was in tears and implored my Dad to give him enough to get into the shelter. I left with a weight off my chest, but somehow, I couldn’t shake the feeling that it still wasn’t right. What was going to happen to Andy after the three days? What about everyone else on the street, still out in the rain? I wanted to do more, so I wrote this article. But this is only the start. I am hoping to do some fundraising for the homeless people of Rochdale, like Andy. I am hoping that everyone will try to contribute.

For more student-written articles and reflections, go to https://brgspost.wordpress.com/

www.brgs.org.uk

5

Computational Thinking Challenge Students from BRGS were finalists in a computing challenge at the Department of Computer Science at the University of Oxford BRGS students David, Jenson, Louie and Dylan were invited to the Department of Computer Science at the University of Oxford on the weekend of 10-–11 February as finalists in a UK-wide computing competition – The UK BEBRAS Computational Thinking Challenge.

Reaching the final round of the Challenge is an impressive achievement, as 71,146 students entered the first round for the Intermediate age group (12–14) and 41,372 students entered the first round for the Junior age group (10–12). David, Jenson, Louie, and Dylan were among the top 60 highest achieving students invited to the final rounds in their age groups, and were presented with their finalist’s certificates at prize-giving ceremonies at Hertford College.

The UK BEBRAS Computational Thinking Challenge, supported by Google, is designed to get students excited about computing and computational thinking. It is a problem-solving contest with questions inspired by topics in computer science. In the first round, held in their own schools, students have to try and solve as many problems as possible in the allotted time. There are six age categories. The highest scoring students from the four oldest age groups (Elite, Senior, Intermediate, and Junior) were then invited to the Department of Computer Science at Oxford for the finals over two weekends in January and February.

Students being awarded their welldeserved certificates as the top 60 highest achievers in their age groups.

Normandy It was a break with tradition from our annual trip to Ypres this year with 131 students travelling to the D-Day Normandy Beaches and the beautiful and historic town of Bayeux from the 20-23 March. The itinerary included: 

  



Arromanches Invasion Museum. This museum was the first to be built in commemoration of the 6 June 1944 landings and the Normandy Campaign, opened in 1954 to commemorate the 10th anniversary. The early hours of D-Day are brought to life in the museum by a diorama with special light and sound effects with the Hall of the Allied Nations allowing pupils to find out about all the different nationalities that took part in D-Day and featuring exceptional archive footage of Mulberry Harbour B. Caen Peace Museum. An outstanding museum featuring sections on the Cold War, Genocide and Mass Violence as well as World War II with a new exhibition purely focused on the D-Day landings.

Pegasus Bridge Memorial Museum. Here students found out about more about the first action of DDay – Operation Deadstick – the capture of the Caen Canal and Orne river bridges.

American National Cemetery. At the conclusion of the fighting in Normandy, there were more than ten American cemeteries on the battlefield, with hundreds of small burial grounds and isolated graves.

The Normandy American Cemetery has 9,387 burials of US service men and women including 33 pairs of brothers buried side by side. The cemetery borders on the left flank of Omaha Beach and overlooks the sector where the 1st Division landed on D-Day with a viewing platform and paths down to the slopes and onto the beach.

Merville Battery Museum. The Battle of Merville Gun Battery occurred on 6 June 1944 as part of Operation Tonga. The 9th Parachute Battalion was given the objective of destroying the battery.

However, their parachute descent was dispersed over a large area so instead of over 600 men, only 150 with no heavy weapons or equipment arrived at the battalion assembly point. Regardless, they pressed home their attack and succeeded in capturing the battery. After the British had withdrawn the Germans reoccupied the battery position and the British never succeeded in completely destroying it, with it remaining under German control until 17 August when the German Army started to withdraw from France. 

Bayeux was known as Augustodurum in the Roman Empire, literally meaning ‘the door dedicated to Augustus’. Just four miles from the English Channel, it has a violent and fascinating history with a

Roman legion stationed there as part of the Roman coastal defences only to be later destroyed by the Vikings. The famous cathedral was formally dedicated in 1077 and was built by William of Normandy’s half-brother Bishop Odo, who is also thought to have commissioned the world famous Bayeux Tapestry recounting the events of the Norman Invasion of England and its conquest in 1066.

Pictured: BRGS students laying a wreath at the Bayeaux War Cemetery.

www.brgs.org.uk

7

Agyness stars in BBC drama Former BRGS student Agyness Deyn, starred in a BBC prime time dystopian drama, Hard Sun about the end of the world. Agyness played detective Elaine Renko, who alongside actor Jim Sturgess, were the double act that formed the action. Set in modern-day London the couple discover proof that the world faces destruction in five years’ time and have to live with the consequences of knowing the future awaiting them and their families.

The drama was written by Neil Cross, creator of Luther, and follows Agyness’s complex character which brought with it a number of demands. Agyness spoke of her character Renko: “She’s not only physically strong, she’s also mentally strong and focused.” She commented on the physical demands of the role which entailed her performing many of her own stunts: “It’s very hard physically, but it’s amazing to be able to do all that myself. I love it! They didn’t let me do a couple of stunts. They wouldn’t let me fall through a glass table and they wouldn’t let me crash a car, but otherwise I did everything myself.” The series received a warm reception and Agyness is looking to further acting and modelling roles, recently gracing the February cover of Town and Country Magazine in the first ever photo shoot on the rooftop of Hampton Court Palace.

Image courtesy of the BBC.

Mock Trial Finalists BRGS students competed against only 18 other teams from across the country in the Bar Mock Trial National Finals held in March in Cardiff. The competition provided a unique opportunity for students aged 15-18 from all over the UK to gain unparalleled insight into the justice system.

Some of the students were able to perform in front of Sir Brian Leveson, the judge responsible for leading the press phone hacking inquiry and the Head of the Criminal Justice System, which made the experience even more memorable.

Although they did not win the competition, it was an amazing achievement to reach the final 18 out of 230 schools.

South Africa Sessions Released

Former student and Bury-based singer-songwriter Conor Molloy has been on a musical journey in pursuit of success and has now released his debut EP titled South Africa Sessions.

Conor wrote his first song at the age of nine in the back seat of a car in Australia and ever since he has harboured the ambition to fulfil his musical dreams. Conor has been writing and recording ever since, his style primarily folk-inspired with lyrics juxtaposing both humorous and sinister themes.

After A levels he went on to travel the world for a year with his guitar, playing songs ‘to anyone who would listen’ before pursuing a degree in French at King’s College London. This led to him studying a masters in French Literature at the University of Oxford. Instead of pursuing this academic route or following a career in linguistics, Conor has returned to his northern roots to concentrate on his music career.

Conor recorded in South Africa after being approached by the Western Cape-based produced Jo Ellis.

The two of them initially worked over the internet but then spent a fortnight in South Africa which enabled Conor to learn how to mix and master music for himself.

Conor believes that they now “sound like the finished article whereas I wasn’t sure they were quite there before” and he hopes that the release of his EP will enable a wider audience to access his music. He describes his music as “a little bit retro” with the songs all having a “chirpy melody and some darker lyrics”. Conor’s musical influences include Bob Dylan, Cat Stevens, Leonard Cohen and Beautiful South’s Paul Heaton.

Conor is now working on a full-length album and hopes to announce a number of festival dates for the summer. You can listen to South Africa Sessions on most digital platforms including Spotify, Soundcloud and Apple Music or at www.conormolloymusic,com.

www.brgs.org.uk

9

Teaching Today It is often said that we are preparing students for careers that may not even exist at the present time.

Consequently, our Careers’ Next Steps Programme at BRGS focuses on ensuring that students have employability skills which can be transferred from sector to sector.

Different routes to careers are explored with our students and this term we took the opportunity to focus on National Apprenticeship Week which ran from the 5-9 March. BRGS Careers Advisor Laura Grenaghan outlined the pathways into competitive higher and degree level apprenticeships.

The vast majority of students at BRGS follow the traditional university route to a degree but an increasing number are applying for highly-sought apprenticeships. A recent BRGS leaver, Emily, is pursuing an engineering apprenticeship at Jaguar Landrover whilst studying at Warwick University and, for her, this is entirely the right choice as it allows her to freedom to earn and develop her skills from day one whilst having a job at the end of her degree which is fully-funded by her company. Other students have followed similar routes to BAE Systems and to financial-based careers at KPMG and other top firms.

For students at BRGS, our main priority is ensuring that they are fully appraised of the options available to them so that they can make informed and wise choices that are best-suited to their individual circumstances and ambitions.

Train to Teach School-centred initial teacher training has become increasingly popular in recent years, and the Pennine Lancashire SCITT has been an integral part of this expansion in provision since being set up in 2013. Training with the Pennine Lancashire SCITT means that you will be in a school right from the start of your training, meeting the classes that you will be teaching over the course of your training year.

Would you like to:    

Make a clear, tangible difference to young people’s lives?

Work with a subject you are passionate about?

Feel challenged every day in a role where no two days are the same?

Use your creativity and innovation to make lessons inspiring?

BRGS is a member of the East Lancashire Training School Alliance and is part of Pennine Lancashire SCITT. If you would like to train to teach the Pennine Way then go to: http://plscitt.org.uk/

BRGS 2nd in Vocab Express Global Challenge Vocab Express was designed with a number of language departments which shaped it into an online vocabulary learning platform for foreign languages. The platform integrates text, images and audio to make it engaging for students to use and students’ progress can be tracked by teachers.

From the 7-13 March Vocab Express ran a Global Challenge in which BRGS students came 2nd!

Competing in the Challenge Cup Medio which is for schools with between 151-500 registered users, BRGS students accumulatively scored 337,445 placing us in second place behind Broughton High School with 359,785 but comfortably over St Gregory’s High School in Warrington with 246,955.

Phoebe’s represents Team GB in Fencing Year 12 student Phoebe Newton-Hughes represented Great Britain in the European Fencing Championships in Sochi competing in the Women’s Foil from the 2-11 March. In the lead up to the Championship she also competed in U17 competitions in Rome and Zagreb.

Phoebe started fencing aged 10 at Salle Kiss fencing club in Bury and was first selected to fence for England aged 12 and then for Great Britain aged 13. She is currently ranked first in the British Cadet U17 ranking and in September of last year she won individual silver and team gold medals representing England in the school games at Loughborough.

At Sochi there was a field of seventy-one in Phoebe’s event which included four from Great Britain. Amy Home and Phoebe made it through the first round poules and in the round of 64 Vasile from Romania defeated Phoebe 15-9 with Russia’s Adelina Bikbulatova winning the European title. Overall, Phoebe came 41st.

www.brgs.org.uk

11

Sports Reports For all the latest BRGS Sports News then do follow BRGS PE Department on Twitter @BRGS_PE

Sports Relief Activities

Year 10 PE students sponsored row ‘across the Channel’ in 3 lunchtimes covering 33k metres & a staff v. 6th form tug-of-war.

Staff football against Year 10 resulted in a 4-2 win to the staff.

 

    

Cricket: U15 Boys’ Runners Up in the NW against 200 schools. U13 Boys’ Winners of Rossendale Championship, Cross-Country: two students competed in the English Schools Championships in Leeds with Max coming 64th and Emily 92nd. Lancashire came 3rd in the Intermediate Boys’ Competition.

Under 19 Basketball Team had an impressive win against Stonyhurst 65-43.

Year 8 Indoor Girls’ Athletics Team came 4th in Lancashire.

Year 7 Indoor Girls’ Athletics Team came 7th with the Boys’ Team 6th.

Under 14 Girls’ Basketball: first ever girls’ team from BRGS to win the Lancashire Champions title!

Under 16 Badminton team were semi-finalists in the Lancashire Final in Blackpool.

Obituaries We were saddened to learn of the following since publication of our last newsletter: Gerald Hartley was at BRGS from 1940-1947. Gerald died on one of his visits to the UK in November 2017. He leaves a widow in Ohio, After leaving school, Gerald gained a degree in mining engineering at Nottingham University and went to work in the USA in the 1950s with his wife Nancy. Before he retired he was working as a Director of a mining engineering equipment company operating between the US and Australia.

Message Board  Congratulations to Paul Williams (pictured) on his graduation from the University of Toledo, Ohio with a PhD in neuroscience.  Do get in touch with BRGS with any news regarding university graduations or career news.

Follow us: Do follow us on twitter @BRGS_1701 and on our Facebook site which is BRGS (Official Facebook).

BRGS welcomed author of Brightstorm Vashti Hardy to work with our Year 7 students at the start of the summer term.

Vashti delivered an assembly where she shared her own story of how she discovered that she could dare to be a writer; of how the tales of real life adventurers such as Ernest Shackleton and Amelia Earhart inspired her to take her own adventure through her imagination to create the Brightstorm world.

Through the day Vashti worked with each Year 7 form. She took them deeper through her own creative process and showed them how to fully use all their senses when writing. Vashti taught them how to create a range of exciting characters that really stand out on the page as well as getting them writing to music to inspire more vivid imagery. We were all really impressed with the students’ engagement and creativity.

Vashti was available over lunch to chat informally to students in the Learning Resources Centre and answer any questions they had whilst signing numerous copies of Brightstorm. Mrs Kirk, LRC Manager said: "It’s a riveting read, I keep being stopped in the corridor by students to tell me how hooked they are."

13

Who? What? Where? When?

The photo below of Port Erin is encouraging further debate regarding one of the teachers who features in it: Dwight Williams and Ken Bradley believe it is Mr. Beckett, Mary Wallin nĂŠe Hardisty has suggested that it is Mr. Law and Stuart Holt has put forward Mr. Bennett as the teacher in question. Ken Bradley thinks that the teacher to the right of the centre is Mr Stratton followed by Mr Chatburn to his right.

For this edition we would welcome any suggestions regarding the names of those featured in a photo from a trip to Missouri in 1997? Please contact Emma Gauntlett at ecg@brgs.org.uk.

Please do get in touch at ecg@brgs.org.uk if you spot anyone you recognise.

Your communication preferences The School’s Development Office currently maintains links with nearly 6,000 contactable former students and former members of staff across the world and we would very much like to remain in contact with you.

In line with forthcoming changes to data protection legislation (General Data Protection Regulations) which come into force on the 25 May 2018, BRGS is asking all alumni, former members of staff and friends of the school to confirm their communication preferences to enable us to be clear regarding how you would like to keep in touch.

Please do complete the form on the back page of this newsletter and return your communication preferences to BRGS so that we can keep in touch.

This form will be emailed to everyone on our database for whom we have an up-to-date email address and will be posted to everyone for whom we only have address details. The form will also be accessible to download on our website in the ‘Development and Alumni’ section.

BRGS Reunion A number of you have been in touch to check whether we are holding a whole school reunion this year. We have decided that in order to provide sufficient notice we will hold our next reunion in the autumn term of 2019. It is likely to be late September/early October with the date to be confirmed in due course.

www.brgs.org.uk

Glen Road, Waterfoot, Rossendale, Lancashire BB4 7BJ

15 T: 01706 234500 E: enquiries@brgs.org.uk W: www.brgs.org.uk

Sixth Form: T: 01706 233400 E: sixthform@brgs.org.uk