Private School News

Viking Day 2009

In the morning, the hall was turned into a Viking house, where the children were divided into four families. They learned about the roles each member of the family had and how they had to worked together to support their way of life. The children took part in different activities including grinding wheat to make flour, weaving reeds to make rope and making candle wicks. They looked at Viking artefacts made out of animal bones and wood.

After lunch, the children looked at how the Viking made and dyed their clothes and then they had the opportunity to braid their own bracelet using a Viking tool called a Lucet.

It was then time to learn how to do battle. The children loved going outside with the spears and shields. They formed two battle lines and had to lock their shields together to protect themselves. They enjoyed pulling horrible faces at the enemy and shouting battle cries.

It was a most exciting day and a highlight in the Year 3 calendar.

Triple triumph as Bilton Grange Hockey teams crowned Warwickshire County Champions

Boys Under-13 & Under-11 teams and Girls Under-13 team triumph

Beating off strong competition from across Warwickshire, three teams from Bilton Grange have risen to the top of their game to become county champions.

Last Sunday, 15th March saw a nerve wracking final for the Bilton Grange under-13 girls’ team, in the County 7-a-side hockey tournament held at Warwick School. In a hard fought match against the stiff opposition of King’s High School Warwick, great defending on both sides meant a deadlock of 0-0, and so the title had to be decided by ‘sudden death’ penalty flicks. After this nail-biting finish, Bilton Grange U13 girls emerged victorious and were given the County title.

A week earlier, the boys had seen similar success with both the U-13 and U-11 winning their respective matches to be crowned Warwickshire County Champions. Played at Warwick School on a wet and windy day, the competition saw the counties’ best hockey clubs and schools enter to try and win the prize of representing Warwickshire in the next round at the Midlands competition.

The U-11 boys beat the likes of Coventry and Warwick North Hockey Club and Solihull School to face Sutton Coldfield Hockey Club in the final. The team captain, Andrew Carr scored the winning goal in the final few minutes, taking the school on to the title. The U-13 boys, after beating Rugby & East Warwickshire Hockey Club 2-0 in the semi-final, had an equally tense final, beating Sutton Coldfield by one goal to take the winners’ pennant.

Both boys’ teams will now go on to represent Warwickshire in the regional competition on 26th April at Nottingham Highfields Sports Centre.

Mark Tovey, Head of Hockey at Bilton Grange, commented;
“We are all thrilled with our recent county successes amongst the boys’ and girls’ hockey teams. They have worked incredibly hard this term, and the finals saw them play some of their finest hockey. Despite nerve wracking finals, and stiff opposition, all the teams kept their cool and put in a great team effort – well done!”

Planetarium comes to Bilton Grange

Pupils at Bilton Grange School in Dunchurch have been seeing stars this week as the AstraZeneca Stardome came to the school, as part of National Science and Engineering Week. The inflatable planetarium recreates a perfectly dark night sky with hundreds of brilliant points of light creating star constellations, projected into their positions in the night sky on to the ceiling of the dome, which had taken over one of the school’s squash courts.

With stars in their eyes, and in the darkness of the dome, the children at Bilton Grange enjoyed state of the art animations and the latest images from space missions, as well as watching projectors join the ‘dots’ of the stars to illustrate the constellations of the night sky. From learning about the life of stars to the ancient myths about the stars, Bilton Grange pupils of all ages have been able to experience the Stardome.