Year 3 enjoyed their lego workshop.
Harry Potter Book Night Celebrations
Children in Years 3 & 4 from around the area arrived for a thrilling Harry Potter themed night last week. MTGS was transformed into Hogwarts for the evening with classes in Herbology, Divination, Astronomy, Potions, Quiddich and much more! Thanks to all those involved, we hope everyone enjoyed the night!
Posted in Junior Boys News, Primary School News, Senior Girls News
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Reception Celebrate Chinese New Year
After a week of learning all about the story behind the Chinese Zodiac, the Reception children celebrated the start of the Year of the Rooster with a special celebration. There was dragon making, exotic fruit tasting, lantern craft, ribbon dancing and dragon boat racing, all topped off with a delicious Chinese banquet! Kung Hei Fat Choi!
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Year 6 Prepare for Romeo & Juliet Performance
Following the Entrance Exam, Year 6 girls have been working hard in preparation for their forthcoming production of Romeo and Juliet.
After researching costume designs for productions of Romeo and Juliet, the girls each designed and annotated their own costume designs for the main characters. They had to consider characterisation, style and fabric choices. Ideas were shared, which culminated in the creation of life-sized costumes for display.
Pupils also produced mood boards and designed and created unique masks for the Capulet’s Masquerade. Other work included character analysis, studying themes and symbols in the play, investigating Shakespeare’s life and exploring his use of language.
After a busy few days of auditions and preparations, our talented Year 6 now have the challenge of learning their lines, perfecting their dances whilst constructing props and scenery! In addition, a group of girls will be working with a director to produce a film documenting the process of making this special performance.
The performance and film premier will take place at MTGS Centenary Hall, Thursday 9th February, 2017 at 4.30pm.
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AJIS Indoor Athletics Championships
Last week the Junior Boys attended the AJIS Indoor Athletics Championships in Wigan. It was a great day, lots of events and the boys did really well especially as both teams competed up one year! James Moore came 3rd in the chest press which is a fantastic achievement.
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Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, in audience with Year 5 and 6
The Young Shakespeare Company (YSC) arrived in the Junior School this morning to stage a production of one of the Bard’s most famous plays – Hamlet.
The YSC have been to our school on a number of occasions in the past and their style is to immerse the audience in the play, giving each boy a part to play or an atmosphere to create (the ‘Thunder-Makers were particularly good this morning). As you can imagine, the entire audience was utterly engrossed in the tale of intrigue and murder – they LOVE a bit of blood and gore.
Hopefully, the play with spark a love of Shakespeare’s plays in the boys – there really is no better way of introducing Shakespeare than this.
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Girls become County Champions at Merseyside Cross Country Championships
Pupils at Merchant Taylors’ continue to thrive both inside and out of the classroom, with many achieving great success in their sporting endeavours alongside their academics. For the girls’ cross country teams last week, this was no different, with both the year 7 and senior teams being crowned County Champions at the Merseyside Cross Country Championships that took place on Saturday 14th January at Arrowe Park on the Wirral.
What makes MTGS a leading school in Cross Country is the commitment and hard work seen by the vast number of runners that compete in each race. In the last 20 years, MTGS have always had a group of senior runners competing consistently for the school. These girls are fantastic role models for our younger runners, namely this year Morag Molyneux (Cross Country Captain), Ellen Murgatroyd (Vice Cross Country Captain), Emily Woodier, Rebecca Southwart, Faye Carr and Emily Storch. These girls have been supported in the open age group with a group of committed girls in Year 10.
We are absolutely delighted to see this senior squad become County Champions in the final league race and in addition to this, our B Team in the senior age group attained a bronze medal. The highly committed runners in our Inter age group are also enjoying a great deal of success. The success of the exceptional Year 7 runners this year must also be commended and we congratulate them on their County Champions 2016/17 title.
At MTGS the Cross Country team is chosen from a very successful running club held on a Friday night. This is well attended by girls of all abilities who help to create a positive ethos towards running for fitness, competitions and enjoyment. This develops and enables the girls who then go on to compete in the cross country races throughout the year.
Mrs Moore (Head of PE) states, “We have some star runners in school but what brings us success at County level is our squad approach to running and being part of a team. The spread of talent and commitment continues to inspire us all to continue to strive for success in the coming seasons.”
The Junior runners also compete in a series of league races within the Sefton district on a Wednesday. These are ongoing and we wish the girls the best of luck in the coming races.
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U13 Table Tennis Team through to Regional Finals
Congratulations to our U13 Table Tennis boys who performed exceptionally well last weekend at the English Schools National Team Championships and now have a chance of making the National Final!
Our U/13s Boys’ team of Rhys Davies, Nick Moustaka, Chris Moustaka and Harry Griffiths did very well in the Zonal finals at Blackburn, winning their category and progressing into the 16 in the country.
The Zonal Final comprised 5 county champions representing Merseyside, Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Shropshire and was played in a round-robin format with the top 2 progressing into one of 4 Regional Finals to be held on the first weekend in March.
Each match comprises 8 individual matches played as best of 5 sets with each set being the 1st to 11 points. Individual matches were played on 2 adjacent tables and there is a set order of play with each team playing their respective Number 1’s against the opposition No.2’s and then likewise with the Number 3’s and 4’s. After these are completed the 2nd matches see the Number 1’s against each other with Number 2’s now playing the Number 3’s and then the Number 4’s playing each other in the final match. It can get quite complicated!
Our 1st match was against the host school St. Bede’s (Blackburn) and we got off to a fantastic start winning the match 8-0 with Nick Moustaka battling back from 2 sets down to win his opening match. Our next match was against The Marches School, Oswestry who had also won their opening match. This proved to be a much tougher battle but we were able to win 6-2 with Chris Moustaka this time coming from 2-0 down to win a key match. After a break we then faced Wade Deacon High School, Widnes who had a few players known us from other competitions in the region. Another 8-0 victory with Nick again winning an epic 5 set battle and Rhys providing the performance of the day beating their No. 1 player 11-0, 11-0, 11-2!
Our final match against Altrincham Grammar would be the decider as they had won all their matches – the opening battles set the tone with Rhys winning easily and Nick again claiming a 5 set thriller only to be matched by his brother, Chris. We eventually ran out 6-2 winners and qualified in 1st place for the Regional Finals. In the Regional finals we will be in a Group of 4 with only the winners progressing to the National Final – Our Players produced some excellent results – Rhys Davies won 8/8, Nick Moustaka 7/8, Christ Moustaka 8/8 and a very impressive Harry Griffiths 5/8 – Harry has only been playing since September but has made significant progress to be able to compete at this level.
Before the next stage of this competition the boys will do battle against each other (and many of their club mates) for the Merseyside Individual Schools Title on Saturday February 4th at Anfield Sports & Community Centre – only the winner progresses to the National Finals.
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Sibling Duo Alumni to Produce Legally Blonde Production
Since leaving Merchant Taylors’ Girls and Boys school, brother and sister duo, Laura and Mark McLaughlin, have been running stage school Plastersine Performing Arts Company. Laura graduated in 2006 from LIPA – Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, and opened Plastersine with Mark in January 2008.
Since then, both Mark and Laura successfully auditioned for Manchester School of Acting, with Laura completing 2 years screen acting for beginners, and Mark still going every week for the last 5 years.
Director Mark has been on Hollyoaks several times, with a couple of small speaking parts, and was also the face of Cash Converters in 2014, where he was spotted by friends, family and students on the tv! Several friends would even have selfies outside cash converters shops with Marks face.
Both Mark and Laura pursued piano – Grade 8, trumpet – Grade 8, and vocals – Grade 8, with Laura then going on to gain her Associate Diploma in singing from the London College of Music.
She continued her passion for music and vocals by training with Dane Chalfin in Blue Print Studios Manchester for 5 years, learning Estill vocal techniques used on Broadway, Westend and film. She is currently waiting confirmation to do her CMT – Certified Master Trainer – exams in Estill.
Their latest achievement has been working on board P&O cruise ships during holiday periods, teaching the children on board in drama, singing and dance. With Mark and another team member recently returning from the Caribbean after producing Annie on board P&O Azura.
As a duo, they have produced the following musicals;
Seussical the Musical – 2013 at Ormskirk Civic Hall, Peter Pan the British Musical – 2014 in West Lancashire Theatre, Les Miserables – 2015 in Ormskirk School Theatre, and last year a HUGELY successful Grease, at the Atkinson Theatre in Southport, this first professional show!
Les Miserables was nominated for 10 NODA awards – National Operatic and Dramatic association, with 3 of our performers winning their categories, and Grease was nominated for 10 NODA awards this year too! The awards dinner is being held at the Floral Hall in February.
Following on from the well known classic Grease, a show that cost them £23,000 to produce, they wanted to keep things upbeat and modern, so they chose Legally Blonde the musical. Auditions are being held on January 28th / 29th, and with students from all over the North West auditioning for Les Miserables and Grease, Legally Blonde is sure to be just as competitive and successful, with no expense spared!
For information about their company and this show can be found on their website www.plastersine.com
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Oxbridge Candidates 2017
Merchant Taylors’ are delighted with this year’s successful students who have recently received offers to study at Oxford or Cambridge University from September 2017.
Leon Reason, a student from Aintree has been offered a place to read History at Fitzwilliam College Cambridge. A keen student of History, English Language and Government and Politics, and after a rigorous interview process, Leon has secured his place at the university of his choice against fierce opposition. Leon is a curious and very hard working student with a passion and love of reading. In addition to Leon, Jack Zhou has been offered a place to read Mathematics at Queens College Oxford. Maths is one of the most competitive courses at university; Jack’s natural intelligence, ability and determination have shone through, throughout his time at the school and he thoroughly deserves this offer to study at one of the world’s top centres of learning. Jack is also part of a four man team at the Boys’ School, who have won through to the national finals of the UK Maths Challenge Competition, later in the spring, where they will compete against the best 32 schools in the country.
Merchant Taylors’ is particularly strong in the sciences and Maths; this is the third offer to a student at MTBS, to study Maths at Oxford, in the past three years.
Not to be outdone by the boys, Jessy Li from Merchant Taylors’ Girls’ School has been offered a place at Cambridge to read aerospace engineering. Jessy is studying Maths, Further Maths, Chemistry and Physics. She visited Leicester Space centre with the School and designed and launched a rocket! She has also attended the Institute of Physics lectures and the X-ray Mass Spectrometer Gala (XMaS) organised by Liverpool University to engage young women in STEM based subjects. Jessy won a Gold award in the National Senior Maths Challenge and Merit in the Kangaroo stage of the competition as well as the Liverpool Physics Olympics. A highly motivated student, Jessy already has a grade A in her Chinese A level and is on track for a string of A* grades.
Posted in Boys Sixth Form News, Girls Sixth Form News, Senior Boys News, Senior Girls News
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