Scroll down to see what the boys have been up to during the festive season…

G&T Art Club’s Clay Christmas Snowmen

Our Gifted, Talented and Able boys have continued to stretch their Art and Design skills, this term working with clay to produce snowmen in time for Christmas. The snowmen have been made using air dry clay and decorated by the boys with a range of art materials such a pipe cleaner arms and button top hats. Both Miss Baker and Miss Evans think they look very eye-catching!

The snowmen were made by Seb Rice, Henry Sinker, Charlie Burdekin, Eben Cooper, Monty Barr, Rohan Brown, Callum Mentha and Nathan Williams.

Giant Bauble Making

This term the boys at after school art club have been quietly working on producing giant Christmas bauble decorations to inject some festive spirit to the main corridor of the Junior school. The giant baubles were made using red paper lampshades, which were individually decorated using a range of materials such as ribbon, tinsel, snowflake sequins, sparkly gem stones and curling ribbon.

Y4H Pop-Up Cards

The boys have explored five different pop-up techniques, developing their ability to independently follow instructions as well as honing their measuring, cutting, folding and design skills. After exploring each technique the boys planned out designs for their own hand made pop-up Christmas cards. They then went on to create their original card designs, incorporating one or more pop-up technique and decorated them using a variety of collage materials.

Halcyon House

On Tuesday 8th December the Year 6 choir boys went to a retirement home called Halcyon House in Formby. We travelled by minibus with Mr.Youngson and Mr.Holroyd. After performing eight songs were each given a selection box, which was very nice.

Whilst we were there we also had a chance to have an interesting little chat to the residents of Halcyon House. Some of them were Merchants old boys or girls or had children who went to our school (some a long time ago).

15 children participated and we thought we sang very well whilst we were there.
Five of the songs we performed were very festive and one was actually written by a former pupil’s father.

Overall, for all of the choir it was a very enjoyable afternoon out – made even better when we returned with some tasty chocs!

By Connor E

The Juniors had an action-packed Christmas Party consisting of five stations to visit including cricket, football, basketball and table tennis with a food, craft and lucky dip stop. The boys were also treated to a visit from Dame Ammonia Goodbody who took time out of her busy schedule in Sleeping Beauty at Southport Little Theatre to wish us all a Merry Christmas.

 

The Gifted & Talented Art boys have been busily baking and decorating stained glass cookies to hang on the Merchant Taylors’ Christmas tree at St Faith’s Church Christmas Tree Festival this year.

The tree is decorated with our handmade cookies as well as baubles from The Walton Centre…I think you’ll agree it looks lovely! The tree will be on display at St Faith’s for the next week – so why not pop in and have a look?

Congratulations to our Geography Team

A huge congratulations to our Gifted and Talented Geographers, Jonathan Corner, George Johnston, Thomas Cunliffe and Hemanth Bheemireddy who were awarded 1st Place winning their first ever Geography Competition.

On Tuesday 1st December, the boys entered their first local Inter Schools World Geography Competition held at MTGS. Rounds included Which City? Geography in the News, Flags, Geography of Sport, OS Maps and a Countryfile section based in the UK. The team made a tremendous start scoring full marks in the first round Which City? The boys showed superb Geographical knowledge and worked extremely hard as a team. The boys were presented with an Atlas each and a “Geography Rocks” badge as well as a Maps book for our Junior School Library. Well done boys!

Grandparents and relatives who experienced the Second World War were invited to join us for afternoon tea in the Junior School Hall. The Year 6 boys interviewed our guests about their experiences as part of the Y6 History topic and learned a lot from what they were told. Sincere thanks go to Charles’ and Adam’s families for joining us.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                              Charles Atwell

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 Adam Curd

Jon Mayhew visit to MTS Library

Wednesday 25th November 2015

Although he confessed to not being a keen reader as a child, author Jon Mayhew began with the message to our pupils, delightful to librarians, that reading is good for the brain, and improves many personal qualities like empathy. As a boy, he took a dislike to reading after sampling The Five and a Half Club, one of the titles on the school syllabus, and left primary school without attaining the momentous status of a ‘free reader’. However, his appreciation of comics kept him reading, and selling some of this valuable collection paid his way through university. At the time he didn’t consider comics to count as reading but now insists (quite rightly) that graphic novels and comics are just as worthwhile as other fiction.

Although he has a special love for his first novel, Mortlock, which has sold all over the world, his favourite book is always the one he is working on. Ideas for plots come from many sources (including traditional ballads, like The Twa Corbies), but Jon always makes sure he writes them down. He starts a book by writing a few chapters to give him an idea of the characters and the plot. He then does a rough draft for his wife to read, then second version which he asks another author to check. The final manuscript is sent to his editor. Even after this, it is at least a year before the book is published, by which time he has started his next project.

Boys from Years 7 and 8, and a large group of Junior Boys, enjoyed his visit, and are now big fans of his books. Jon also gave advice to some creative writers in Year 10, so perhaps in a few years we’ll welcome them back as published authors!

There has been some fantastic news for Rhys Davies (Year 6) who has been selected to play Table Tennis for Lancashire on the 28th November. He will also play matches against Durham and Lincolnshire on the same day. Rhys will be part of a team of five (three boys and two girls) in this junior competition which consists of players under the age of 18. As Rhys has only just turned 11 and is still in primary school this is a major achievement particularly as players qualify through trials where all the best players in Lancashire (and for this purpose, Cumbria) play against one other to produce a county ranking. Two teams are then selected purely in accordance with this ranking – Rhys is in the second team and is the No.2 player.

Further to this Rhys won a big tournament – the Blackpool 2* Under 13s which attracts some of the best players from the Northern half of the country. In the final Rhys beat a fellow England International, Tom Rayner (Durham) in a titanic five set battle. They had a similar match earlier in the day in the Under 15 category where Rhys won by the same score line in the last 16. Rhys then beat the 4th seed, Kieran Wardell (Durham also) in another thrilling five set match before finally losing to the 2nd seed in the semi-final. Needless to say he exceeded expectations having never beaten Tom or Kieran previously.

This was a day after representing Southport in the Lancashire and Cheshire (Under 18) League where the team ended with wins against Manchester (4-2) & Preston (5-1) before progressing to a hard-fought draw against Warrington (3-3) with Rhys personally winning 4 of his 6 matches. The final day of this event will take place in January with Southport still in close contention as one of only 2 unbeaten teams.

Most recently, Rhys teamed up with his older brother Max and Year 7 brothers twins Nick and Chris Moustaka to win the Merseyside schools’ team competition on Saturday. They beat teams from Formby High 6-2, Caldy Grange Grammar School 8-0 before beating Range High in the final 6-2. They will now go on to represent Merseyside at the Zone finals in Blackburn at the end of January.