Click on the school crest below to read the school newsletter – designed and edited by the AGGS Media Team!
Find out more about what has been happening this term; BrainWaves Research Project, Kho Kho Finals, Y7 Bridgewater Hall Trip, A Level English Language Conference, MACFEST & Discover Islam Week, AGGS vs AGSB Debate, Propped Up Dance Production, Making Moves, Y12 UCAS Convention, Neurodiversity Week, ASC Careers Visit, UCAS Convention, Culture Week, National Reading Challenge, Football Interform, YTA Crossing Update, Food Update, Maths Feast, Librarians Celebration, Shrek the Musical Jr and the Y9 Geography Trip, Comic Relief, Netball All Stars and much more!
Please use the button at the side to navigate this academic years last edition and celebrate the wonderful achievements of the last half term!
Congratulations to Seren in Year 7 who has had a busy and successful start to the year as a competitive Ice Skater!
In January, she competed in a solo Ice Dance Competition in Sweden – The 2024 Nacka Trophy finishing in 1st place for Pattern Dance and 2nd place for Free Dance.
At the beginning of March, Seren took part in the first qualifier event for the Championship in July, hosted by British Ice Skating. The event took place in Sheffield and Seren came 5th overall.
In March, Seren competed in the second qualifier event for the Championship, hosted by Blackburn Wonder Ice Academy. Seren skated two great dances finishing 4th in the Pattern Dance and 6th in the Free Dance.
On Easter Weekend, Seren flew to Holland for the Unicorn Dance Trophy 2024. Seren skated Pattern Dances and Free Dance and came 1st in all three of her competitions.
At the beginning of April, Seren flew to Helsinki Finland for the International Skating Union (ISU) First International Solo Ice Dance Event. Seren skated both Pattern Dance and Free Dance. In her first Pattern Dance she came 3rd. Then second Patterned Dance came 1st. Seren finished 1st in Free Dance and came 1st overall.
Seren’s next competition will be in Aberdeen during the May Half Term, which is the final Qualifier Event for the British Championship in July.
Our Year 7 netballer teams have shown true grit and determination this season, progressing massively as individuals and team players. Our A and B teams have had multiple matches throughout the year against others schools and have shown impressive results. Our 7A highlight was the outstanding performance during the U12 County Schools competition. Our 7B highlight was our 12-4 Win over Stockport Grammar and the semi finals place in the Trafford Schools Tournament.
Our C and D team have shown great commitment to netball this year, training weekly to improve on their netball skills. Towards the end of the year, we entered a C team into the Trafford Schools Tournament. All schools played one another regardless of if they were a B or C team, meaning it was going to be extremely tough for our team! Our C team, qualified for the semi finals of the Trafford Schools Tournament, which is an outstanding achievement.
Year 7 Hockey:
Our Year 7 hockey team have shown good progression since the start of the year. Working together exceptionally well as a team and being committed to training weekly. They have progressed with their overall game skills and have shown good performances against other schools.
Year 8
Over the course of the year our year 8 sports teams have performed outstandingly and fought hard in all their games, winning plenty and having many achievements to be celebrated. Let’s dive into some of the best moments from this year:
Sport
Year Group
Opposition
Result
Player of the Match
Netball
Year 8A
Loreto
25-8 WIN
Abi
Netball
Year 8B
Kings Macclesfield
19-5 WIN
Kamsi
Netball
Year 8B
Trafford Schools
2nd Place
–
Hockey
Year 8A
Loreto
7-2 WIN
Eirinn
Hockey
Year 8B
Loreto
5-2 WIN
Aysha
Badminton
U14s
Leeds Grammar
Very Close (Loss) 109-102
Jessica
Football
Years 8 and 9
Altrincham College
7-1 WIN
Sienna
NETBALL
Our Netball A and B teams have continuously shown their strengths over the year, and this is clear to see in all of their games. One was the A team’s fabulous 25-8 win against Loreto at the start of the year. As one of our main competition, it was great to see AGGS thrash Loreto once more to add to yet another victory against our rivals. The B team has been as strong as ever, especially in their recent performance in the Trafford School’s tournament. Only losing one game, they finished in second place. Fabulous achievement!
HOCKEY
This year both of our hockey teams have played amazingly. One game in particular was the A team’s performance against Man High, which was truly spectacular to watch with a final result of a 2-0 win to us. Another exceptional win for the year 8 hockey team was a 7-2 win against Loreto. Amazing result! The B team has also had a great season, with an incredible game against Kings Mac where they won 3-2. The girls’ attitude and determination have been really inspiring to all teams that watch and all their hard work has paid off. Very high hopes for the coming years!
BADMINTON
The U14’s badminton group qualified to the next round of the National Schools Competition, where they played Leeds Grammar. After a very long drive, the girls played superbly aggressively, ending in a 3-3 draw. Unfortunately, the finishing result was based on overall points and AGGS narrowly lost 109-102. Of the 4 students that played, 2 were year 8 – outstanding effort girls!
Year 8 and 9 Football
Our newly formed U14 football team have also been lethal on the pitch, with astounding wins against the local schools. The girls worked relentlessly and beat Loreto 2-0 and carried the same energy to a match against Altrincham College, where they strode off the pitch with an unbelievable 9-1 victory! We wish them all the best for their next games and the future seasons.
Year 9:
Our U14 A and B netball teams have performed fantastically this year, with a brilliant winning streak across the board. Last term, our B team played outstandingly against Stockport grammar with a win of 21-4. Our A team have also fought ruthlessly against the most difficult schools, and their hard work clearly paid off in a challenging match against Bradford Grammar. The girls never stopped trying, and after many last-minute intercepts and great goals, they came off court with a win of 20-15! The A team also showed great perseverance and determination in the Trafford schools’ tournament, and in a nail-biting final match against Loreto, they managed to score one last goal in the last minute, succeeding them by 1 point! This is their third time being Trafford schools’ champions, and we hope they keep up the streak!
Our U14 hockey teams have also performed outstandingly over the year and have never given up despite the tricky weather conditions. In one of their recent matches against Loreto, they played with all their might and secured a 1-1 draw against them! Fantastic effort girls!
Year 10:
Sport
Year Group
Opposition
Result
Player of the match
Netball
Year 10A Team
Manchester High School
24-7 WIN!
Netball
Year 10B Team
Stockport Grammar
35-1 WIN!
Netball
Year 10A Team
King’s Mac
41-26 WIN!
Evie
Hockey
Y11/10 A Team
King’s Mac
6-1 WIN!
Hockey
Y11/10 National Schools Team
Westbourne
12-0 WIN! Quater-finals
Francesca
Hockey
Y11/10 A Team
Queens Chester
5-1 WIN!
Katie
Best achievements this year so far:
Our outstanding U16 Hockey team reached the Semi-Finals of the National Schools U16 Competition after beating Westbourne 12-0 in the quater-finals.
Our amazing U15A Netball team won the Trafford Schools tournament with a close win against Loreto in the finals.
Our Y10 Athletics team competed at sports city in November and won the entire girl’s competition, winning a trophy and many medals.
Our Cross-country team were very successful and came first and qualified for the North West cross country cup.
Year 11 Netball:
A message from our Year 11 Netball team: Our year 11 netball team have been playing together for 5 years, being led by the amazing Miss Hawkins and Miss Stevenson. Over the years, we have gained an extremely impressive winning streak of 34 games due to our amazing bond, on and off the court. We have learnt how to play with each other and how to complement each other’s skills which drives us to victory every time. We have played and won a total of 8 matches this year, while also having a few tournaments. We stated off with an impressive 34-16 win against Stockport Grammar, and we proceeded to play out home rivals, Loreto, beating them by an impressive 29 goals. We continued to smash teams such as Lymm, Manchester High School for Girls and Bolton School. In November, we managed to beat Withington Girls School 27-26 and we also had an impressive win against the Cheadle Hulme Sixth Form team. Early in the year, we participated in the Trafford school’s tournament which, although it was close, we beat Ashton in the final. Most of the netball team also travelled to Australia in the summer and won almost every game they played. We all feel very privileged that we have gotten the amazing opportunity to play with such a great group of people over the past 5 years and we are truly lucky to have had Miss Hawkins and Miss Stevenson coaching us. ‘We achieved our biggest winning streak in year 7 when we first got Miss Hawkins as our coach’.
Year 11 Hockey:
A message from our year 11 Hockey team:
After 5 years of playing together our y11 hockey team has seen many wins and losses and lead by Mrs Hardicre we have had an amazing time (Although none of us will miss our early Saturday morning games) This year has gone fast kicking off the season with a few eye opening games including a game against the dreaded Leeds Grammar. But after we got our act together and begun our winning streak, consistently winning against teams like Loreto, Cheadle and Kings Macc. With a special game against a South African team on their hockey tour we ended with a respectable 2-2 draw. The highlight perhaps for many on the team will have been the best game of our 5 years together- against Leeds. After already being nervous after our previous encounter we went into the game full of adrenaline and had an amazing game, putting us through to the semi-finals of the National Schools competition. This season has been amazing, looking back on our first game in year 7 when we were just a group of strangers we come so far, and we will look back on this experience and the memories we have made together as the incredible team that we have become.
External Sporting Success:
Congratulations to Sienna Jones in year 9, who won the County Cup with her Bolton team and scored the winning goal. Sienna has been an integral part of our U14 Football Team, so it is amazing to see her talents shining on the outside too!
Congratulations to Pheobe Carroll in Year 9 who competed in the school’s biathlon, finishing in an impressive 7th place! What an outstanding achievement, well done Pheobe!
Congratulations to Izzy Hall in year 10 who took part in the English School Cross County Finals, finishing 53/350!
Congratulations to Chanee Wang – she recently participated in the British Ice Skating Young Star competition and we are thrilled to share that she had won the first place in the figure skating category. Chanee worked extremely hard in preparation for this competition and it definitely paid off! Well done!
Chanee W in Year 7, has recently participated in the British Ice Skating Young Star competition and we are thrilled to share that she has won the first place in her figure skating category.
Competing against over 40 talented skaters from across the UK last Tuesday, Chanee achieved the highest score and secured the gold medal in the highly competitive National 1 event. The event marks as a starting point of professional figure skating competitions with skaters performing high level jumps and spins. Chanee has practiced over 100 hours for the competition and she has been honing her skating skills with unwavering determination. She walks down to Planet Ice Altrincham to practice after school with her heavy equipment regardless of the weather conditions, and she braves the dark winter mornings to have early skating lessons before school. Despite all the challenges on/off ice, she actively looks for improvement and never gives up, while at the same time also balances her school responsibilities. After the competition, Chanee headed straight back to her practice routine to prepare for her next level of national ice skating tests. We are extremely pleased that her hard work is paying-off and we are very proud of her perseverance and resilience.
We are pleased to announce that our school has been selected to take part in BrainWaves, an exciting new mental health and wellbeing research study run by the University of Oxford’s Department of Psychiatry, in partnership with the University of Swansea and The Day, the online student newspaper that turns news into lessons.
Today’s young people face difficult mental health challenges in a world full of conflicting, confusing and often incorrect information. BrainWaves is a direct response to this. It aims to improve the quality of scientific knowledge about adolescent mental health and provide evidence-based, practical strategies and educational materials to schools.
BrainWaves is creating a large-scale national student group to participate in research and help develop the project. Our Key Stage 5 pupils have been invited to be in the first wave of schools taking part, and will be working closely to support the University of Oxford in their research.
We are excited that our students will have the unique opportunity to shape the landscape of adolescent mental health.
I could think of lots of reasons not to have this as my March Book of the Month. Chief of these are that it’s a book written for adults which I wouldn’t normally choose, as it excludes some of our younger readers and, it’s a book set at Christmastime, so it seems unseasonable to be talking to you about it now. I’ve read and enjoyed lots of books recently, including Babel by R F Kuang, but I just haven’t read one that I’ve loved more than Small Things Like These.
It’s a small but mighty book, only 114 pages long, in many ways it’s more of a short story than a novel. I read it 3 times, on consecutive nights. Then I had a rest and reread it again before the book club meeting where we were due to discuss it. There is so much depth to the story that it improved with every read.
Not a word is wasted on the page. Claire Keegan’s writing is simple but rich, a real joy to read (and reread). Her story is set in Ireland in 1985. Bill Furlong is our hero, a sympathetic, gentle and hardworking man who has risen from nothing to become a successful coal and timber merchant. He feels fortunate, a proud father to daughters but something nags at him. He wonders what life might be like had he chosen a different path.
One day, when he’s delivering coal to the local Convent, he discovers a young girl, locked in the coal shed, starving and barely able to walk. There have been lots of rumours in the town about what goes on at the laundry attached to the convent. The women of the town turn a blind eye to what goes on there, choosing to keep quiet to protect their own families. The Church is powerful and the people fear it, particularly the nuns, who run the local school. Bill faces a moral dilemma. Will he speak out about what he has found? He knows how easily his family’s life could be ruined but he has a personal reason for wanting to confront what is happening.
I’d forgotten how much I love a short story. The impact of capturing the moment when someone’s life changes forever stays with you for a long time. This is a book I know I will return to again and again. Suitable for all but appealing to KS4, Sixth Form and Staff.
For the next six Wednesdays the Youth Travel Ambassadors are running a new initiative called Walking Wednesdays. This project aims to celebrate the Bee Network and increase active travel to AGGS.
Collect a signature card from Mrs Charlton (or print one out from TEAMS)and get it signed by a YTA at one of the park ‘n’ stride locations for 6 consecutive Wednesdays a chance to win some prizes!
