Sky Fire Lantern Launch

This is the video of the first sky lantern to be launched at Bootham School in celebration of the Year of the TIGER.

Below is a photo of the chefs relieved that the cooking, serving and evening had gone without a hitch.

The Lantern Festival

some of the excellent food provided by the Bootham kitchen team.

On the 15th day of the new Chinese lunar year (which will be the night of the first full Moon), the two weeks of Chinese New Year come to an end with the lantern festival. There are several competing stories to explain the origins of the festival - the one I like best involves fooling the Jade Emperor, who intended to destroy a village because they ate his favourite goose. A kind fairy gave the villagers advanced warning that the fire-god was going to bring fire down from heaven onto their little settlement, so they lit lanterns, fire-crackers and bonfires to persuade the god that the village was already on fire anyway.

We invited the boarders of the Mount School to join us on our first ever celebration of this event, and had an excellent supper together, followed by a short meeting in the school hall. At the meeting Jacky Lam schooled us in how to wish each other happiness, prosperity and longevity in Cantonese, so that we could all shake hands with a traditional Cantonese wish for each other. After this, we set off a few flying lanterns (eco-friendly, with mostly bamboo hard parts), and watched them float dreamily past a rising full Moon.

photos provided by Kevin Lo

Many thanks to everyone who gave so freely of their time to make this event successful, but particularly Graham Atkin, Suzi, Fran, Lynne, Sarah and Kirit for their unflagging support and creative elan. Watch this blog for video and more photos tomorrow!!

I'm not eating that!!!

Tonight, a small band of boarders braved the winter chill to catch a one-night-only showing of "Food Inc", an American documentary film about the horrible facts behind the food production industry. It was stern stuff, and I for one will never be able to look a hamburger in the face again... Of course, we needed to catch a late supper afterwards, so it was transfat/corn syrup/mechanically reclaimed, but frankly rather yummy pizza for all! Maybe our last - who knows?

Seriously though, the film prompted some really good discussion afterwards, and it really got us all thinking as we enter fair-trade fortnight. There are other events taking place around school to support this initiative, so perhaps other students will get involved too.

E-booking goes live at Bootham.

If you would like to book in a couple of nights boarding for your child, you can now do it on-line at the link on the right-hand side of this page. You can also find the same form on our main website at

http://www.boothamschool.com/boarding_form.html

see you soon!

Alan Ho's mathematics baking

On a Saturday morning James Ratcliffe's A-level Mathematics students bring in baking for their fellow class members. On Saturday 6th February 2010 it was Alan Ho's turn and so Fran, the resgrad and Sandy, Evelyn Memsaab had a baking masterclass to help Alan bake his first ever cakes. Charlie Cheng also joined in as well as Laurance Potter and Edward Gray.

The cakes were enjoyed by the Maths class!

Pizza Night

On a Wednesday evening the boys of Evelyn House have started to make their own Pizzas.


The pictures and video speak for themselves.

Have a puzzle!

Here's a crossword all about Bootham School. The first person to submit a correct version to Mike Shaw will be the winner of a small prize!