Local business gurus representing Young Enterprise and Manchester Airport visited the Junior School to share their expertise and help our Year 6 pupils launch their very own airlines.

The day was part of the children’s enrichment programme, and started with the pupils being  divided into teams and everybody being appointed a specific role within their new company.

After a morning of teambuilding activities, the newly created firms soon got down to researching the competition, planning their airline’s routes and purchasing aeroplanes.

A working lunch was then followed by the serious business of selling seats, with each team presenting their airline’s plans in front of the rest of the year group.

Liverpool kept up their efforts, scoring first in the third quarter, but Stops continued to play good lacrosse and scored 4 more times in each of the last 2 quarters, with Liverpool snatching a consolation goal in the dying minutes.

The defence was sound with Henry Phillips again making his mark with a strong display; he even made an attempt on the opposition goal and considered himself unlucky not to have hit the target. Neil Catto led the scoring with 5 well-taken goals; other goals were shared between the attack and midfield, where Peter Hibbert turned in a trademark powerful performance.

Robert Griffiths, playing his first game this season and only his third ever league game, failed to join his teammates on the scoresheet, but surprised the opposition with his floating feed which Peter Woodhead converted into an unstoppable shot.

With a series of home games remaining Stops need one more point to secure survival in division Premier Two. Next Saturday’s game against Newcastle may be crucial.

The school’s rugby first XV will be on top of their game for their forthcoming Daily Mail Vase quarter-final after taking part in a state-of-the-art Nike Sparq training session last week.

Sparq is the performance training and testing brand that Nike use to find good athletes and has been used to assess over 44,000 sportsmen and women around the world. Their rugby initiative tests players throughout the country, including the England national sevens side, to give them a marker of their athleticism.

During the training session at Stockport Grammar, Nike’s top of the range equipment helped to measure the boys’ speed, power, agility, reaction and quickness. The squad performed impressively against the national benchmarks, with Mark Cox winning some Nike training equipment after proving to be the day’s eventual winner.

The first XV were due to play their Daily Mail Vase quarter-final at The Leys, Cambridge, last week, but the match has been postponed until after the half-term break. A win would put the boys into the semi-finals and just one win away from the once-in-a-lifetime experience of competing in the final at Twickenham.