SWPS Magazine is published once a year. Articles are written by students and staff. The views expressed in this magazine are not necessarily those of Sir William Perkins’s School.
Design and desktop publishing by Ian Russell and Lizzie Sevenoaks.
Printing by G.H. Smith. School Information: Telephone: 01932 574900 www.swps.org.uk
THREE PILLARS
Whatever else can be said about SWPS, it is certainly a very busy place and this year has been no different. I am frequently amazed and in awe at the energy, commitment and organisation of our students as they continue to achieve extraordinary things throughout their time here at the school.
Success in the academic world continues to mark our students out: with an ever-increasing number of impressive results, enabling SWPS students to be ready to take on the world, they have met the demands of the new qualifications in their stride. Yet, as I have often said to prospective parents, academic results, however excellent, will only serve to get the interview; it is everything else the student has done at school that will get the job.
And so, it is always a pleasure to watch and hear the ‘everything else’ our SWPS students have done.
In sport they have had tremendous success in rowing, not only qualifying for Henley Royal Regatta, but indeed winning their heat and moving into the next round, where our quad was beaten by the eventual champions. Our best result ever at that regatta.
In music, our students embraced with gusto the inaugural SWPS Singing Competition, producing a standard of performance that was simply amazing, with a West End trained judge declaring that he had rarely seen as much talent at such an age. Drama, too, kept them busy with four wonderful performances of Mary Poppins, leaving the audience to call out for more.
In their work for charity, the students have volunteered to support children with physical disabilities, raised money for numerous good causes, and even jumped out of aeroplanes!
Around the world, SWPS students have toured South Africa playing netball and hockey, whilst Year 8s and Year 9s have climbed mountains in North Africa. They have trained hard for sporting competitions in Portugal and, of course, enjoyed the wonderful hospitality of our friends in Bocholt.
Never afraid to engage in lively political debate, they have argued at the English Speaking Union’s annual Churchill Public Speaking Competition as well as presented at the Battle of the Ideas at the Barbican in London. They have been superb ambassadors at the Model United Nations, representing countries as diverse as Peru and North Korea, researching topics ranging from drone use to abortion.
Our Year 7s have designed elaborate schemes for human beings to live on Mars, whilst the Lower Sixth worked on a design to test how the amount of sand pumped up from oil deposits can be detected. Regular features such the Design of the Week, resulted in one design winning the lucky designer a work placement with master craftsman Theo Fennell. Excellence, integrity and confidence are the three pillars which support the intellectual, artistic and moral umbrella of the school – this academic year continues in that tradition.
Chris Muller
GANG OF FOUR
Salena is one of the most positive and upbeat people I know. She can always cheer you up with her infectious laugh. She’s usually very involved in what’s happening around the school, showing her determination and genuine love for SWPS. In the future, Salena is hoping to go into business management. With her combination of strength, intelligence, and kindness, I have no doubt she will be successful.
Girls? Here’s what they have to say about each other w
How much do you know about our Head
Gillian’s unfaltering smile and ability to spread positivity and kindness are surely incontestable. She is a pleasure to work with, as her selfless nature and desire to help others are at the heart of everything she does. These qualities will serve her well in a future career in medicine. A talented musician, sports woman, and academic, Gillian always shows her willingness to get stuck into to everything that’s thrown her way.
Mariella Trickett by Thea David
Mariella is unrivalled in her positive can-do attitude, which has stood her in good stead for her role as Head Girl. She is always willing to volunteer, and this enthusiasm (along with her impressive athletic ability) led her peers to victory in the Sixth Form vs teachers relay race on Sports Day! Mariella’s commitment to the Lower School, and her excellent organisational skills, are bound to make a great impact.
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Thea David by Salena Ali
With her grit and efficiency, Thea is a pivotal member of our team. And her theatrical presence means that she lights up every room! Thea’s dedication and passion to deliver keeps us on our toes. She is a selfstarter, which helps when motivation is dropping in the Sixth Form Centre. These attributes will no doubt prove to be an asset in her future career in law.
Gillian Ahm by Mariella Trickett
Salena Ali by Gillian Ahm
What do you miss most about home?
A pesar de estar orgullosa de mi procedencia, diría que no echo demasiado de menos algo en especial de mi ciudad natal. Sin embargo, si tuviera que decir algo que me gustaría poder ver ahora de San Fernando (Cádiz), sería observar el atardecer sentada en el muelle de la playa de la Casería en un día de marea llena y de poco viento de levante (aunque el levante es algo casi inevitable en la Isla -sí, la misma Isla de Camarón).
Am meisten vermisse ich meine Familie und meine Freunde in Deutschland. Und gutes deutsches Brot. Ich bin allerdings schon vor ein paar Jahren von zu Hause ausgezogen und in eine andere Stadt gezogen, um dort zu studieren, deshalb habe ich mich daran gewöhnt meine Familie nicht oft zu sehen. Und ich fühle mich hier auch sehr wohl, also ist die Sehnsucht nicht zu groß.
Mes parents, car ils m’ont toujours encouragé à persévérer dans ce que je voulais faire et m’ont toujours soutenu, que cela soit dans ma vie
de tous les jours ou bien dans mon choix de vouloir être enseignant. J’aurais vraiment voulu pouvoir vivre mon expérience en Angleterre avec eux.
If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you live?
Siendo totalmente sincera, no cambiaría mi situación actual por nada del mundo. Puede que a muchos les parezca que me conformo con poco, pero a mí me hace feliz vivir en Inglaterra y poder sentir que soy parte de la cultura y la lengua que llevan siendo mi pasión durante años. Residir en Surrey me permite poder viajar por todo Reino Unido, explorar nuevos lugares, enfrentarme a nuevos retos personales y así aprender cada día algo nuevo.
Irgendwo, wo es immer warm ist, wo man jeden Tag im Meer schwimmen gehen und leckeres Obst essen kann. Am liebsten nicht in einer großen Stadt, weil ich lieber an Orten lebe, die ruhiger sind. Vielleicht eine Insel in der Südsee.
Je pense que j’aimerais vivre au Japon car c’est un pays qui m’attire énormément, notamment par sa culture. Mais je pense qu’à la fin de ma vie, J’irai vivre dans la maison de mes grands-parents, à la campagne, car c’est un endroit où j’ai grandi et qui compte énormément pour moi.
Is there a film in your native language that you wish more people knew about?
No soy muy fan del cine español, lo que achacaría no haber encontrado aún una película que me haya impresionado. Voy a aprovechar esta pregunta para decir que, a diferencia de las películas que he visto, hay series españolas que me encantan. Por ejemplo, La casa de papel es una de mis favoritas o Las chicas del cable también es una buena serie.
Ich finde „Die Welle” sehr sehenswert, da der Film zeigt, wie schnell eine Diktatur entstehen kann und wie gefährlich es sein kann, wenn man Menschen
TALKING IT OVER modern languages
Before their time at SWPS came to an end, Andrea Calderón Márquez, Cora Heidenreich and Florian Monvoisin, our three Language Assistants, met up with Thea David and Emily Peyton (Lower 6th) for a bit of conversation
Andrea
blind folgt ohne Dinge zu hinterfragen. Allerdings gibt es auch immer wieder den Stereotyp Deutsche würden keinen Spaß verstehen, deswegen möchte ich außerdem die Filme „Der Schuh des Manitu“ und „(T) raumschiff Surprise“ empfehlen, sie sind wirklich sehr lustig. Manche finden sie aber auch zu albern.
Je ne suis pas très fan des films français, je suis plus attiré par les séries et les animés (Your Lie in April et A Silent Voice qui sont des animés magnifiques). Mais un de mes films français préférés appelle «La Rafle», c’est un film sur un événement très important de la seconde guerre mondiale (Une histoire que les Senior 6 verront en cours de français). Mais je peux également conseiller les films «OSS 117» ou bien «Brice de Nice» qui sont des comédies avec l’acteur français Jean Dujardin.
If you were on a desert island, which three things would you take with you?
Podría decir que me llevaría alguno de mis libros favoritos, como El guardian entre el centeno, una cámara de fotos y un cuaderno para escribir...pero voy a ser práctica y diré una botella con filtro de agua, algo para hacer fuego y bengalas para llamar la atención de cualquier barco que me saque de allí, porque la verdad es que yo no sobreviviría ni dos días en una isla desierta.
Ich würde das erste Harry Potter Buch mitnehmen, weil es nie langweilig wird es zu lesen. Außerdem eine große Schale, in der ich Regenwasser sammeln könnte und vielleicht ein Taschenmesser, weil es bestimmt praktisch wäre, um Dinge zu bauen oder sich Essen zu besorgen. Ich bin eher der pragmatische Typ Mensch.
Mon pendentif qui est un cadeau que j’ai reçu lorsque j’avais 5 ans. Mes parents car ils comptent beaucoup pour moi. Et pour finir, mon petit livre
sur mon année à SWPS pour me rappeler des bons moments dans cette école et de mes élèves qui ont fait en sorte que mon année ici soit parfaite. Merci encore à eux.
What is your favourite place in London?
Hay tantos sitios interesantes que se hace complicado decir un solo lugar. Cuando estudiaba en la universidad, una de mis profesoras nos dijó que “aquel que está cansado de Londres, está cansado de la vida” y no podría ser más cierto.
Probablemente, mi lugar favorito tendría que ser alguno de sus teatros, porque nunca había podido experimentar tanta oferta de obras que poder ver y la calidad de la puesta en escena que hay en Londres. Me encanta el cine y vivir cerca de Londres me ha demostrado que, en el teatro, en directo, todo se siente más cerca y más fuerte.
Oh, da gibt es viele. Definitiv an der Themse, vielleicht vor dem Tower of London mit Blick auf die Tower Bridge. Camden finde ich auch total cool, weil man dort so viele verrückte Dinge und Menschen sieht. Ich finde es faszinierend, dass London so viele unterschiedliche Ecken hat und man bei jedem Besuch etwas Neues sehen kann.
Southbank Centre Food Market car la nourriture est délicieuse à cet endroit, notamment le stand où il est possible d’acheter un merveilleux «Katsu Curry». Mais Londres est une ville magnifique et il est presque impossible de ne choisir qu’un seul endroit.
Florian
When university application season rolled around in my Senior Sixth year, I was still floundering in the confusion of wanting to apply to Oxbridge, but not quite trusting myself enough to risk it. Having convinced myself that the dream I’d held since Year 10 was probably unattainable, I busied myself trying to write a personal statement for courses and universities that somehow weren’t quite what I wanted.
I struggled until, mad from the pressure, I pivoted at the last minute – six days before the deadline - and decided to apply to Cambridge to study German. SWPS girls had, in the recent past, generally preferred Oxford, so my choice of modern languages at Cambridge felt like uncharted territory. Even so, regardless of the time crunch, with a lot of help, and a lot of what I would call luck, I was chosen for interview.
I’ve now just completed my first year studying German and Italian at Cambridge University.
Contrary to popular opinion, life at Cambridge isn’t all work and no play. Admittedly, there is a significant amount of work, but there’s also plenty of time to enjoy being in a beautiful city with thousands of likeminded people. Life becomes a game of balancing the extremes. Free time becomes a question of quality: it’s about making the most of every free moment. The quality of my free time here is incomparable to the hours of downtime I used to squander in front of a screen after school. Within the last year I’ve attended events such as masquerades, balls, and a picnic attended by around 15,000 students. Through the blur of countless days and nights with friends, highlights of my time have emerged and established themselves in my mind.
At the end of Michaelmas term, I decided to embark on the Oxbridge Varsity Ski Trip, with hopes of solidifying friendships that were then in their infancy. And it worked! Indeed, not only did I grow immeasurably closer to the friends I travelled with, I also met the group of people that would go on to
become my regular companions on a Friday night out, a Saturday night in, or a Sunday night after exams sitting by the river bank listening to the Trinity College Choir.
Lent term brought ice, darkness, and rain, which I escaped daily in the shelter of friends’ cosy halls, warm college cafés and bustling student bars. It was in these insignificant moments that I truly consolidated my closest friendships and began to feel at home. There is also one exceptionally warm week in February that stands out in my memory. Deciding to take advantage of the weather, I arranged for my introduction to punting. For that week, time passed me by as I reclined in a boat on the river, with my closest friend and, just a few days after I started punting, with my extended family.
Easter term, despite being home to the fearful exams I was to face, has been not only the best term of my year at Cambridge, but the best term of my life! A languages degree, it seems, spreads your workload evenly throughout the year, and is more to do with the building of skills than the memorization of theory. So, come exam season, I found myself relatively unburdened by the panic of the time; I had worked hard all year and therefore benefitted from a strong foundation of knowledge upon which I could rely. The completion of my exams was followed by three weeks of freedom, which I used to enjoy all that springtime in Cambridge had to offer. I picnicked and swam, danced and sang; I walked and, of course, punted. The final week of term, May Week, was one of garden parties and balls which ended with the rising of the sun.
Tess Lambert tells us about her experience of studying modern languages at Cambridge
FINDING BALANCE
modern languages
LES PARISIENS NE REGRETTENT RIEN?
Words by Thea David (Lower 6th). Painting by Grace Bradshaw (Senior 6th)
AHidalgo is a lot of firsts. She is the first female mayor of Paris, the first mayor to come up against the Gilets Jaunes, and the first mayor for a hundred years who is bringing the Olympics to the city after three failed bids. But are these milestones improving Paris?
On the surface, it would seem the answer is yes, particularly after the struggle for the 2012 Games. Yet the Olympics is expensive, and many countries have become disillusioned by previous examples of serious debts and white elephants, with three dropping out of the race entirely for 2024. However, the Paris 2024 bid looked to tackle these issues: 95% of all buildings used would be already in Paris. The facilities needed (an aquatic centre and Olympic Village) could improve the infrastructure of deprived suburbs by being converted after the Games. The result? No white elephants. The idea was solid: a modest budget (€1.8 billion less than the London Games), reduced carbon emissions, and improvements to public transport that were needed anyway.
What this didn’t take into account were the spiralling costs and its limited benefit to Parisians most in need. As in Brazil, the Paris 2024 team planned to transform underdeveloped areas into the site for the Games. Yet it’s feared, as in Brazil’s favelas, this could force out some of the city’s poorest residents. Additionally, although the lure of foreign investment makes the Games seem attractive, studies have shown they actually repel visitors who are resistant to the idea of an even more overcrowded city.
Elsewhere though, Hidalgo’s policies seem to be doing some good. Projects like Paris Respire (Paris Breathes) first introduced in 2003, have been
extended to cover 4 more arrondissements. This initiative means that the streets in these areas are closed to all vehicles on one Sunday of each month. On that day, Parisians are encouraged to make use of the Vélib’ (the city-wide bike rental service) and other greener transport methods.
Paris Respire has been successful in reducing noise and air pollution, so much so that the idea has spread to Brussels. Phillippe Close, the Mayor of Brussels, and Hidalgo hope this popularity will encourage the European Union to introduce an annual European CarFree Day to promote greener travel.
Still, for other Parisians, the removal of motorised transport limits mobility severely. This applies particularly to the elderly or those with disabilities. The new trend for strikes to be held on this day means that the streets remain clogged – although no longer with cars – and so it’s perhaps even more difficult to get around by bike. But for voters, the most potentially damaging issue is that they are paying for this disruption. A blockade preventing motorised vehicles costs upwards of thirty thousand euros each Sunday (Association MaraisLouvre, February 2019), again limiting mobility. All this, arguably, for only a tiny reduction in air pollution.
So, is Hidalgo improving Paris? The intent is there: the introduction of electric bikes as part of the Vélib’ – only to fall short when the new start-up supplier couldn’t answer the demand; a new municipal police service who, controversially, is not armed; the renovation of the Jardin de Trocadéro – criticised for only focussing on the already wealthy areas of the city.
These initiatives may all be controversial, but the fact is, Hidalgo remains first.
art and design
Lucy Smallbone, an award-winning artist who this year came to SWPS to lead a workshop for our A Level students, talks to Emily Peyton (Lower 6th)
Where does your interest in art come from?
It is something I have loved doing since I was a very young child. Both my parents are involved in creative industries and they have always encouraged me, so I have never considered doing anything else!
What is your greatest accomplishment so far as an artist?
This year I have had two solo shows that stem from two years of work. The work was based on a trip to Chernobyl that I took in 2016. The Slade School of Fine Art awarded me this opportunity, which was a real achievement for me. Working for so long towards something, then to see it up on the walls of two different galleries really showed me how much I had achieved; I was quite proud of myself!
How did your trip to Chernobyl come about?
I won the Duveen Travel Scholarship whilst at the Slade School, which required making an application to visit somewhere that would inspire your work. Luckily everyone else applied to go to Rome, so Chernobyl really stood out!
Were you afraid to go there?
It was a bit scary, but mostly very surreal. I had to to go through full body scanners to get in and out of the Zone. They are there to pick up radiation and if any is detected on you, you must leave whatever piece of clothing is setting the alarm off behind.
What was the best part of your time on the TV show Landscape Artist of the Year?
The whole experience was fun, although I hated painting Felixstowe. The crew and other artists were lovely.
What is your philosophy when it comes to creating?
It is based on process, I try to absorb different ideas through books, film and art and then try to form these ideas into
River Light
Lucy in her studio
paintings. I do this by creating multiple drawings with different compositions, colours and textures; and pick out different elements of them to take forward into a final painting. I’m also not afraid for things to go wrong and paintings to fail. I normally find you learn something as you push through, discovering something more successful than your original idea.
Who or what has inspired you?
Recently I have been reading a lot of Robert Macfarlane’s books on wildness. I find the way he writes reflects something of what I try to paint.
Does living in an urban environment like London influence your work as a landscape artist?
I have to say, apart from seeing so much wonderful art in galleries and museums, it doesn’t. It mostly makes me think of faraway places I want to escape to, to get away from it!
What medium do you prefer to use?
I prefer oil paint as it has a mind of its own. It disappears and moves and crawls and fixes time within itself, in a history of marks. If you do it well, it feels like a dance that you are definitely not leading.
Do you have a favourite painting, from your recent work?
In my show there is a piece called Blue Vista. It went through many different changes whilst making it. When I look at it, I see the struggle it caused me, but I am proud of it.
How do you know when a piece is done?
Normally because I’m worried that I’ll ruin it if I do anything else to it!
What are your goals as an artist?
To earn enough money to paint full time, then to just be happy with what I create.
Do you know what your next project will be?
I’m going to create a large-scale fabric piece that will be inspired by myths and folklore, focusing on how they affect our sense of place and land.
Purple Swim (detail)
Fence
english
ALONE
By Helena O'Neill (Year 10)
Awave of cold, hard helplessness washed through the girl and spat her out, hurt, hopeless, helpless. She missed him. She drew her legs closer to her body and watched drops of liquid fear dribble onto her hand. She paid close attention to the way they wandered between her fingers and then splattered onto the floor. Forgotten. She was only young: six years old. But she felt her life was over.
She could remember that morning as if it were moments ago. She had been bursting with excitement, brimming with enthusiasm and her eyes had been shining with the zest for life that refused to leave her anywhere she went. That was before it happened. She remembered holding the steady, warm hands of her father and she remembered the moment his strong hands slipped from hers and the warm blanket of security that enveloped her whenever she was near him was ripped away. The problem wasn’t that she couldn’t remember; the problem was that she couldn’t forget.
She could never forget.
The girl almost forgot to breathe and was thrust back into the dull, grey lighting and whitewashed walls of the government building. She lifted her eyes to survey her surroundings and was met with the confused, pitying stares of passers-by as they peered down at her, a question on their lips that never seemed to be able to tumble out and fall over the wall that was slowly being built around her. Their bountiful agendas, seemingly greater than
their compassion and curiosity, clamped their lips shut; forced their eyes downwards and significantly increased the pace at which they were walking. The girl frantically searched each one of their faces for any hint of the kind eyes and soft features of her father, but she knew she wouldn’t find him.
The thought knocked the breath out of her and she sat there gasping, choking, and spluttering for air to fill her lungs and return the warmth she once felt. She squeezed her eyes shut, desperately grappling for those last warm memories. But it was no use. Like the final flickering of a candle, her memories from before were blown out by the coldness seeping into her heart. It had extinguished the flames of the roaring hope that had burnt inside her and a fresh uproar of angry tears stung her cheeks like frostbite on a cold winter’s day.
It was a warm summer’s day in reality. That morning had contained every essence of summer: in the sweet chirping of the birds, in the smooth whistling of the breeze and in the joy that beaconed from her father’s eyes, meaning that the blue sky had battled with cold, dark clouds and emerged victorious. It was this joy and obvious relief that she saw in the man’s eyes as he crouched before her and it was this joy that the girl felt when she recognised the shining eyes and soaring love of her father as he clasped her to him. A wave of burning joy blossomed in her heart as her father’s face broke into a smile and he chuckled, with light amusement and relief, the words:
“Found you. I’ve missed you!”
Photograph by Brooke Griffth (Lower 6th)
english PAGE TURNERS
FIND HER
By Lisa Gardner
Review by Tilly Cunliffe (Yr 9)
This is the story of a young woman who has been under a tremendous amount of trauma during her short life. The book is a psychological thriller that always keeps you in suspense and takes lots of twists and turns. The story is centred around Flora Dane, a young woman, and the memory of one of her moments kept in captivity; she was held by a man for 472 days. During that experience, she spent the majority of her time trapped
in a wooden coffin.
The reader learns all about how Flora felt during this time by reading frequent flashbacks of past events throughout the book. They will also learn of Flora’s struggles as she tries to re-build her life and how she keeps going back to her old ways. They will become aware of Flora’s strange obsession and about how her family copes with everything that has happened as well. It is hard to move on from traumatic events and Lisa Gardner, the author of Find Her, has powerfully put into words just how difficult it can be to recover from such a heart-breaking time. I definitely recommend Find Her; I thoroughly enjoyed reading this wonderfully crafted book.
I’D TELL YOU I LOVE YOU, BUT THEN I’D HAVE TO KILL YOU
By Ally Carter Review by Kate Angel (Yr 8)
As the opening story to a series featuring the same central characters, this book plays the important role of hooking the reader in. And it certainly does its job. Cammie, Bex, Liz and Macey. Four extraordinary girls; one extraordinary school. The Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Girls is hidden away in the hills nearby the small town of Roseville, Virginia. Except it’s not a school for geniuses, it’s a school for spies, or any career the girls choose that benefits from their exceptional talents and training. The students there are skilled in languages, combat, undercover operations, and even quantum physics from the age of 13.
Cameron Ann Morgan may be capable of killing a man using only Kleenex and washing up liquid, but she has never actually had a boyfriend. With the help of her friends, she manages to sneak out of the castle they call school to visit a boy. All the while, hiding from her mother, who is also the Headmistress, and Mr Solomon; both are top CIA undercover operatives. Through a series of secret rendezvous in the town square, Cammie slowly finds herself falling for the pharmacist’s son. The hardest part? He doesn’t know who she really is. He still believes she’s the poor home-schooled girl with overly religious parents and a cat named Suzie. Though the beginning was fun, it’s getting harder and harder for Cammie to keep lying to him. She knew from the beginning that it could never work out, but she can’t help herself from spending so much time with him. Every moment they spend together, makes the inevitable breakup that much more painful for both of them. As her mother grows more and more suspicious, Cammie begins to
hatch a well thought out plan on how to proceed.
This is another fantastic novel by best-selling author Ally Carter.
THINGS A BRIGHT GIRL CAN DO
By Sally Nicholl
Review by Mara Leigh (Yr 10)
If you are looking for a quick yet interesting read this book fits the bill! Set in the East End of London during the First World War, the story follows the different lives of three young suffragettes.
Evelyn is from a wealthy family and is well educated but in her family’s eyes, once she leaves school, she will marry and be a housewife. However, Evelyn is determined to go to university like her older brother and is furious that her parents are not willing to support her. Frustrated, Evelyn turns to the suffragettes and becomes involved in protests for women’s rights.
May is also from a rich household, however she was raised as a suffragette by her mother. May and her mother are against violence and refuse to partake in any violent suffragette protests, instead favouring petitions and negotiations. However, when May meets and falls in love with a young suffragette called Nell, her beliefs are challenged due to Nell’s vastly different upbringing and May begins to see the reasons behind using force to demand change.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and found it very interesting to read a fictional account of such a prominent historical period.
FACELESS
By Alyssa Sheinmel
Review by Aisling Green (Yr 9)
Faceless is a compelling read describing the traumatic yet heartening journey of a teenage girl who is burnt in a tragic accident: her nose, cheek and chin completely destroyed. Maisie is lucky enough to get a face transplant, but finds it extremely difficult to live her life to the fullest, as she can’t recognise herself anymore. Alyssa Sheinmel takes readers beyond appearances to the heart of personality and the true meaning of love. Morals are laced throughout this novel; a principal theme is how looks change your relationship to the world, but ultimately how appearances are superfluous. Maisie has to redefine her own identity and note what lucky really means. The only problem I had with this book was that I couldn’t put it down. Maisie experiences a long journey, but it is one that is tremendously inspirational to read about. I found myself in tears as she started to unravel her true self and realize that while something awful had happened to her, it doesn’t have to be the thing that defines her. The story has a great message about accepting yourself and your flaws, and learning that life is what you make it.
THE HATE U GIVE
By Angie Thomas Review by Eve Leyland (Yr 8)
This engrossing novel follows the story of a black, 16-year-old girl, Starr Carter, in her struggle to have her voice heard after witnessing the fatal police shooting of her childhood friend. She already had to bear the weight of coping with an uneasy balance of two worlds: the predominantly black and poor neighbourhood in which she lives and the contrasting rich and overwhelmingly white prep school which she attends. This seemingly tolerable balance is shattered when Starr becomes exposed to secrets from both of her juxtaposing lives and is led to activism as her only chance of being heard.
This book explores the impact of segregation in a fascinatingly complex plot. Amidst all the violence in this book, Angie Thomas incorporates a sense of support and affection towards the main character, Starr. The descriptive devices and suspense used by the author separates this book from the average story. The Hate You Give has the most gripping moral of unfair judgement, and emotionally impacts you as you are reading.
Thomas decided to write this story after being surrounded by cases of police brutality in her own neighbourhood. She used her anger to begin writing this breathtaking novel, which has benefited many black communities across the country and ensured that they know about the support they deserve. This moving story grabbed my attention from the first chapter of the action-packed storyline and every page urged me to read on further. During the novel, Thomas helps us to see inside Starr`s personality and not only sympathise with her, but also learn about her character, especially as the story goes on and Starr`s feelings and emotions are developed.
THE HANDMAID'S MESSAGE
Words by Mae Brennan (Lower 6th).
Paintings by Marsiya Patel and Amelia Lawlor (Year 11)
The white, wide-brimmed bonnets and crimson cloaks of Margaret Atwood’s dystopian feminist classic The Handmaid’s Tale have come to conjure the image of female oppression and subservience. For more than three decades, these infamous symbols have appeared internationally; from ads for the novel to the subsequent digital adaptions, and now to the costumes of protestors at demonstrations for reproductive rights.
Despite Atwood’s intention to ominously speculate the dire consequences of Reagan’s conservative administration, the iconography of The Handmaid’s Tale has never been more prescient. Atwood’s 1985 novel explores a toxic world in which misogyny and environmental degradation mutate the USA into a totalitarian state. The fictional Republic of the Gilead has established a system of gender-based violence, enslaving the few women capable of bearing children to serve as “handmaids” to the ruling class. There are elements of the plot that have the potential to dovetail uncomfortably well with aspects of President Trump’s current administration; in the book there is an American government that has declared martial law following an attack by extremists, a regime that has systematically eliminated the LGBTQ+ community, and a society that has prioritised procreation, and as a result the subjugation of women, above all else. The message of The Handmaid’s Tale has never felt more applicable; after all, one could argue that our current socio-political situation reads increasingly like a nightmare from Atwood’s darkest imaginings.
The Handmaid’s Tale pivots upon Atwood’s criticism of essentialist discourse: any notion that fundamentally reduces a human being to a predetermined function such as childbearing. As Atwood’s female protagonist Offred bitterly explains, “We are containers, it’s only the insides of our bodies that are important.” The novel explores the oppression of Offred through her role as a childbearer for the Commander – a senior officer in the new regime. The despotic nature of the Gilead is underpinned by religious fundamentalism. Likewise, fuelled by right-wing Christians emboldened under the Trump presidency, there has been a growing push against women’s reproductive rights within the US. The Republican-controlled Senate of Alabama has passed a near-total ban on abortion, making it the strictest abortion ban within America. The measure contains no exception for rape or incest, making it a crime to perform the procedure at any stage of the pregnancy. It has now been deemed a class A felony for a doctor to perform an abortion in Alabama, with punishment reaching up to 99 years in prison. The bill is part of a trend across the US in which Republican-controlled states are attempting to enforce restrictions on abortion, with many hoping to fare better under the Trump administration. Following in Alabama’s footsteps, the neighbouring state of Georgia has passed an abortion ban as soon as cardiac activity can be detected in an embryo. This can be as early as six weeks of pregnancy, so soon into gestation that many women do not yet know they are pregnant. The bill in Georgia imposes prison
the handmaid's message
sentences for women found guilty of aborting or attempting to terminate their pregnancies, carrying the potential for life imprisonment and death sentences.
In a harrowing depiction of public execution in Atwood’s novel, Offred observes that the “criminals” are abortionists, describing how “each has a placard hung around his neck to show why he has been executed: a drawing of a human foetus” and explaining how “they have committed atrocities, and must be made into examples, for the rest.” I think such scenes from the novel draw uneasy parallels with Trump’s America. This is underlined by Atwood’s anxieties about the environment, illustrated by the impact of nuclear waste on women. Within The Handmaid’s Tale, a woman who is unable to conceive, often due to exposure to toxic waste, is designated an “unwoman”, and a lack of reproductive success can mean deportation to the colonies. Atwood illustrates the destructive potential of environmental irresponsibility, resonating with the possible dystopian future of our current climate.
The fictional regime of the Gilead presents nightmarish visions of governmental interference. Atwood presents a pervasive sense of control and manipulation of private life, offering the reader insight into how society may develop if particular social structures are pursued to the extreme. Atwood has stated that some of what seemed like fiction at the time of writing is now a bitter reality. Following the recent publication of a sequel, thirty-four years after the original story first appeared, the question arises: how like Atwood’s vision will our world be, three decades from now?
Surely it is now time to don the cloaks and bonnets of The Handmaid’s Tale, allowing our future society to tell a story of a woman’s journey to freedom and empowerment, rather than oppression and subservience.
BAHAMAS
BROOKE’S
Brooke Griffith (Lower 6th) talks to Sylvie Evans about the six weeks she spent on Andros last summer
With a land mass that’s around 3% the size of Great Britain, Andros is the largest island in the Bahamas. It’s also the one with the smallest population, so when I went there last summer, as part of a marine conservation project, there were very few other people about. Having only just turned 16, I was one of the youngest in the group of 16 to 24-year-olds; the majority of them had finished A Levels and were preparing to go to university in the autumn.
I spent most of my time scuba-diving, and observing the extraordinary wildlife the Bahamas has to offer. I regularly saw a large, virtuallydomesticated mutton snapper, affectionately named Sean by the instructors, who would be fed eggs by divers every day. I also saw a lot of sea turtles, a remora (a fish with a powerful sucker that attaches itself to sharks for a free ride), and an eagle ray (a type of spotted ray that is extremely rare).
The wildlife was not confined to the sea; there were some rather adventurous land crabs (around 15cm wide!) that kept coming in to our accommodation. I also had to contend with the local insect life; the bites of small sand flies were one of a few but significant hardships I had to
endure!
The highpoint of my trip was a particular dive, during which I was circled by a shark. Despite the common belief that sharks are aggressive creatures, I felt very safe. It was an amazing experience that I’m never going to forget.
The trip gave me a huge lesson in independence; it was also great fun and truly memorable. It has sparked a passion in me that I intend to take further.
VISUAL MATHS
Report by Mariella Trickett (Lower 6th). Paintings by Sarah Menezes
Two quantities are in the golden ratio if their ratio is the same as the ratio of their sum to the larger of the two quantities
Wikipedia (2019)
Mathematics is, perhaps, commonly perceived as a very black and white subject: you’re taught by example and you practise, you’re either right or wrong, and you’re either good at it (and you like it) or bad (and you don’t). However, these common perceptions have no real basis in fact; there are countless ways to learn maths, innumerable routes to a correct answer, and a whole range of challenges in topics that can cater for all levels of ability.
In December the Lower Sixth mathematicians went to London for a day of lectures at Maths in Action. I found the day thoroughly enjoyable. It presented maths to us in a different and stimulating way; specifically, it presented maths as something visual.
The visual elements of maths, such as 3D modelling and pattern drawings, are often thought of as being less academic, more simplistic than the more familiar methods of challenging and pushing understanding at a high level. However, speaker Ben Sparks, a crowd favourite with his unique presentation style, challenged that stereotype.
He
“ “
got a room of teenagers hooked on spirals
Ben Sparks is a mathematician and musician who I was first introduced to at the event last year. He enjoys combining
those two elements in a uniquely engaging manner. Coupling that with his charismatic presentation style, he succeeded in getting a room of teenagers hooked on spirals at nine o’clock in the morning!
To the tune of Noel Harrison’s The Windmills of Your Mind, Sparks explained to us the mathematical concept known as the Golden Ratio. Essentially, it is a special number – 1.618... – represented as phi, which occurs when the ratio between two numbers is the same as the ratio between the figure you get when you add the two numbers together and the larger of your two original two numbers. When pairs of numbers that adhere to this ratio are plotted, they produce a spiral. Interestingly, this phenomenon occurs in nature: you can see it in the seed heads of sunflowers and certain shells – snail shells for example. The Golden Ratio is even found in the human body in the helical arrangement of DNA. It’s there too in your body’s proportions; for example, if you divide the length of your lower arm (from your wrist to your elbow) by the length of your hand, you should have an answer that is close to 1.618.
The Golden Ratio can also be found in the dimensions of your bank card!
H ELD IN C HECK
Words by Claudia Heron (Lower 6th)
Our three biggest supermarket chains collectively control more than 60% of the sales of groceries in the UK with Tesco, the biggest, holding a market share of 27.7%. A recently proposed merger of the other two – Sainsbury’s and Asda – was set to create a new market leader with a 31.4% share, knocking Tesco off its long-held top position.
The new firm would have been run mainly by Sainsbury’s, with their CEO (Chief Executive Officer) Mike Coupe, becoming the new overall boss. The CEO of Asda, Roger Burnley, would have held a place on the new board. As Asda is owned by American retail giant Walmart, it was negotiated that Walmart would own 42% of the new supermarket.
The merger would have created the UK’s biggest supermarket chain, overtaking Tesco, with over 2,800 shops in the UK. The new firm would certainly have benefited from economies of scale; when a company gets bigger, and produces more things, it ends up having to spend less on the production of each individual thing. In theory, Sainsburys/Asda could have passed that saving onto its customers; this deal could have given us a vast new chain of stores, spread across the whole of the UK, offering consumers lower prices.
At this point you may well be thinking, so what’s not to like?
The CMA (Competition and Markets Authority) clearly believed they had found something, because they made the Sainsbury’s-Asda merger void. In other words, they stopped it happening. Their concerns were focussed on the issue of competition.
The CMA claimed that there would be “extensive competition concerns”, worsening competition at a national and local level, harming rather than benefiting the grocery market. They argued that joining the two firms together to form a larger, stronger company would have lessened competition in the current market, already dominated by a few large suppliers. If the deal was accepted, the CMA believed it would lead to dangerously high prices for consumers, and also a poorer shopping experience such as longer queues. Rival firms such Waitrose further backed this and raised their concerns for consumers, as they believed the merger would lead to sharp increases, especially on products that don’t compete on price with other supermarkets.
The deal could have led to higher petrol prices.
The price of petrol is what economists call inelastic, which means that when its price goes up, or down, consumers’ spending habits stay pretty much the same. People will tolerate higher petrol prices presumably because they still need to run their cars. However, one could argue that for a supermarket to act on this would be an exploitation of its customers.
Asda boss, Roger Burnley, was disappointed with the CMA’s decision. He stressed that the “potential merger with Sainsbury’s would have delivered great benefits for customers”. Using the economies of scale argument, Sainsbury’s and Asda say the merger would have resulted in cuts in their production costs and hence allowed them to provide lower prices for customers, by as much as 10%. In fact, they pledged to bring in a billion pounds’ worth of price cuts for consumers. Sainsbury’s and Asda also claimed it would make it possible for them to offer “more flexible ways to shop, in stores and digitally”. They argued that the CMA misunderstood the potential impact on customers and competition, and had forgone the opportunity to put money back into customers’ pockets.
However, these statements clearly failed to convince the CMA as they have prohibited the merger for 10 years, applying their ban to Sainsbury’s, Asda, and Asda’s parent company Walmart.
Sainsbury’s and Asda claimed their deal would give their customers lower prices; the CMA belived it would do the opposite. Who do you think was right?
Painting by
Rhiannon Beddoe
Holly Revell (Year 11)
Miranda Penn Jones (Year 11)
Hannah Vernon (Year 11)
Isobel Ikin (Year 11)
Bethany McGurk (Year 11)
Beatrice Gomes (Year 11)
Tabitha Inglis (Year 11)
Marsiya Patel (Year 11)
Right: Alex Beveridge (Year 11)
Above: Annabel Nicholls (Year 11)
physical education SPORTS DAY
Words by Gemma Lowe (Lower 6th). Pictures by Brooke Griffith (Lower 6th) and Ian Russell (Head of Art & Design)
Tuesday 2nd July was, for us, a beautiful sunny day, full of exciting sporting achievement and involvement from all year groups and staff. The Year 7s had trained hard throughout their PE sessions and extracurricular athletics, keen to impress their houses on their very first SWPS Sports Day. They had a day full of successes with a well-deserved win for Pankhurst. The impressive work continued in the Year 8 category with all the houses working extremely hard to improve in their events and beat any personal bests set last year, with Lonsdale coming top in this age group. Year 9 were determined to have an excellent fight for first place with each and every athlete doing fabulously in their chosen event; in the end, Montagu was victorious. It was the last Sports Day for Year 10 so the effort from them was ferocious, with each individual striving to gain a final victory. Pankhurst won with some amazing sporting achievements.
The day brought about a great sense of house and school spirit, with house groups working together to achieve the best results possible, as well as running stalls to raise money for charity.
In the end, Pankhurst secured an incredible win, with Montagu coming second, followed by Lonsdale and Quant in close competition.
It was a fantastic day for all involved.
physical education R OWING
Words by Eve Linney
(Lower 6th). Most pictures by
Hilary Young
The SWPS rowing club have had a jam-packed year; highlights include a fabulous win in Junior 18 Quads at the Weybridge Winter Head and having an astounding 13 crews competing at the Junior Sculling Regatta at Eton Dorney in May.
Every year, a hugely important, and fun, part of the season is our Easter Training Camp. This year we were lucky enough to spend ten days at the beautiful Lake Pusiano in Northern Italy. A key memory for me is the feeling I had near the end of the day, after a great race, when it was still really sunny on the lake; we had near-perfect conditions for rowing every day of the camp. Oh, and movie night with my squad is also up there!
In July, we competed at the British Rowing Junior Championships, where 32 SWPS students raced some of the best crews from across the country. Celia Crosbie and Emmie Kirkhope (Year 11) performed incredibly well, winning their first national titles as gold medallists in the Junior 16 Double Sculls. The two girls went from finishing in 20th place 12 months ago, to becoming National Champions this year; a fantastic and well-deserved reward for all their hard work. Their win means that the SWPS Boat Club retains the title that Denise Martin and I won at the 2018 Championships.
physical education
PLAYING H ARD
Matilda O’Dea (Year 10) talks to Kate Raven (Lower 6th) about her journey with England Hockey
I’ve always loved sport and, from an early age, I’ve learnt to juggle my sporting commitments with school work. Well before I joined SWPS, I was already swimming around ten hours a week for Windsor Swimming Club, playing hockey for Maidenhead Hockey Club and representing my county of Berkshire, as well as fitting in the odd running session too. So, I am used to rushing home, doing my homework, eating (often on the go), and then rushing out to get to training on time.
This year, since being selected for England Hockey’s U15 Performance Centre, hockey has become my priority. While I still manage to swim, and compete when time allows, I now train and play hockey matches five times a week. The standard and level of commitment at Performance Centre has been a significant step up for me, and I’m really enjoying the opportunity to improve my skills and develop as an all-round team player.
I first discovered my love for hockey when I was eight years old, when I joined Maidenhead Hockey Club’s Under 10s team. Even though I hadn’t a clue what I was getting into, I adored my first session and made so many new friends. Six years on, I am still playing with many of the friends I met during that first session, although now for the Under 16s
team (unbeaten this season!), as well as the club’s Ladies 2s.
For anyone dedicated to pursuing an interest, it’s essential that you love it, and are willing to make sacrifices. It’s fair to say that when it is late in the middle of winter, it can be tough to head out doors for a two-hour training session. But once I’m on the pitch and knocking about with the ball, my love for the game kicks in and I really feel the drive to do my best.
In sport, as with other things in life, there are days when everything goes right and you have an amazing game or training session. There are also times when things don’t go to plan, you have a bad day or the pressure is really intense. I’m sure we all know how that feels! I’ve learnt that you have to find the strength and self-motivation to pick yourself up and keep going. Hockey has also taught me how team sports can bring people together, from a range of backgrounds, to work towards a common goal; we celebrate the good times as a team and support one another when things go wrong. When I first attended trials for Berkshire County and England Performance Centre Hockey, I hardly knew anyone on the pitch, but our common love for the game generated instant friendship and cooperation.
I’m very fortunate to have the support of some amazing friends who understand my commitments, an excellent team of coaches, including Mr O’Connell at SWPS, and of course the ‘taxi of mum & dad’ to ferry me around the country to training and fixtures.
My ambition is to progress to the highest standard of hockey I can achieve and my dream is to represent my country. But wherever my journey takes me, I will continue to play hockey; sport will always be part of my life.
For my current research project (which I’m going to submit for an Extended Project Qualification), I decided I wanted to do something very practical.
On my biology A Level course, I have studied plant and insect respiration. This intersected with my interest in Biosphere 2, a glass dome, built for the purpose of research, that covers over three acres in the Arizona desert and contains seven different habitats.
It was built by Space Biosphere Ventures and was created to “explore the web of interactions within life systems in a structure with different areas based on various biological biomes”. It has been used twice for its primary purpose as a closed-system experiment where people were completely sealed inside the dome. The first time was in 1991, when eight people (nicknamed Biosphereians) were sealed inside it, and left with no contact with the outside world for two years. They encountered numerous problems such as low amounts of food and insufficient oxygen. The second time the experiment was run, it contained seven people for eight months, during which they managed to achieve total food sufficiency and required no additional oxygen. It is now owned by the university of Arizona and is open for public tours.
I was keen to see if I could make my own, much smaller, biosphere and collect my own data. So, I filled two containers with plants, as well as my own ‘biosphereians’ in the form of stick insects. Indian stick insects turned out to be a perfect fit for my experiment as the conditions they needed wouldn’t adversely affect the results. Currently there are no laws against experimenting on stick insects but, even so, I have taken as many precautions as I can to ensure their wellbeing, such as providing them with
food and water sources.
To attain my results, I inserted probes into my container, in order to take readings of the percentage of oxygen in the air and measure how many particles per million of carbon dioxide there was. I also added a probe to measure the temperature. By looking at the increase and decrease in carbon dioxide and oxygen levels I hoped to understand what was going on in terms of the respiration and photosynthesis of my plants and stick insects.
Every living cell must respire, using oxygen and a sugar called glucose to produce energy for movement, growth, reproduction and other things essential to live and survive. It’s a process carried out by both plants and animals and can be measured by the amount of carbon dioxide, a by-product of the process, that is produced. Photosynthesis only occurs in plants and uses carbon dioxide, water and sunlight to create its own sugar, to then be used for respiration.
I currently have two containers, one which is completely sealed off to the outside world and the other with an open top.
I hope to obtain useful results from this experiment that will further my understanding of biospheres and how we interact with plants. This type of knowledge should help us build our own self-renewing and sustainable biospheres which, in the future, could be used in the colonization of space.
Report by Sophie Bartrop (Lower 6th)
MY BIOSPHERE
DEEP INTEREST
Elena Deilamy and Ashani Patel (Year 8) talk to Ian Russell
(Head of Art & Design) about their love of marine biology and their fascination with two particular sea creatures
What does biology mean to you?
ED: Biology includes the study of animals and how their bodies work. Marine biology is the study of marine life. I feel it’s important because it helps humans understand animals and all their amazing features. Marine biology is important to me because I want to help people learn about these incredible creatures and why they are an extremely important asset to our planet.
AP: Marine biology is the study of organisms that live in the ocean and their behaviour and reaction to the environment. It’s a big subject so most scientists will do research in a particular area they are interested in and specialise in it. There’s so much of the ocean we don’t fully understand yet.
If a shrimp, from the bottom of the food chain, eats a plastic waste particle, and a larger fish eats the shrimp, and we then come along and catch the fish, we will be the ones who are causing ourselves harm. This could be the cause of certain cancers, and other things harmful to humans, in ways we haven’t fully discovered yet.
Tell us about the subjects of your research
ED: Green sea turtles are only five centimetres long when they are born, but they can grow up to oneand-a-half metres and can weigh over 300kg. They
are the largest hard-shell turtle species in the world. They usually live for approximately 80 years.
Green sea turtles can bite. They have very strong jaws and sharp beaks. Their bite can really hurt; they can bruise the skin and even break a bone.
Because of climate change there has been an increase in female turtles. Warmer temperatures in the weather have made the eggs warmer, which effects what sex the turtle will be. When the egg is warmer it usually produces a female turtle, so male turtle numbers are decreasing.
Adult green sea turtles are herbivores. Their primary food source is seagrass and algae. The young turtles are omnivores. They eat a big variety of foods such as plants, small insects, seagrasses and worms. The adult’s main predator is large sharks, tiger sharks especially. The main predators of the eggs and the hatchlings are fish, dogs, seabirds, raccoons and ghost crabs.
AP: Pufferfish, also known as blow fish, developed their famous “inflatability” because their slow swimming style makes them very vulnerable to predators. To protect themselves, they use their highly elastic stomachs and their ability to quickly ingest huge amounts of water, in order to turn themselves into a ball several times bigger than their normal size.
A predator that manages to eat a pufferfish, before it puffs up, can become very dangerous because almost all pufferfish contain tetrodotoxin. This is a toxin that can be deadly to humans. There can be enough toxin in one pufferfish to kill thirty adult humans, and there is no known cure.
There are more than 120 species of pufferfish worldwide. Most are found in tropical ocean waters, but some species can live in freshwater. Some of them have wild markings and colours to show their toxicity, while other species have muted colouring to blend in with their surroundings.
What drew you to these particular creatures?
AP: I went to Malaysia in the Easter holidays and I saw a pufferfish. I thought it was amazing because it has such interesting defences.
ED: I love turtles; they are so unique.
Are they under threat?
ED: Green sea turtles are classified as endangered and are under serious threat. This is because of over-harvesting of their eggs, the hunting of adults, being caught in fishing gear, and the loss of nesting at beach sites. Worldwide each year, hundreds of thousands of sea turtles are accidently caught in shrimp trawl nets, on longline hooks and in fishing gillnets. They need to reach the surface to breathe so many drown once caught.
Sea turtles are really important because they graze on sea grass and algae and this maintains the sea grass beds and makes them more productive, like mowing a lawn to keep it healthy. Sea grass consumed by sea turtles is quickly digested and becomes available as recycled nutrients for animals and plants.
deep interest
What first-hand experience have you had of these creatures?
AP: In 2017, I went to Thailand with my parents and there was a charity called The Mai Khao Marine Turtle Foundation. They collect the eggs that the turtles have nested and make sure they don’t get eaten. They allow them to hatch and then they feed the baby turtles collected plants and nutrients to make them strong and ready for the dangerous journey ahead of them. My dad has a friend who is a marine biologist and I was able to participate in an animal release. 150 turtles were released by the foundation that year.
ED: A year ago, I went to Thailand and went scuba diving in Koh Samui. I saw a lot of spectacular creatures such as the blue spotted stingray, the triggerfish, and many more. This experience taught me a great deal about marine life and that’s when I decided to study marine biology. At some point soon, I am going to take a course to get my PADI (Professional Association of Diving Instructors) certificate so I can do more scuba diving. When I was in Koh Samui a biologist told me about coral: many uninformed swimmers and divers touch the coral, which kills it. It made me think that this would be a good subject to study, so I could help people understand how we should treat marine life.
Photograph by Ashani Patel
PREVIOUS LIVES
Two teachers talk about their lives before SWPS. As told to Mae Brennan (Lower 6th)
IAN PEEL
My life before SWPS answers the question, “what can you do with a classics degree?” A lot, it turns out. It also shows how finding a job that suits you can be a gradual, and not always linear progression. I’ll share with you, my three big life lessons.
From Year 9 onwards at school, I wanted to be a classics teacher ‘when I grew up’. However, in my final year at Oxford, I felt that I should get some nonschool experience first.
So, after finishing my classics degree in June 1988, I started a job in accountancy at Arthur Andersen. They wanted Oxbridge types, and came to our college to recruit us; it seemed like a good general training for business life. Sadly I realised after three days that it was possibly not for me, but stuck at it for two years to give it a proper try.
Whilst at Arthur Andersen, I finally started going out with a beautiful girl in my year, on whom I had had a massive crush all through Oxford. Then, when a senior partner told me to pack and fly to Aberdeen for a sixth month audit, I robustly refused, causing an eerie silence in the office, as tumbleweed blew past. As that gorgeous woman and I have now been together for thirty years, I think I made a good call, and proved my Lesson One: Love is more important than anything else.
At Arthur Andersen, I found out that I was good at IT, which became the driver of my career afterwards. I worked in IT for a charity, Save The Children Fund (SCF). I found the cause very sustaining for four years, but when my wife and I wanted to have a family, I needed to ramp up my earnings, so left SCF to work for an IT vendor; working for different IT vendors for fifteen years, in sales roles. It seems I am good salesman, and that role paid very well. I am not really motivated by money, but my earnings meant that my wife could be a full-time mum to our three children, which she wanted. It was brilliant for them, and we could afford to live in a nice house in a nice place. This proved my Lesson Two: Money is not everything, but it is something.
Then, eleven years ago, I found that my childhood dream to be a classics teacher was calling me powerfully, so I started applying for teaching jobs. With very little success. It transpired that the teaching profession is very conservative, and preferred the safe choice of an experienced teacher to some weirdo IT salesman chasing his dream. However I showed resilience through multiple rejections, and finally found Reed’s School in Cobham desperate for a classics teacher at short notice. This was the second best school I ever taught at, because seven years ago I came to the greatest school ever, SWPS, named after the sound a snake makes, if it slips on a banana skin. What makes or breaks your job as a teacher is what your pupils are like, and I think SWPS pupils are perfect - clever, funny and kind. I love it here, mostly because of you, and I am doing the hardest but also most fun job I have ever done, and loving every day. This brings me to my third and most important lesson in making life decisions, but also the hardest to achieve; it can take decades to realise, and was inscribed in capital letters above the entrance to the Delphic Oracle, for those to read, who had come to ask the god’s advice:
– know thyself.
previous lives
GILLY PENFOLD-WARD
When I was in primary school in Zambia, where I was born and brought up, I wanted to be all sorts of things, though I’m not sure now whether I really understood what most of them involved: pathologist and ecologist are just two of the professions I had in mind. I had visions of being able to travel to other planets and study their ecologies: too much Star Trek and Doctor Who!
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My politics lecturer was arrested and imprisoned
In my late teens, horizons narrowed somewhat and I became interested in languages, studying French and German at A Level, as well as English literature. The intention was to study languages at university and go on to be a translator. I signed up for languages at Cape Town University but was waylaid in Freshers’ Week, attending taster lectures, and then ended up doing psychology, sociology and politics. I carried on into second year, adding economics and
comparative African government and law, but it was 1976 in apartheid South Africa, a turbulent time that included the Soweto riots. My politics lecturer was arrested and imprisoned for distributing leaflets, there were government spies amongst the students, many books were banned or only available with special permission, and there was tear gas on the Cape Town streets. I beat a retreat and headed to the UK, studying in Dundee and graduating with an MA Hons in English Literature, with subsidiary units in politics, psychology and linguistics.
Then followed a period of relative quiet whilst my daughter grew up. Being the eternal student, I completed an Open University degree in a mixture of mainly science and education subjects which led in turn to an MSc in Rural and Regional Resources Planning and a job as a town planner in Aberdeenshire. Although planners are viewed by the public as rather like traffic wardens and tax inspectors, I particularly enjoyed site visits in the Scottish countryside and seeing projects which I had handled being completed. Vivid memories include tramping through two feet of snow to look at woodlands and a meeting at Balmoral with the factor of the estate; unfortunately the royal family were not there.
Once my daughter departed for university, my husband and I lived in France for eight years where I taught in a Montessori school, worked in a bookshop and taught English as a foreign language. We also did a lot of travelling including going round the world for four months: eating green ants and swimming with the odd shark. We decided to return to the UK again and settle down and after a year in York, I found my way to SWPS in 2007 and have never looked back since.
Moral of the tale: don’t assume that you will end up doing what you started out intending to do. It is possible to change along the way and have some great experiences doing so!
NIS THE REEG
NEW BLACK
Words by Mirren Black (Lower 6th). Artwork by Eden Plaistowe
(Senior 6th)
“No one will protect what they don’t care about; and no one will care about what they have never experienced” Sir David Attenborough
Sir David Attenborough has spent over half a century showcasing the natural world and inspiring several generations to experience its wonder. When the final episode of Blue Planet II revealed the damage plastic was wreaking on marine species, the realisation of our single use plastic addiction led to a public outcry and triggered what has been coined the Attenborough Effect. After being shown the wonders of nature for years, only to be told we are all helping to destroy it, people rallied to a tangible solution of avoiding unnecessary plastic. One report found that 53% of people surveyed reduced their single use plastic after Blue Planet II aired. Public pressure has even influenced the government to ban plastic stirrers, plastic cotton buds and most plastic straws from April 2020.
Recently, Sir David Attenborough produced the hard hitting documentary Climate Change: The Facts. From fields of dead bats killed by heat stroke to blazing
forest fires, scenes of devastation were all too common. Described as a “rousing call to arms”, the documentary acted as a wake up call to change our ways. Although at times depressing, it ended on a hopeful note, giving clear instructions on how the individual can alter their behaviour to prevent
green is the new black
Actions to take:
-Buying vegetables loose rather than in plastic packaging.
-Buying British grown or local produce to reduce your food’s air miles.
-Turning the water off when brushing your teeth or washing your hair.
-Avoiding make-up wipes and choose a facial cleanser instead.
-Reducing your weekly meat and dairy intake, opt for milk alternatives (coconut, oat etc.) as these have a smaller environmental impact than cow’s milk.
-Recycling shampoo bottles or even better yet, refill your shampoo bottles or use shampoo bars to reduce plastic output.
-Cycling, walking or taking public transport where you can.
more ecological horrors. Mass media coverage has increased massively over the last few years, and, recognising the impact TV can have, BAFTA has called for more mentions of climate change in non news programmes to increase awareness. Hopefully climate change can match cats’ popularity on TV, as they currently get mentioned five times more often!
The increase in awareness has led to protests at the government’s lack of action to appropriately address the climate crisis. Extinction Rebellion shut down key areas of London for ten days in April this year, resulting in over 1000 arrests and received, unlike other less disruptive climate marches, widespread news coverage. The new surge in environmentalism was also reflected in the 2019 European Elections: green parties secured just under seventy seats in total, and in the UK, the Green Party won more seats than the Conservatives. People
are realising the urgency of our situation and are reflecting this in the ballot box. The clear warnings from scientists have been heard by the public, and despite what climate deniers like Trump may say, people are standing up for our planet.
In many cases, change has been driven by the younger generation: at 15, Greta Thunberg began protesting the lack of action to combat climate change. She skipped school and sat alone outside the Swedish Parliament. Now, she is joined by over 1.5 million teenagers in the global school strikes. She has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for inspiring people across the world to take action in the face of crisis.
Despite the new drive to protect the environment, we are still in very real danger of chaos. 25% of plant and animal species are now threatened with extinction due to our actions. The worst case climate scenario of an increase of five degrees Celsius would cause a two metre sea level rise and two hundred times more refugees than the Syrian Civil War caused. Even if the world only warmed by two degrees Celsius, virtually all coral reefs, which support 25% of marine life, would be lost.
But there is still hope. We have learnt about it in school, seen the devastation unfold on TV, and may have even started to feel the effects firsthand. Now it is time to act on what we know. Whether it is by using reusable coffee cups or refilling shampoo bottles at eco stores, little changes matter. Try avoiding short haul flights and take other modes of transport like the train instead. Try walking instead of getting a lift from parents. Or try attending events like PreLoved Kilo for an eco friendly way of shopping for vintage clothes. Eating vegetarian for a few days a week can massively reduce your carbon footprint, as cows, pigs and chickens all require much more natural resources than arable produce. Whatever the change, every single one of us can let our actions speak, and make our voices be heard. Together we can protect our shared planet, but only if we all take action.
geography PHOTOGRAPHY TRAVEL
The standard of entries for our competition this year was again extremely high. 1st Prize went to Ellen Woolnough (Year 10) for her fascinating and beautiful pictures of Bali (opposite page). Olivia Sabharwal (Year 8) and Saskia Frayling (Year 10) came joint second. The other students’ photographs featured on these pages were all Highly Commended.
Opposite page: Costa Rica by Olivia Sabharwal (Year 8)
Opposite
This page, centre right: Mykonos, Greece; bottom: Venice, Italy; the rest on this page: Kotor, Montenegro, all by Saskia Frayling (Year 10)
page: Sri Lanka by Milly Staveley (Year 10)
Bottom left: Sicily, Italy by Lisa Doidge (Year 9). The rest on this page: Utah, USA by Merle Mowbray (Year 10)
The deadline for submitting entries for our next travel photography competition is: Monday 30th September For more details, talk to Mr Russell,
Top two pictures: Malta by Annabel Tang (Year 9). Castiglione del Lago, Italy by (Year 8)
Head of Art & Design.
design and technology
Bluebell Craven (Year 9)
Lauren Mansey (Year 9)
Molly Barry (Year 9)
Sabrina Fateh (Year 9)
Ella Litwin (Year 8)
Sarah Maxwell (Year 11)
Amrit Bath (Year 11)
Caitlan Findlay (Year 11)
Melina Eleftheriadis (Year 11)
Carmen Bailey (Year 10)
Lia Anderson (Senior 6th)
Sriya Roy (Senior 6th)
Sophie Bartrop (Lower 6th)
Thea Morton (Year 10)
design and technology
Sriya Roy (Senior 6th)
Sienna Edginton (Year 11)
Sharanya Roy (Year 10)
Charlotte Lambert (Senior 6th)
UNCONCIOUS computing BIAS IN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Words by Sasha Glasson (Lower 6th)
Unconscious bias in artificial intelligence (AI) is the concept that AI can draw conclusions about an object, person or event without realising it, or without this being its original function. Using information it has been provided with, an AI could be created to analyse data and draw conclusions, but it could draw unfair ones, as it makes unjustified assumptions.
So how can this happen when computers should be able to use mathematics to ensure that the verdict is entirely accurate and unbiased?
The main feature of AI compared with other computers is that it learns. It is able to develop its functionality and understanding of the world, without having data hardcoded into and without simply being given facts, which are accepted and not developed. This is an overall advantage as it allows computers to complete many more tasks and become more adaptable, but it also allows AI to learn things which it shouldn’t, such as biases towards people and things.
Charles Babbage, the originator of the concept of a digital, programmable computer, wrote “On two occasions I have been asked, ‘Pray Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?’”. This was the beginning of the fundamental software principle of “garbage in, garbage out”. Within AI, this principle is often demonstrated as bias. AI learns using large data sets, from which it draws conclusions. However, this is often the beginning of the bias within the AI. If the input data is biased, or incorrect, the AI does not realise this and, thus, develops biases.
An example of this bias, or “garbage out” principle is a program which is designed to recommend who to hire, by using examples of past successful candidates. Here, the aim is to learn the
important traits of a successful candidate. However, if the only inputs are young, white, straight males, then it is likely the program will recommend against hiring minorities; showing bias. This shows the idea of “garbage in, garbage out” as it is due to the bad input data that the output is flawed; it is not the algorithm itself.
It seems obvious that if the input data causes bias, then adaption of input data is the solution. So to avoid AIs making assumptions based on a history with a lack of diversity, data sets for AIs to learn from, otherwise known as learning sets, must be extensive and all-encompassing.
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garbage in, garbage out
However, many corporations developing artificial intelligence are trying to do so as quickly as possible; in order to corner the market with whatever new product they have produced. Unfortunately, this often leads to the teaching stage of development being rushed and the data sets are either hastily put together, or drawn from the internet; meaning that the AI learns inherent human bias.
An example of this would be an AI being taught what makes a good secretary by the use of a Google image search of the word secretary. This search would result in images mostly of women, leading the AI to a misogynistic conclusion, that women make better secretaries than men. The reverse can be shown by using Google to teach an AI what makes a good doctor. In order to avoid this, learning sets must be well-rounded, but this takes a large amount of time and is not appealing to many developers. Some companies have begun providing data sets that are representative of the population as a whole, but this remains uncommon, meaning that the issue has not yet been tackled.
MODEL NITED ATIONS
U N
Report by Madeleine White (Year 10). Painting by Bethany McGurk (Year 11)
MUN (Model United Nations) is a simulation of the United Nations organisation that aims to achieve and maintain world peace. It is open to students from Year 10 up to Senior Sixth and is a student led activity that enables the development of research and public speaking skills, and increases understanding of current affairs. During a MUN conference, each student will represent a country and argue its views on the topics being debated, prior to a solution being voted on.
Last autumn, I was really excited to attend my first MUN conference, especially as a lot of my friends were also doing it!
The conference was called ReiMUN and was held at Reigate Grammar School. At the beginning, I found the whole debate quite daunting as there were so many students, most of them apparently much older than me. But as the day went on, I began to feel increasingly confident and started to contribute more. In my committee, I wasn’t sitting with any of my SWPS friends, which allowed me to make friends with some of the other delegates. I was amazed at how such a large conference, that was so well-run, didn’t seem to involve much teacher input.
In the spring term, we attended a weekend conference: Haileybury MUN. We left after lunch on Friday and came back on Sunday, staying in a hotel over the weekend. As it was our second MUN conference it felt much less overwhelming, as we already knew what to expect, which meant that everyone was more confident about sharing their ideas. The Haileybury conference was an incredible experience because there was more time to go into greater detail of the issues being discussed.
Another MUN event this year was the Year 9
MUN Taster Day. Just before May half term, the Year 9s were given the opportunity to experience a MUN conference within school that was chaired and organised by the Year 10 students.
I can still remember my Year 9 Taster Day and how well it set me up for MUN with regards to the formality of speech and layout of the debate; I really wanted to be able to introduce MUN to the Year 9s in a positive and interesting way, in the hope that it would inspire some of them just as it had inspired me. I chaired the Environmental Committee with two of my friends, Isobel and Natalie. We guided the Year 9s through the research process and then the actual debate, which was also great practice for us as it meant we had to have knowledge of our chosen topics and make executive decisions. We were slightly worried when we first started, as we had the smallest committee, with only 8 students present, but were absolutely thrilled when all of the Year 9s dived headfirst into the debate and contributed brilliantly. The Taster Day was really fun as the whole committee got involved, and we even had some joke awards at the end!
For me, MUN has been a phenomenal opportunity to make new friends and also improve my debating skills as delegates often have to argue the views of their country, which don’t necessarily match their own. I have represented a range of countries, from France to South Africa, in both external conferences and the lunchtime sessions that are hosted in school. Surprisingly, MUN has also been a very relaxing activity for me, even though it is known for being formal, because I have always done it with friends; I have always felt able to give the debates a try even if I was feeling a little unsure of my standpoint.
I highly recommend it!
FEMALES ON THE SPECTRUM
Worldwide, the number of boys with a diagnosis of autism or autism spectrum disorder (ASD) vastly outnumbers the number of girls, with estimates that this ratio ranges anywhere from 2:1 to 16:1. Why is this? Rachel Coxon (Lower 6th) investigates
Rain Man, Shaun Murphy from The Good Doctor, Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory. All of these famous portrayals of people on the autism spectrum (although they may not be entirely accurate) have one thing in common: they are all male. In a recent survey by the national autistic society, it was found that the ratio of men to women supported by the organisations’ adult services was 3:1, while the ratio of boys to girls in the charity’s specialist schools was 5:1.
The reason for this? It depends on who you ask. Some believe that due to the genetic aspect of autism, it is more likely to impact boys than girls while others theorise that the release of testosterone during foetal
females on the spectrum
development can cause the condition.
Many early researchers of autism, including Hans Asperger, the German psychologist who put his name to Asperger’s syndrome, now more commonly known as ASD, believed that girls could simply not be autistic. Although this has since been disproved, it may provide some answers as to why more boys are diagnosed with the condition. Autistic girls may not fit the set of characteristics outlined by assessment tools, including those related to social interaction, repetitive behaviours and restricted interests, as these are based on the behaviour of autistic men and boys.
as a girl on the spectrum myself, I think that these explanations barely scrape the surface of the reality for many like me
This is not surprising given that in the areas of medical research and product testing, there is a distinct shortage of female test subjects, something which has become a prominent issue in recent years. This has an impact, not only on the process of diagnosis, but also on the public perception of autism. The well-known US based organisation Autism Speaks, an ironic name given that it does not have a single autistic person on its board, is widely disliked by those on the spectrum due to its cruel and inaccurate portrayal of the condition. Every year in April, this organisation launches the Light it up Blue campaign, so called due to the belief that autism is vastly more prominent in boys. This campaign and its associated message promotes outdated stereotypes of autism and thus is harmful to those on the spectrum. Due to the ideas and stereotypes promoted by
organisations such as Autism Speaks, both parents and teachers alike may not recognise characteristics of autism shown by girls on the spectrum. As a result, autistic women and girls may be drastically underdiagnosed in the population, so cannot access the resources they so desperately need. However, as a girl on the spectrum myself, I think that these explanations barely scrape the surface of the reality for many like me. I think that the problem lies much deeper, in the way that young women and girls are socialised to interact with each other.
From the moment that we are born, our sex at birth determines the way we are treated by family members, peer groups and schools. Girls are gifted dolls and kitchen sets, while boys receive trucks and guns. This divide is further reinforced by the media, particularly through advertising. This system of behaviour in the field of sociology is known as gender socialisation and could hold answers as to why there is such a large gap in diagnoses. From a young age, girls are socialised to be sweet and charming; we are implicitly told that our value and worth lies in our ability to nurture and form connections. In contrast, boys are socialised to be tough and are expected to be assertive, aggressive and independent. This encouragement of independence means that boys are less likely to mask their autistic characteristics and are often diagnosed at a younger age. Meanwhile, girls may spend the majority of their younger years without a diagnosis. Girls are implicitly told throughout their youth that in order to be valued, they need to have established relationships. It is a widely known fact that those on the autism spectrum find it more difficult to form these relationships, and may struggle to fit in due to characteristics such as repetitive behaviour and focused interests. Thus, many girls on the spectrum will mask their autistic characteristics, maybe even without realising, in order to avoid social exclusion from female social circles. This is something I experienced firsthand throughout primary school, and is a well known factor in the development of many of the mental health issues that women and girls on the spectrum are more likely to suffer from.
As more and more women on the spectrum come forward with stories of late diagnoses, it begs the question: what can be done to ensure that this gap is reduced? The answer may lie in the diagnostic criteria for Autism spectrum disorders, which are most likely outdated. Or perhaps this is a matter of social perception of gender. Either way, it is high time that we started including girls in our conversation about autism, both in media representation and in the study of the condition. We exist, and we need to be seen.
OBJECT LESSON
Fatima Synge (Head of 6th Form) talks to Mae Brennan (Lower 6th) about a few of her favourite things
My First Lesson
I left university with very little clue over what I wanted to do next. By accident, I fell into publishing and found to my surprise, that I wasn’t motivated by money. After realising the industry wasn’t for me, I went into retail, working for Shelly Robbins. For the first year, I loved it but soon realised that I felt somewhat unfulfilled. I began to recognise that I wanted to be appreciated and feel like I was doing something constructive for society. I remember going to the cinema, with my then-boyfriend-now-husband to watch Notting Hill, when this advert came on screen. There were various famous people, from Tony Blair to Stephen Hawking, all saying a random name and at the end of the advert, came the
slogan “No one forgets a good teacher”. It was like a revelation, and it had never occurred to me that it was something I wanted to do. After extensive teacher training, I taught my first lesson and it was magic. It was this feeling I never had before, and even when I teach a lesson today, I get this euphoric feeling of satisfaction and this daily sense that I am having an impact on students’ lives. It felt wonderful, and I still can’t believe I get paid to do what I do; it’s an utter privilege.
Shells
One of my all-time favourite things to do is to search for shells on beaches. Since I was a child, I’ve always loved shells, from the way they feel, to the magic of shells being almost like mermaids’ treasure.
My parents are from Madeira, a very small Portuguese island, and for as long as I can remember, they would send me there to spend time with my uncle and aunt whom I adored. Over time, I developed a love for all things nautical and as a result, my children and I will purchase buckets and spend hours looking for shells along the shores. I love to put objects throughout the house that are meaningful; I have some shells that are beautiful and which have great sentimental value. We found some scallop shells on a beach in Normandy; we stumbled upon millions of them in the middle of nowhere. It was a throwback to my childhood: my dad was a classically trained chef, he would often cook scallops and use the remaining shells as ashtrays. My children and I took home around thirty of those Normandy shells, and they are now dotted all around our home, holding a very special memory for us all.
Fossils
I love fossils in general; however, I think this particular fossil is amazing! It is an arthropod, around fortyfive million years old. Typically, you find fossils in limestone; this particular type of stone doesn’t lend itself to having fossils so that makes it a curious anomaly.
When I was in my twenties, I was fascinated by Alan Titchmarsh’s documentary, The British Isles. One of the episodes is all about Lyme Regis and the Dorset coast, and how you could stumble upon a fossil on one of those beaches. I always quite liked the idea of randomly finding a fossil, and yet I never did! For years, I’d spend hours searching with no success, until last October, when my family and I took a trip to Norfolk. We happened to be scouring along a pebble beach, when I saw this very fossil lying on the shore. At first, I couldn’t believe it. I soon had it analysed by a geologist, who confirmed it was indeed a fossil and in the world of geology, it is pretty unique.
I love this object as it demonstrates how I finally achieved my lifelong ambition by finding it. I am also fascinated by what it symbolises; my existence on this planet is a pinprick compared to this fossil. I think it raises the question of the kind of mark we will leave behind. This creature has left behind beauty and wonder, and yet we could leave this world with the results of global warming and ecocide.
Sandro Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus
For a host of reasons, this is my favourite piece of art. Regardless of its visual beauty, the Renaissance movement is firmly imprinted in my historian’s mind. It was a time of huge cultural and artistic upheaval, accompanied by the notion that society could ameliorate itself by looking at old ideas to create new ones, particularly in terms of education. As a teacher, this is something I am extremely passionate about, and one of the many reasons why I love The Birth of Venus. I also adore the painting as it is a celebration of love and marriage. My husband wanted to surprise me on our honeymoon and by complete coincidence, he chose to take us to Tuscany. My husband isn’t particularly interested in art and culture, and fails to see its purpose. Nonetheless, after much convincing, I persuaded my husband to take a trip to Florence
object lesson
so that we could visit the Uffizzi gallery and see this painting. We queued for hours and when we finally saw this magnificent artwork in all its glory, even my husband understood its relevance. It lauded new love, which was exactly what our marriage was. From its nautical allusion to its celebration of romance, Botticelli’s painting epitomises everything I adore. I’ve always found it interesting that my husband picked Tuscany of all places; it was completely coincidental, although he tries to claim otherwise!
High Tea
I love the decadence of high tea and, as I can’t eat gluten, whenever I have it, the staff always make a real effort. I think high tea suggests that you have the luxury of time, and choose to spend it doing the most wonderful thing! I’ve been lucky enough to experience this extravagance at Petersham Nurseries, The Dorchester and The Ritz. I think high tea is the height of self-indulgence – giving yourself time off to eat scones and sandwiches for a whole afternoon! The whole thing is so regal, it’s fabulous; especially with a glass of champagne!
MARYPOPPINS
Report by Sarah Johnson (Lower 6th). Pictures by Grant Pritchard
This year, students from Year 7 through to Sixth Form came together over a period of several months, in order to stage a joyous production of Mary Poppins.
Big shows like this require a lot more than just a talented bunch of actors. We also needed a motivated stage crew, a focussed technical team, brilliant musicians, skilled hair and make-up artists, creative costume makers and set designers, and a dedicated director and producer.
The design of the show was not limited to the stage. Students created extraordinary kite decorations for the Atrium, where FOSWPS suppled food and drinks in the intermission. The whole atmosphere fitted brilliantly with the Edwardian holiday feeling that runs through the show.
A huge thank you must go to Craig Rickards who single-handedly arranged the musical score. He and the six-piece band he directed were key to the success of the show; they worked tirelessly during the rehearsals and in every performance. The virtually constant music that played throughout our show must have put the musicians among the hardest workers in the
production.
Ultimately, much of the hard work, frustration, and anxiety that forms an inevitable part of staging a big production, is forgotten once the show has been performed. A key thing that everyone remembers, of the days and weeks leading up to the performances, are the friendships made and strengthened through all the hard work. Age and job-titles get forgotten during this process; groups of people, who wouldn’t normally interact at all, spend time getting to know each other and discover all kinds of surprising things.
Mary Poppins was superbly directed by Sara Sweeney (Head of Drama). The show’s producer was Patsi Bucknall who, as always, put an enormous amount of energy, skill and commitment into the role. This was Patsi’s last production at SWPS before retiring, and she is much missed.
I’m told that Mary Poppins was hugely entertaining to watch; it was certainly a great pleasure to be part of it.
I’d recommend taking part in a production like this to any member of the school, no matter how skilled or qualified you think you are.
mary poppins
TAKING NOTES
Catherine Abela (Year 11) talks to Ian Russell (Head of Art & Design) about her life in music
How did music start for you?
I was about seven years old. At my primary school there was a violin group, run by my sister’s music teacher. Because my older sister had been playing for a while, I’d always heard the violin in my house.
How has your playing developed since then?
There have definitely been phases when I’ve felt I wasn’t doing so well, but those have just made me
more determined. There have been points when I’ve been challenged by really hard pieces, put in demanding situations, and been inspired by great performers.
A key point for me was when I played with professional violinist Nicola Benedetti. It was in 2017, and I was in NYO (the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain). I had been leading that orchestra for two years. We were told we would be playing with Ms Benedetti in Glasgow: we would be performing The Lark Ascending (by Vaughan Williams), and I would be leading while she played solo. When they announced it, I burst into tears in front of everyone –about 100 people. At our first rehearsal, I stood up for her to sit in the leader’s chair, and she said “Oh no, you sit there.” So, I sat in the leading position while Nicola Benedetti sat next to me, which was insane! She was talking to me and asking me, “How do you do this?” and I was saying “You shouldn’t be asking me!”
And I’m playing with her again this summer. She’s coming back to NYO; she’ll be playing Shostakovich’s final concerto at the Proms with us.
In NYO we go to schools around the country that don’t have music support – it’s called NYO Inspire –and we see what parts they’re challenged with and help them. At times you feel that it’s taking up quite a big part of your life, but then you’re put in a situation when you’re allowed to play with the English National Ballet, like I did in October, or the BBC Symphonie Orchestra, and then you feel like the junior person in the situation.
What’s your performing schedule like?
It’s very jam-packed and tiring. At the end of each course, you have tours where you go across the UK and perform in maybe five concerts over five days. We would probably be driven by coach to the venue on the first day, perform, and then get to a hotel at two or three o’clock in the morning. Later that same day, we drive to a new venue, three or four hours away, rehearse the whole day, perform, and so on over five consecutive days. So, by the end, you’re absolutely shattered; in the coach, we’re all very silent, basically just sitting there, swaying!
Do you get time to make new friends?
Definitely. They allow time for socialising as well! I have gained friendships I’ll have for life. I have good friends at school, but most of them don’t have the same interest in music as me.
Is it ever tricky for you, managing these two lives?
It is really hard because I’m having to juggle academic work at school with a whole, other, quite extreme, music life.
What it is like when you are performing and something goes wrong?
When I was younger, I had scares when I was performing, where I used the music but I was not wanting to always stare at it. I’d listen to myself and maybe close my eyes. So, I’d be playing away and then I’d suddenly think: oh, what comes next? I’d look at the music and couldn’t find where I was, so I’d just stop and freak out. I had wait for the next part of the piano to start, so I could say “oh, I’m here” and carry on. Those little scares put the fear of God in you. I always learn the whole of my pieces off by heart now, so I don’t have to rely on the music; I can rely on my own sounds.
Are you affected by your audience?
It is definitely a big factor. I’ve performed in front of a wide variety of audiences. Playing, say, in the Proms, at the Royal Albert Hall, one of the largest halls anywhere, when it’s absolutely packed, and tickets have sold out in a matter of days, is just insane! The amount of adrenalin you have, in the moment, when you’re looking out at just dots of faces. It’s mad! It’s extremely exciting playing to such a large number of people.
How do you cope with preperformance nerves?
When I was younger, I did get quite anxious before performances. As you get older and perform more, you realise the audience is not judging you; they have come there to enjoy something. Now that I know that on both sides, we are both enjoying it, it’s less stressful. I don’t have to do the calming exercises I did when I was younger; I’m more excited than nervous now.
What are your other music commitments?
RCM – every Saturday, I trek up to London. I wake up at about six, my first lesson is at eight-thirty, and my day finishes at five. Somewhere in there I get a 15-minute break! It’s very gruelling, but it’s totally worth it because I get to play the best music with the best musicians in the world. There are people who fly from Ireland, Germany and such each week to be there!
What’s a typical day like at the Royal College?
This year, I’ve had a couple of chamber groups: I have a string quartet and a wind quintet, where I play the bassoon. I play in two orchestras. I lead the symphonia with my violin – that was a prize I auditioned for and was lucky enough to get. There’s also one-to-one tuition; I have two-and-a-half hours on a Saturday. I’m playing piano, violin and bassoon. It’s definitely getting demanding. But it’s what I want to do; it’s worth it!
G ENTLY W EEPS
M Y G UITAR
Words by Caitlin Pittol-Neville
(Lower 6th)
Guitars come in many different types, each with different musical possibilities. The classical guitar is a six-string wooden instrument with nylon and metal strings, which is different to acoustic and electric guitars which have steel strings for all six. The nylon gives the classical guitar a slightly different sound, as well making it softer on the fingers to pluck.
Classical guitar is often overlooked by composers who may think of it as being too limited a solo instrument to write for. Its relatively narrow dynamic range (the difference in volume between its quietest and loudest sounds) makes it challenging to play with an accompaniment, its tuning makes it hard to play in certain keys, and its limited sustain means it doesn’t lend itself to having chords and melody played simultaneously.
However, the classical guitar is a unique instrument that has a wide range of composition opportunities.
The history of the guitar lies in classical and folk music, so its repertoire has features from both musical styles.
In South America the vihuela is a traditional four-string instrument that is still in use today. The guitar’s tuning is pretty similar to this instrument, and the chord patterns that originated on the vihuela have transferred to the guitar. Another type of folk music that the classical guitar has been influenced by is flamenco. Both vihuela and flamenco music feature heavy syncopation. In flamenco, instead of having four beats in a bar, there are twelve, and the emphasis is placed on beats 3, 6, 8,10 and 12. The right hand is very important and there are lots of different strumming patterns that involve spreading your fingers over the strings. Polyrhythmic texture (where rhythms overlap) is a major feature of flamenco music. However, as flamenco is a form of folk music and is often improvised, it’s generally not written down in sheet music form, which makes it much harder for composers and classical guitarists to work with it.
The nature of the guitar has also been influenced by the lute, from the baroque period, where the lute would often play the continuo (which provides the harmonic structure of the music), instead of a harpsicord.
Orchestral string instruments are restricted to the same tuning for all pieces, while the guitar’s bottom three strings can be retuned to make it easier to play in different keys and make use of open strings. Although the sustained sound you get from a bowed instrument is unachievable on a guitar, there are lots of different, and quite unique, effects one can get. For example, there is apoyando and tirando (rest stroke and free stroke): a rest stroke is where your finger slides
from one string to the other to make a stronger louder sound, and a free stroke is where the finger plucks the string without interfering with any other strings. Guitars also have their own pizzicato (plucked) effect, where the palm of the right hand rests on the bridge of the guitar to slightly mute the strings. Tremolos can be made by rapidly plucking the same string with your fingers one after the other and then repeating to get a constant stream of sound. In the twenty-first century, guitarist composers like Brouwer have experimented with tapping the guitar and its strings to get percussive effects.
I love the classical guitar; it is an instrument with a lot of potential that is much more than simply a chordal instrument.
SMOKE & MIRRORS
Theano Atalianis (Lower 6th) considers the psychology of magic.
Picture by Miranda Peart
Irecently attended a fascinating exhibition, with the same title as this article, at The Wellcome Collection in Bloomsbury, London.
In recent years psychologists have begun to appreciate how magicians exploit the difference between what we think we see and what we actually perceive. I’ve been doing some research in this area, through work I’ve been doing on some university modules. In fact, one of the contributors to the exhibition is an academic I met at an open day organised by Goldsmiths, University of London. He has developed a module on this very topic.
The research on this topic extends back to the 19th century, when there was a coincidence of interest in science and in the paranormal being used as a form of entertainment. Around the end of the 19th century, there was a popular rise in spiritualism, including a widespread belief that the living could communicate with the dead. This gave rise to séances, the use of ouija boards, and photographs that appeared to capture ghostly images. Victorian magicians became very proficient at using these elements in their stage shows. Researchers began to question how we evaluate evidence and process our individual experiences. These are questions current psychologists are still trying to answer.
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the act of misdirection
One of the techniques used by magicians is the act of misdirection. This involves us relaxing our attention at a key moment whilst being guided to look elsewhere. Eye-tracking technology is being used at the MAGIC Lab at Goldsmiths to observe where people look when magicians perform tricks. For example, a trick in which the magician apparently made a cigarette lighter disappear was clearly shown to be the consequence of misdirection, achieved by the magician attracting the audiences’ attention away from the lighter whilst he dropped a cigarette. The famous magician/comedian Tommy Cooper practised misdirection by talking constantly, and apparently failing to complete his tricks, while successfully carrying out other tricks.
The exhibition contained an intriguing example
of a trick that involved the magician throwing a ball up in the air three times. On the fourth attempt, most observers reported having seen the ball being thrown again and subsequently disappearing whilst in the air. In reality, a person’s brain predicts the next action from prior information, as there is a lag between what you see and how it is processed in the brain. This is exploited by the magician: the ball was, in fact, never thrown a fourth time.
The Smoke and Mirrors exhibition provided fascinating insights into how our mind works, as well as the historical and contemporary concerns of psychologists. It demonstrated how susceptible we are to suggestion, misinformation and deception.
THE AENEID
George Sharpley set up The Latin Quarter to promote the enjoyment and learning of Latin. For his Arms and the Man project, he trained opera singers to perform excerpts from Vergil’s Aeneid in Latin, to give audiences a sense of how it would have sounded when first performed in Rome. Eileen Zoratti (Senior 6th) was one of the singers chosen to perform. Mae Brennan (Lower 6th) talks to George Sharpley and Eileen Zoratti about their work on the project
What is challenging about bringing the celebrated story of The Aeneid to life?
Eileen Zoratti: Reciting the Latin with its metre, without sticking to it so rigidly that it sounds repetitive.
George Sharpley: From an editing point of view, keeping as much of the original as I could, yet appeal to people with and without Latin.
What are the elements of a good performance?
EZ: Using the space we are given is a key element. My character, Camilla, entered from the audience seating, making for an engaging performance. Using humour plays a key role, as it balances the drama and intense battle scenes.
GS: A lasting connection between the performers and the audience.
Why did you want to be involved in this production?
EZ: After attending two of GS's courses on reading Latin, I jumped at the opportunity to be part of such a unique initiative.
GS: I’ve long had my heart in the idea of bringing this poem to life.
How does this performance bring a new dimension to the
legendary tale of Aeneas?
EZ: Its accessibility to everyone. Those who know little to no Latin are still able to appreciate and enjoy the performance.
GS: As with other great myths, this tale resonates with all ages. Various themes from the story are close to home - facing up to adversity; refugees escaping brutality; indigenous populations having to accommodate new arrivals, to name only a few.
Why do you think it is important for classical theatre to continue?
EZ: It is important to perform classical productions to preserve and revive them. They play an equally key role in modern society as they did in ancient times. As most works have been lost, it is crucial to keep alive those that have survived the test of time.
GS: So that these great works can reach wider audiences. In my view, an opportunity to hear poetry of this kind is critical to our engagement with it.
How do you keep the audience engaged throughout the performance?
EZ: George’s introductions in English to each section of Latin.
They set the scene and underline aspects that may be lost if the performance was in continuous Latin.
GS: You need to ask the audience!
Why do you think classical productions maintain a relevance to contemporary society?
EZ: Performances of classical works, such as Greek tragedy, are the foundation of modern theatre and even television. BBC writers are taught Aristotle’s Poetics, and Natalie Haynes wrote an article about soap writers confessing to “greeking up” a plot: employing topoi, something first introduced in Greek tragedy to keep their soaps dramatic and shocking. In short, to fully appreciate modern theatre it is essential to look at its classical origins.
GS: Classics is a dimension to our heritage we are very lucky to have. It’s there for us to explore and re-imagine. It’s not possible to consider the ancient world without comparison to our own. Real food for thought! In fact, if the curriculum were a plate of food, I see Classics as the sauce. What in itself is so multi-disciplinary, brings the best out of all the other disciplines.
Iam fascinated by philosophy – the idea of thousands of years of minds bouncing off each other to further the cause of the intellect just makes me want to join their ranks – and it’s my favourite part of my RS A Level course.
Here’s an example of the kind of thing that intrigues me about the subject:
There is a particular type of logic-based argument used by theist (religious) philosophers to prove God’s existence. It’s called a priori, which means using reason and logic rather than physical or visual evidence to support your position.
St Anselm of Canterbury was an unassuming monk who, it seems, was impressed with the reasonobsessed atheist philosophers he encountered and was keen to construct his own argument for the existence of God along similar lines. Apparently, his prayers were answered, as he eventually laid out his reasoning in a meditation that he wrote called Proslogion. However, the argument he posited has proved contentious, to say the least. Indeed, one of his own students, Gaunilo of Marmoutiers, was later moved to publish his criticism of it in his own work, In Behalf of the Fool
Anselm’s reasoning, known as the Ontological Argument, can be expressed like this: Firstly, to try to explain God, we must first understand him. So, we must find a definition. Anselm suggested that God is, “a being that which nothing greater can be conceived.” Simply put, God is the greatest being, who possesses all the qualities that embody greatness.
Secondly, existence is a quality, and a good one at that. Take, for example, £50. Imagining a £50 note in your head won’t pay for your McDonalds, but a £50 note that possesses the quality of existing will be able to bring you McDonalds and more. Existence is definitely good.
Thirdly, God, by definition, possesses all good qualities. Existence is a good quality. Therefore, God exists!
Now, at this point you may feel you are being cheated by a deceptively simple word trick. You wouldn’t be the only one; many philosophers
have been enraged and frustrated by this succinct argument. One pointed out, “It is easier to be speak of the flaws of the Ontological Argument than to actually find them.”
Of course, as a philosophy student, I am obliged to question and pick apart virtually everything I see. Plato, one of the earliest philosophers, refused to acknowledge the existence of anything he witnessed, preferring to trust only in his logic, presumably to the frustration of pretty much everyone in his life.
Probably, the most straightforward way to undo Anselm’s reasoning is to challenge the first premise of his argument. If God is not actually “a being that which nothing greater can be conceived”, He doesn’t need to have all those impressive traits. The argument, therefore, crumbles. God doesn’t exist.
If ever you find someone articulating a supposedly bulletproof argument to you, you can leave them speechless by simply rejecting their first premise.
It seems to me that this is indicative of a key aspect of philosophy. Over the years, many have thought they’ve struck gold with their brand-new idea. They have proudly presented their new idea to the world, only for it to be ripped apart by a waiting body of intellectuals.
Words by Ella Hatherall (Lower 6th). Paintings by Sophia
Scholey (Year 11)
THE ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT
religious studies
co-curricular
Last July, a group of Lower 6th students embarked on SWPS’ first international Gold DofE expedition. Here are their reports. Pictures by Sean McGachie and members of the group.
AWARD DUKE OF EDINBURGH’S
Emily Peyton
For this expedition, we teamed up with a group of students from Kingston Grammar School. Our journey took us to Triglav National Park in Slovenia. We spent four days trekking through the mountains, sleeping at night in rural mountain huts. On the nights before and after the walking, everyone stayed at a youth hostel by the picturesque Lake Bohinj. After completing the expedition, we also stopped off at Lake Bled and the country’s capital Ljubljana to eat, shop and take in the sights.
The variety of the landscape in Slovenia is what struck me most. We were surprised at how within relatively short amounts of time, we were able to walk through snowy mountain tops, dense forests, and valleys of flowers with clear blue lakes. At times, it felt as if we were travelling across different planets, moving say from the surface of the moon to hills resembling those “alive with the sound of music”, although we were in the Julian alps rather than the Swiss ones.
My favourite moment of the expedition was coming over the final mountain peak and spotting the hut where we would be staying at the end of our second, and hardest, day. This was after hours of our expectations being raised and dashed by false summit after summit. We all agreed, though, that our breath-taking surroundings served to distract us and raise our morale when our energy was at its lowest.
Cristiana Iacob
One of the most dramatic moments during our expedition was when Anna and I decided to walk up an almost vertical slope of loose rock. It did not go well. We were hiking along a winding path up to our hut at the end of Day Two, about 2000 metres in altitude, and we thought it would be a great idea to skip all the loops in the path and just walk straight up. It had just started pouring with rain, making the rocks super slippery, so as we tried to scramble our way up, we soon found ourselves falling back down. Needless to say, we were in floods of tears at our own stupidity, as was the rest of our group who had gone along the path and were watching us slide down the side of the mountain. Theirs, of course, were tears of laughter.
We encountered another problem with the steep terrain when Caitlin dropped her camera while walking along a narrow path on the side of a cliff. As the camera fell, it got stuck in a branch about two meters down from the path, just out of our reach. We decided that we would have to get it back somehow. With help from the rest of the group holding her legs, and an impressive demonstration of her walkingpole-fishing skills, Caitlin eventually managed to retrieve her camera.
Rebekah Smith
We saw a wide variety of wildlife, very different to that of the UK because of the different altitudes and the unique climate of Slovenia. We spotted a marmot, who tend to live in mountainous areas. Although we saw only one, there were quite a few burrows around.
Chamois are similar to brown deer and live very high up in the mountains. We saw quite a few on our climb up to our refuge near Triglav at a height of 2151 metres. Coronella austriaca is a species of snake. We came across several, including one swallowing a mouse, on the same climb.
On our last day we encountered a lot of mountain cattle, who came worryingly close to us, even ones with calves. Cattle in Slovenia wear a bell around their neck in order to scare off predators such as bears.
Caitlin Pittol-Neville
The sudden weather changes in Slovenia greatly affected our progress at times. On our second day, there was on/off rain, and we kept having to stop
to put our raincoats and waterproof bag covers on. There was also a storm in the valley next to us; hearing the thunder while trekking through the mountains was quite alarming.
We would often start the day with our thermals and raincoats on, and then have to stop after about thirty minutes when we’d got too hot from walking. Sometimes we would start in 23 degrees but by the end of the day we’d be up a 2000-metre-high mountain, ploughing through snow with our hats and gloves on.
Later in the evenings, there was fog up in the mountains, making it hard to see where we were supposed to be going. This was quite disheartening, but we powered through!
Mirren Black
As camping is forbidden in the national park, we stayed in mountain refuge huts during our expedition. Each hut had a different character, with the highest and most remote one being above the snow line. The huts didn’t have running water so, as well as using very basic toilet facilities, we had to buy bottled water that had been airlifted in. Staying in refuge huts meant we were more involved with the mountain hiking community, which turned out to be very friendly, and also meant we had to adapt to slight cultural differences. For instance, at our first refuge, we didn’t initially realise we had to take all our rubbish with us, instead of leaving it in the bins in the hut. Outdoor shoes were not allowed inside at all, and had to be exchanged for communal slippers in the porch. Although I enjoy camping, I think the refuge huts were an amazing alternative to finish off our DofE experience.
Harriet Jordan (Lower 6th)
Cristiana Iacob (Lower 6th)
Katherine Moore (Lower 6th)
Brooke Griffith (Lower 6th)
Lauren Christian (Lower 6th)
Bea Ross (Senior 6th)
Emily Clarke (Senior 6th)
Jessica Stamford (Lower 6th)
Grace Bradshaw (Senior 6th)
Kitty Gahir (Senior 6th)
Eden Plaistowe (Senior 6th)
CROSS EXAMINING
JUSTICE
Words by Thea David (Lower 6th). Artwork by Tabitha Inglis (Year 11)
Before stepping into a courtroom at Kingston Crown Court, the closest I had ever come to seeing justice in action was watching Elle Woods’ inspirational (and very reallife account) journey from sorority sister to a Harvard valedictorian. The courtroom I stepped into was not nearly as dignified as the room where Elle wins over judge and jury with her knowledge of perm durability. For a start, you can’t even enter a courtroom without going through intimidating airport-style security first. Once past that, there’s not one but twelve courtrooms hosting numerous cases ranging from drug offences to fraud.
Kingston Crown Court is a criminal court. It is on the second rung of the ladder in our justice system, one up from the Magistrate’s Court which hears more minor crimes, but still low enough to feature an entire landscape of criminal cases from our area. Unlike civil courts, criminal courts remain the only type of court in the UK to use a jury. But here, unlike in the US, a jury cannot be hand-picked in any way. Instead the twelve individuals can be anyone on the electoral roll; from a SWPS student, to their teacher, to their teacher’s grandma.
During my visit, a lot of my misconceptions were undermined. For instance, British judges don’t use gavels, which they can hit authoritatively whilst screeching “Order!” Instead, it’s the court clerks and
the ushers who call the court into session and swear in the jury.
But this is common. In one particular case involving sexual harassment, the chief witness asked if he needed to hold up his hand while swearing on the Bible to “tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” ‘No, he didn’t’”, replied the weary defence barrister. Like a considerable number of us, his only other experience of justice had been fuelled by TV drama.
But these cases were not perfectly scripted. They weren’t packaged with interlinking plot points, winding up neatly in 60 minutes plus advertisements. No, our current court system does not run nearly as smoothly as television would suggest. Instead the British legal system faces more and more cuts. Spending on legal aid alone has shrunk more than £1 billion in five years (The Guardian, 2018), meaning that some of the most disadvantaged defendants and claimants have next to no access to legal advice aside from their local CAB (Citizen’s Advice Bureau).
It seems incredulous in the UK, where the state of the NHS is regularly under scrutiny, that the same doesn’t apply to our justice system.
Thankfully though, this is increasingly being addressed. From The Secret Barrister’s anonymous blogging, to tireless law students who engage in pro bono, the work of volunteers in courts and the CAB, we are seeing that whilst law can be practised in Suits-esque high rises in the City, its very foundations are built on all of us.
ISOCIAL MEDI
Words by Emily Peyton (Lower
t can be said that we undoubtedly live in a world where social media in varying forms has a significant effect on people. The intent of this article is not to pass judgement on that. On a personal level, I myself arguably fall victim to deriving enjoyment from it at best, and being addicted at worst. Instead, I intend to explore the effect social media and the whistle-stop way it progresses from one viral story to another has on crimes committed by large corporations.
There is evidence that 74% of articles published online hit peak viewing on the day of publication, and only reach 25% of their target audience the next day. In fact, by the end of the month, it is likely to only reach 2% of its intended readership. We can perhaps link this with the perpetually transitory nature of modern media outlets. This in turn causes the average reader to dismiss yesterday’s story before it has any actual impact. The inexcusable actions of industry titans become just that- excused and swept under the proverbial rug.
social media
6th)
They serve to demonstrate just how little Amazon cares for the welfare of its employees, a far cry from the supposed pride CEO Jeff Bezos holds in the working conditions and wages of his company.
However, Amazon is not the only culprit of such deplorable actions, as fellow technology giant Apple have their fair share of dirty laundry. A study published in September 2018 found that in the previous 18 months, fifty human rights allegations were made against Apple. A poignant example of their misdemeanours was in 2010 when at one of their Chinese factories, workers began committing suicide. There were 14 confirmed deaths and many more attempts that year. Then in 2012, 150 workers gathered on a rooftop and threatened to jump, a soon to be recurring pattern over the coming years. Another of Apple’s suppliers, a tin mine on the Indonesian island of Bangka was discovered to be using children to dig tin ore out by hand, all while at risk of deadly landslides.
In the same 2018 study, Samsung was found to have 137 allegations of corruption and fraud made against it.
often distracts us from corporate conduct
This characteristic of the media has arguably led to widespread consumer ignorance, both intentional and not, of human rights travesties that many highprofile companies get up to behind closed factory doors. For example, employees of the Amazon supplier Foxconn’s factory in Hengyang, China have been found to perform up to eighty hours of overtime a month. This number is far higher than the 36 hours permitted in Chinese labour laws and the workers do so while still receiving only basic pay, which is illegal.
Yet this is not an isolated problem. Closer to home, it has been reported that ambulances have been called out six hundred times to UK warehouse sites in the last three years. Reasons for these calls vary from major trauma to maternity complications.
However, it must be said that modern media has not wholly made holding companies accountable harder. It is also true that forms of social media have enabled many to make themselves and others aware, if they know where to look online. In fact, some brands have even used this to their advantage in order to demonstrate their social responsibility and are deservedly lauded for it, such as the ice-cream producers Ben & Jerry’s. They are advocates of fighting climate change, supporting immigrants and marriage equality, which their online presence only serves to emphasise.
Therefore, although social media often distracts us from corporate conduct, it also gives a voice to those who want to call attention to it, whether it be the good, the bad or the ugly truth of it.
CCOUNT ABILTY A
Picture by Katerina Matheson
REAL CHANGE?
Words by Sylvie Evans (Lower 6th). Picture by Eve Thomas (Year 10)
History might not repeat itself, but it often has a loud echo
It’s an assertion that seems to ring truer every day, in this world of increasingly polarised politics, governmental uncertainty and divided authorities. While the state of our politics appears to mirror that of the past more and more, it seems our level of resistance does too. The growing numbers of attendees at the annual international women’s marches can be compared to that of the suffrage marches of the early 20th century, and campaigns about involvement in the Middle East echo the anti-war resistance to the Vietnam War in the 1960s.
Recent examples of celebrity political resistance have also mirrored those of the past. Perhaps one of the most striking comparisons is protests among sports stars, specifically track and field athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos, and former San Francisco 49ers quarterback, Colin Kaepernick. For many of us on this side of the Atlantic, Smith and Carlos are firmly cemented into our cultural iconography, with the image of them holding up the black power salute while the Star-Spangled Banner played. Theirs was one of many public demonstrations that was about the fight for racial equality. Smith and Carlos had come first and third respectively in the 200m sprint in the 1968 Olympics, hosted by Mexico City, and they gave the salute as a part of their general protest at the state of American civil rights. Furthermore, both received their medals shoeless, as a way of representing black poverty, with Smith wearing a black scarf to illustrate black pride and Carlos unzipping his tracksuit as a way
of portraying the struggle of America’s blue-collar workers. This now iconic image failed to even feature on the cover of the New York Times in October 1968; the paper instead reported the event with a rather small article on the front page, perhaps as a way of attempting to diminish the magnitude of the moment within modern American history.
That lack of front-page coverage is similar to the positioning of the article written in the New York Times professional football section in September 2016 about quarterback Colin Kaepernick. The footballer chose to kneel during the national anthem, which is played at the beginning of every NFL (National Football League) game, rather than go with convention and stand, holding one hand over his heart.
the fight was nowhere near finished
The physical positions in both these protests represent the same kind of externalization of meaning. Carlos and Smith adopted their pose as a way of protesting against the extreme racial inequality present in America, with Smith stating later, “We were concerned about the lack of black assistant coaches. About how Muhammed Ali got stripped of his title. About the lack of access to good housing and our kids not being able to attend the top colleges.” Their public action now seems instrumental in the fight for civil rights, an issue many Americans felt had been somewhat solved through President Lyndon B. Johnson’s civil rights bill in 1964. However, Smith and Carlos demonstrated that the fight was nowhere near
finished. The reception they received underlined this: the pair were booed off the podium, were suspended from the US national team and banned from the Olympic village for, in the words of a spokesperson for the International Olympic Committee, “a deliberate and violent breach of the fundamental principles of the Olympic salute.”
It appears that Kaepernick was motivated by similar issues apparently still plaguing America, close to fifty years later. Kaepernick stated that he chose to kneel because he was “not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of colour.” Kaepernick’s protest came in the wake of several young African-American people being gunned down by police officers, with officers rarely being held accountable for their actions in what could have been peaceful arrests and the subsequent demonstrations by the Black Lives Matter movement.
Kaepernick experienced a similar backlash to that of Smith and Carlos, with the NFL suffering an 8% decline in viewership, with a significant number of them stating, in a subsequent survey, that this happened as a direct result of players’ on-field protests.
Kaepernick eventually left the 49ers and filed a lawsuit against the NFL for blackballing him from being signed to any new teams.
The similarity between these two cases raises many questions about the nature of peaceful protest and celebrity demonstration. It appears that both of the main organizations involved remarked that their objections were to the idea of protest taking place on the “non-political” sports stage. This, however, reveals an entirely failed understanding of the nature of political protest. It seems to me that change can be rendered by two things: education and action. Smith, Carlos and Kaepernick’s decision to take on prominent physical poses was their action, which motivated many previously uninformed viewers to get up and educate themselves. Furthermore, the assumption by both agencies involved that this protest is merely a flippant, spur of the moment decision illustrates a failed understanding of the nature of systemic oppression in America. Smith, Carlos and Kaepernick can live without sports and have done so. But they can’t escape the racism that continually afflicts minorities across the world. In the words of Kaepernick, “this is bigger than football”.
Much of the expression of racism may well have changed from the 1960s to today, but the unquestionable similarities in these two events surely begs the question: how much has really, fundamentally changed? The days of segregation seem far behind us, but implicit or systemic racism can still seem present wherever we turn. The Western world prides itself on development, growth and change. How sure are we that we are making the changes that really matter?
real change?
Jess Condron (Senior 6th) and
a group of intrepid classmates free-fall
for charity
D
ISKY VING
One Tuesday afternoon, the five of us were sat discussing things that we wanted to tick off our bucket list. Something that was common between us all, was to do something outlandish in order to raise as much as we could for charity. Searching the web, we found the one thing that terrified but excited us the most - jumping out of a plane at 10,000ft and dropping at 120mph. After a bit of convincing, we all agreed that we were up for it and booked the dive. We chose the Anthony Nolan Trust to support, as we had a talk on this charity only a few weeks before in a life skills class; it was also a charity that was close to our hearts.
The Anthony Nolan Trust is a charity which helps to fund research and development into blood cancer and other blood disorders. They match incredible individuals willing to donate their stem cells, to people who desperately need a lifesaving transplant. They also carry out cutting-edge scientific research, fund specialist post-transplant nurses and support patients and their families through the transplant process and beyond.
Our aim was to raise £2000 for the Anthony Nolan Trust, which we reached fairly quickly due to kind donations, bake sales and other fundraising events. £2000 was enough to add 48 more people to the Stem Cell Register, meaning as many as 48 lives could be saved through our work alone.
When the day finally came, it was blue skies and
cloud-free – prefect jumping conditions. We had all stayed at Lauren’s house so were could be up bright and early to get to Swindon for the jump. After some terrible singing in Jess’s car we arrived at the jump site. We signed our waivers, accepting that any accidents were our own responsibility, and then had half an hour of training before kitting up and heading to the skies. We all successfully completed the jump, front flipping out of the plane, followed by 35/40 seconds of free fall, and then a parachute journey down to the ground. We got the opportunity to steer the parachutes, experimenting with corkscrew glides and other fun tricks before landing safely.
We would like to once again thank everyone who donated. We raised a total of £3033, enough to add 71 possible lifesaving donors to the stem cell register. It was a thoroughly enjoyable and rewarding experience, yet one that some of the jumpers probably won’t be doing again in a hurry.
JOSE PH
Report by Ellie Priddis (Lower 6th). Pictures by Kate Carpenter
For this year’s Production in a Weekend, the Lower Sixth decided to stage Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat. Over just three days, with a cast assembled from across the whole school, we taught, choreographed, directed and staged the show, performing it to a full house on the Sunday evening. It was a roaring success, with standout performances from our leads, Niamh Moynihan (Year 10) and Izzy Barnfather (Year 11), as well as incredible work from the whole cast. Every cast member performed at their best and worked extremely
hard over an intensive weekend, sometimes in as many as three or four different roles.
It is not an easy show to perform; the narrator is on stage for the whole show, bar two songs, and some of our actors had up to four speedy costume changes. Despite this, we all had loads of fun and couldn’t have hoped for a better weekend. Regardless of any mistakes or issues that came up, everyone rose brilliantly to the challenge.
Lauren Christian and Caitlin Pittol-Neville worked incredibly hard prior to the weekend to arrange orchestrations for the band. Lauren also proved to be an amazing conductor of our band, in which Caitlin played multiple instruments. They were aided by Isobel Eriksen and Sarah Johnson who directed the singing. The whole band played wonderfully; their hard work definitely paid off!
The dancing was choreographed by Roxy Mather, Katherine Moore and me. We were very impressed with how quickly the cast picked up everything. There were a lot of group numbers involving tricky choreography, harmonies and blocking. Trying to learn all those moves (whilst remembering the harmonies they’ve only just learnt!), often in as little as twenty minutes, was not easy, but time and again everyone proved they were up to the task. The fun everyone had translated to an end product that looked fantastic on stage.
The stage-managing team – made up of Salena Ali, Thea David, Sylvie Evans and Ria Mistry (Lower Sixth) – worked together to make an incredibly smooth-running show, and somehow made it look effortless. Having their help, and their calm exteriors, was invaluable and made my job as director so much easier.
Of course, our production would not have been complete without Sophie Bartop and Ruth Devapragasam (Lower Sixth) leading the tech crew so faultlessly. The lighting and sound throughout the whole show looked and sounded absolutely amazing, especially the signature rainbow lighting which we were all very excited to see.
By the end of the Sunday night performance, we felt so proud of everyone; it really showed just how much fun we’d all had together over three intensive, exciting, creative, exhausting, memorable days.
home economics BAKED AUBERGINE
A favourite recipe from Lizzie Sevenoaks, perfect for entertaining friends when you move away from home
Serves 2 Ingredients
1 aubergine
2 garlic cloves- cut in half lengthways
a few sprigs of fresh thyme, or a sprinkle of dried olive oil
Salad
50g of giant couscous or equivalent grain- such as quinoa handful of cherry tomatoes, radishes and diced cucumber
5 fresh mint leaves sprinkle of dried mint leaves
Sauce
100g plain yoghurt
1 crushed garlic clove juice of half a lemon glug of extra virgin olive oil
Garnish (optional)
a handful of pomegranate seeds a sprinkle of sumac a sprinkle of za’atar
Pictures by Lizzie Sevenoaks; bowls made by Jane Sevenoaks
Method
Preheat your oven to 200° C. Take your aubergine and cut it in half lengthways, score the insides in a crosshatch pattern, but be careful to not cut through the skin. Place the aubergines cut side up in a baking tray. Take your peeled and cut garlic cloves, push these into the scored flesh of the aubergine. Pour a generous amount of olive oil over the top. The oil will be absorbed quickly, make sure that the aubergine looks saturated, as the oil will help make the cooked aubergine flavoursome and nicely browned. Sprinkle your fresh or dried thyme leaves over the top. Season with salt and pepper. Place in the middle of the oven for around 35-40 minutes, or until it is nicely browned. Once cooked, remove from the oven and allow to cool to room temperature.
Whilst the aubergine is cooking, prepare the giant couscous for your salad (if you’re using a different grain, follow the instructions on the packet). Bring roughly 100 ml of salted water up to the boil and add the couscous, allow to cook for 5 minutes or until the couscous is al dente. Drain and set aside to cool.
You can now begin chopping the vegetables; cut the tomatoes, radishes and cucumber into a rough dice and place in a bowl. Shred the mint leaves and add to the vegetables,
baked aubergine
along with half a teaspoon of dried mint, season with salt and pepper and a glug of extra virgin olive oil. Once the couscous is cooled, add to the salad and stir.
To make the sauce, pour 100g of plain yoghurt into a bowl, add one crushed garlic clove, the juice of half a lemon and a splash of extra virgin olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Stir to combine.
To serve, place an aubergine half on a plate, spoon some salad beside it. Drizzle the yoghurt dressing over the aubergine and sprinkle a pinch of za’atar and sumac over if using. Scatter pomegranate seeds over the plate.
GOOD VIBRATIONS
Report by Caitlin Pittol-Neville
“Develop a solution to identify sand production in a fluid flow stream within pipework.”
This was the project title that a group of five A Level students were given by BP last November.
The project was part of the Engineering Education Scheme (EES), and the group spent six months working on it with the help of two BP mentors and SWPS physics teacher Ashley Tilling.
Sand production in pipework is a serious issue for the oil and gas industry, as when sand collects in the pipes the flow stream (i.e. the flow of oil, gas or water through a pipe) has to be slowed down to keep the pipe open and allow as little erosion as possible, which makes the pipe less efficient. In 2010, sand erosion of pipes was part of what caused the Deep Water Horizon oil spill – the biggest oil spill in history – where millions of litres of oil were leaked into the Gulf of Mexico, having a huge impact on the wildlife and natural habitat.
If oil companies were able to detect when sand production was increasing, they could slow down the flow of the pipe proportionally to the amount of sand collecting, to cause minimal erosion and prevent environmental accidents.
The group hypothesised different methods of sand detection, but decided using an accelerometer to measure vibrations in three dimensions would be the most effective. The experiment set up went through many evolutions before the final design was finished.
During January 2019, the group went on a residential trip to UCL (University College London),
(Lower 6th)
where they were able to work solidly on the project for two days. Here they had access to 3D printers, which they used to design specifically sized funnels to control the flow rate of sand.
The final product consisted of two containers, connected by a 1.5m copper pipe with a diameter of 15mm at an angle of 45°, to allow the flow stream to flow at a slow enough rate for the accelerometer to pick up. The accelerometer was placed by the bend in the pipe, where the most vibrations would be detected. Although the team faced a few struggles using the accelerometer – a piece of kit unfamiliar to all of them – they worked tirelessly after school collecting results.
While at UCL, members of the group were also able to talk to one of BP’s experts in the field of sand detection, and get crucial information on how to analyse their data.
In order to use the data collected by the accelerometer, the group had to use a Fourier transform (a particular type of calculation) on it to change from acceleration-time data to amplitudefrequency data. This allowed them to plot graphs where they were able to see that the number of vibrations increased when the flow rate of sand was greater.
The group put all of their findings into a detailed report, and last May they went to BP to give a presentation about their project to a board of senior engineers. As a result of their hard work, they received the Gold EES Award – the highest award available at this engineering event. The research they did provides a good starting point for oil and gas companies to experiment more with vibration detection in oil pipes.
Picture by Pixabay
L IFE B EYOND SWPS
HANNAH SEVENOAKS
I left SWPS in 2004, embarking on a gap year working just down the road in St Peters Hospital as a health care assistant, before travelling to India for six months. Then I was off to Manchester to study medicine, and it is in the North West that I have remained ever since, now working as an orthopaedic surgery registrar.
I was Games Captain at SWPS, and my love of hockey, founded on the then grassy, lumpy and muddy pitches in Chertsey served me well through university, where I played almost every day in various university and medics’ teams. It also helped me find a community of like-minded, but importantly, non-medical friends once I had graduated, and was working in Manchester. I think it’s important to have a life outside of work, friends in different walks of life to enrich and balance your perspective on the world.
Speaking of which, in my final weeks at university, I was lucky enough to meet Mark, who’s now my husband, from the School of Architecture. The only people who stick around longer at university than medics are architects, and I have come to know of many architect/medic pairings! We have remained in Manchester and last autumn we had a daughter together, called Dot.
One of the great things about a medical career is its portability. While I have been very happy forging a life in Manchester, many of my friends have worked all over. I travelled widely in my gap year (I was based in Calcutta for part of it), during university and in my early working years. Life now has a slightly different pace with a baby in tow, but seeing the country and wider world remains important. I would encourage SWPS leavers to travel and see as much as they can when they are young and relatively anchorless. It doesn’t need to be exotic or pricey. I visited my international student uni friends at their homes, cycled across the UK and went on camping trips all over. Similarly, I would really encourage SWPS girls to try and live outside of south-east England for a while. For all its delights, there is a different world out there. I certainly enjoy the more laid back and friendly pace of life up north.
SWPS was formative in shaping my feminist identity, for which I am very grateful. Being surrounded by strong, intelligent and ambitious women (students and teachers) was inspiring and set me in good stead to break some new ground while working in the pretty male-dominated orthopaedics field, and find how to balance life as a mum. Looking to the future, I only hope I can find an environment as nurturing and positive as SWPS for my daughter to blossom in.
life beyond swps
CAMILLA BELL
I left SWPS in 1996 after taking my A Levels in Biology, Physics and Chemistry, along with AS French. One of my main memories of school is the inverseTardis-like nature of the place – it seemed so massive when you trotted through the door in Year 7, but soon it became like an extension of your own home. I also enjoyed the gradual increase in autonomy as you went through the school - little by little the independent spirit is stretched until you are making your own path in life.
I decided to study Biological Sciences at King’s College London, as I wanted to stay in a lab for as long as possible. I always liked working in a laboratory – and when do you get to do that in everyday life?
After I left uni, I worked as a researcher in the built environment sphere for a year, switching to financial technologies (known as FinTech) in 2001; I was attracted to a company that gave all the staff doughnuts on a Friday afternoon! This carb-loaded decision proved to be a very good move – FinTech has exploded in the last twenty years. The boom in algorithmic trading (using computers to run complex mathematical formulas for trading) has changed shape from what’s known as a race to zero (transporting financial data and trading decisions as fast as technology allows), to the more sedate resilience model, in which the risk of infrastructure failures is greatly reduced.
Finance and technology are both traditionally dominated by men, although this is a changing landscape. My speciality is translating complex data and ideas into reality. I thank my years of being an avid reader for my ability to take in information quickly, research areas that are unfamiliar, and come up with possible solutions.
For the first eight or nine years of my working life, I didn’t notice any sexism in the workplace, but as I became more senior, I definitely felt some pushback from colleagues, over having to take directions from a woman. I found this quite difficult, but you just have to have the courage to push through and challenge those mindsets. If you can back up your thinking with well-thought-out scientific reasoning, so much the better! Juggling motherhood with full-time work in London was also tough, but thanks to an excellent support network of other working parents, I found a reasonable balance.
Aside from genuinely loving my day-to-day job, as it is so varied and interesting (and comes with a great biscuit selection at the office), I thoroughly enjoy working because it gives me independence over my future. Even in my lifetime, women were required to have a male signatory to apply for a mortgage or bank account – can you imagine going back to that?
Forging a career in a male-dominated, technical environment has definitely given me a lot of satisfaction.
MEGAN BLACK
I left SWPS in 2015, and did an art foundation before deciding to study German literature and language at Oxford.
Currently, I am on my Year Abroad in Germany. The year started with a month art course in a small village of 45 people, which I secured from a funding scholarship from my university. From here I moved to Berlin to work for an art collective called bi’bak and have been working there ever since. The independent project space engages with a variety of socio-political issues such as migration, discourses on mobility, the construction of identities, labour questions, and cultural memory. Their interdisciplinary projects offer alternative perspectives and initiate new discourses on pressing debates that all too often seem unsolvable and intransigent. My main responsibilities are translation and editing, but as we are a small team, I have been doing a mixture of everything including events, finance plans, funding applications and even putting in some elbow grease and cleaning.
On the side, I have also received funding from the Berlin state to run my own projects. Kiez.schafft, the multidisciplinary collective art project, focuses on collective creating, collaboration and chains of associations. Each artist creates a piece in response to the previous works. It begins with an image. An artist responds to this image in their medium of choice: a painting. The following artist responds to the image and painting with a poem. And so the next artist creates. Each new contribution develops the narrative further until a collective work is created, coloured by many voices singing in many mediums. Here there are no restrictions apart from one: continue the narrative. Artists are given free reign with their response, choosing the content, medium and style. As a result, the narrative is formed through paintings, perfumes, poems, songs, soundscapes, costumes, videos, dances, objects, cameras, drawings, plays and more.
The exhibition for the first artists is in June. As I commission all the artists involved, I am hoping to secure more funding to continue the project. In July, I will be organising a similar project in rural
communities in Georgia, as part of an artist exchange programme that previously took me to Kosovo. I have also been freelancing as an editor and have published a booklet in partnership with Bosch Alumni network on recipes for intercultural dialogue after a workshop in Bologna. In November, I organised an all-female DJ workshop in Berlin, carrying over the concepts from workshops I ran in Oxford as part of the St Hugh’s Arts Week that I had reintroduced. At university I was always busy, from organising panel discussions on artivism to writing interviews with Christoph Wonneberger, a crucial figure in the Peaceful Revolution in Leipzig that contributed to the fall of the GDR. I think my advice would be to try everything out and go for applications even if you don’t think you will get them. I didn’t think I would get any of the funding or scholarships at the beginning. But if you just give it a try, you realise they are far more accessible than you realise. If you have ideas, do them, you never know where they might take you.
Pictures of Megan
by
Marvin Girbig
life beyond swps
JULIETTE WRIGHT
I left SWPS in 2016. I loved school and sincerely miss it; you don’t realise how precious your time at SWPS is until it’s over. I’m still close with my best friends from Year 7, even though we’re now scattered across the UK at different universities.
After Senior Sixth, I went to UCA Epsom to do an art foundation diploma. Art had always been my favourite subject throughout school. There were other subjects I did well in and enjoyed, but the support and encouragement from the SWPS Art Department confirmed that art was the right subject to pursue. It’s a common misconception that art as a degree won’t get you anywhere, but I’ve learnt an immense amount, meeting likeminded people and mading contacts I can use in the future. Art is everywhere you look, everything around us has been designed by an artist; there’s many opportunities in the art world that you can access through art degrees.
Being around students who did and didn’t do foundations, I’ve realised that although I found it very rewarding, it wasn’t necessary for others. For anyone deciding whether to do one, it is entirely dependent on your work ethic. A Level art is structured, with project titles and sketchbook pages, whereas the foundation helps prepare for the independence of degree level.
After my foundation, I went on to study Fine Art Painting at the University of Brighton. The tutors are working artists, sharing their experience and expertise. I’ve learnt about
art theory and technique, alongside experimentation with paint. I finished my first year with an overall 2:1, and firsts in my essays. I thoroughly enjoyed it, however, it wasn’t without its challenges. Living on your own is hard; it’s a huge change that’s overlooked. I’m not trying to put people off; it’s a change that happens inevitably in life, so is completely worth it. However, it’s good to know that university life can be tough and sometimes lonely and it’s okay to feel like that.
Since the start of my course, I’ve made some lifelong friends. As I write this, I am home for summer, and I am, sometimes, missing my independence. I already know that my university experience will be an unforgettable one and that it will shape me and my future. I cannot wait to see what the next year brings.
In my most recent work, I’ve been studying feminist art and exploring ways of removing the male gaze, in order to portray the female body from the perspective of a female artist.
After my degree, I hope to pursue a career in design, maybe interiors or magazines, but I know I will continue to love painting.
life beyond swps
OLIVIA GREATHURST
The first question that people usually ask me, when they find out I’m a trainee pilot, is, “Have you always wanted to fly?” And actually, the honest answer to this is no. It wasn’t a career I even considered until I was about 15. When I was in Year 10, I attended the school careers fair and it was there that I met the father of one of my peers, who worked as a British Airways Captain. I spent about an hour grilling him on every aspect of his job and left, at the end of the evening, feeling as though I’d just discovered my dream career.
When I left SWPS in 2017, I decided to take a slightly different path to that of my friends, as going to university just didn’t seem like the right option for me or my career plans. After I finished my A Levels, I spent a year travelling the world, working as Cabin Crew and gaining as much knowledge of the industry as I possibly could. I loved this experience and I am so glad that I had the opportunity to experience life from the other side of the cockpit door.
In October 2018, after my year working as crew,
I finally embarked upon my pilot training. The flight school I started with allowed me the opportunity to move to New Zealand for six months while I learnt, studied and sat my 14 theoretical knowledge exams. It hasn’t been an easy journey by any means, but it’s definitely the thing I’m most proud of to date.
I am now at the start of the flying phase of my training and for the next six months I will be learning how to fly light aircraft and improving my piloting skills, which will hopefully culminate in me passing my Commercial Pilot’s Licence Skills Test some time at the beginning of next year.
If you’d have asked me when I was 15 where I thought I’d be in five years time, I don’t think I would ever have been able to imagine this. My future excites me and, by the end of next year, I hope to be flying passengers around Europe as a First Officer for a commercial airline. Only around 3% of the world’s pilots are female; with so few role models for young women to be inspired by, I aim to use my voice in the industry to let girls know that it’s not just a man’s career. We too can be whatever we want to be.
senior sixth 2019
Bea
Emily
Josephine
Jessica
Alex Hannah
Emily Seren
Lauren Sriya Eileen Misha Megan
Charlotte Amrita Delke Khadijah
Alice Annabelle Jess
Emma Louise
Izzy Ellie Lerin
Anushka
Emily Ella
Samantha Isabelle Ellie
senior sixth 2019
India
Eden Luke
Lauren
Alyssa
Yasmin
Lucy Anna Lily Amy
Shannon Shara Roma
Charlotte Charlotte Saskia
Tina
Lia
Ellie
Amy Lucie
Isabelle
Charlotte
Felicity Abigail
Jess
Picture by Maia Weatherley
DO TEENAGERS HAVE THE ANSWERS?
Celia Crosbie (Year 11) considers whether we are in danger of underestimating a key group in our society
Greta Thunberg, Coco Gauff and Alex from Glasto: all names that were plastered across newspapers, magazines and social media over summer. Whilst all these youngsters came to fame for very different reasons, their similar ages are what unites them all.
Greta Thunberg, 16, is a climate activist from Sweden who began protesting outside the Swedish parliament, demanding action on the climate crisis. Since then, school strikes for the climate movement have spread globally and Thunberg has spoken to the European Parliament, the European Economic and Social Committee, and has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. So, it’s fair to say she’s been quite successful.
Coco Gauff, 15, was a wild card when she entered Wimbledon and went onto defeat her childhood idol Venus Williams, apparently just after taking her school science exam. She went on to be the highlight of Wimbledon 2019 and has inspired young girls far and wide.
Alex Mann (aka Alex from Glasto) is a rather a different example. After telling his parents he was going on a trip to Centre Parcs, he ended up rapping his heart out with Dave (full name David Orobosa Omoregie), on the Other Stage at the Glastonbury Festival, flawlessly performing Thiago Silva. He
quickly became a global sensation, with the offer of a contract from online fashion store boohooMAN
However, day to day, fifteen and sixteen-year-olds are often overlooked by the media and are hugely underestimated. More often we see headlines such as “15-year-olds more likely to be able to recite an episode of Love Island than load the dishwasher”. The criticisms young people face are based on age and stereotypes; apparently we’re more likely to be offended, we can’t cope with opinions other than our own, we’re less resilient than older generations. These sweeping stereotypes risk turning down youth’s volume when we often have something valuable to say.
When young activists call out older generations, it’s because they’ve seen a lack of action, not because they’re trying to outsmart or humiliate their elders. They aren’t trying to start a generational war and create conflict. However, it does seem that the youth of today have ideas that those currently running our country should listen to. The climate crisis, for example, isn’t a new issue and there has been evidence of global warming for years, yet the older generations are only just taking action now, partly it would seem because they have been forced to by the Extinction Rebellion movement.
Today’s teenagers don’t have a lot of the barriers that previous generations have had to face, which some may argue is a bad thing as it means we’ve had everything handed to us ‘on a silver platter’. However, I believe that today young people are much more connected with each other due to social media. We can empathise, relate to, and communicate with people from different cultures, religions, races and backgrounds. This allows young people to have a broader perspective.
Young people don’t believe that they are right about everything, but we don’t want to be diminished and belittled purely because of our age. Young people need the support of older generations, as we don’t have all the answers. I believe there is huge strength in unity; something our country is missing at the moment. So we need intergenerational unity in order to try to solve the huge national and global issues we are all facing.
