School & Career

Vet Against The Odds

Hello! My name is Lauren, I’m 22 and I’m at university training to be a vet. Like most vet students I like science and animals, what makes me a bit different is that I am partially deaf in both ears. I wanted to write about what it’s like to go to university and move away from home when you can’t hear properly.

My parents found out I was deaf when I was 5 years old, just after I started school. My sister is also hearing impaired and Mum had inadvertently taught us both to speak properly, which meant that doctors didn’t realize there was anything wrong. When I got older mum told me that she was really worried at the time that being deaf would affect what I was able to do in life, but so far it hasn’t.

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Science, Nature and Tech

LETS Swap!

Pokemon cards, Moshi monsters, jelly stickers, friendship bracelets – at some point over the last few years my kids have swapped all these things. And in return they get good stuff back.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could go into a shop and, even if you had no money, you could still swap something you had for something you want?

In communities all over the world, people are doing just that. Or something very like it.

Local Exchange Trading Schemes or LETS for short, enable people who live near each other to swap their skills and receive goods and services without having to pay a penny.

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Written By You

Life… in Reverse

We love to publish contributions from our young readers. This was written by 8 year old Janvi, from Cardiff.

If there were to be a parallel universe I think there would be people who lived their lives, like us, only in reverse!

You would start off old with white hair, pains almost everywhere and maybe even glasses and/or a walking stick. You would live in a retirement home with lots of old people, like you. You would spend your time sitting in your favourite chair snuggled up with a quilt and would take medical pills daily. But one day when you would get up to have your daily walk you could get up much easier and you could walk around faster and more swiftly.

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