Written By You

The Necklace – A Shooting Star Story – Written By You

When I first saw the silver sparkling necklace in the jewellers shop window, I thought it was just an ordinary diamond necklace. However, the twinkling diamond at the centre of the polished masterpiece held an emotional attraction for me, as it reminded me of a similar diamond on my grandmother’s ring, so I went in to inquire its price.

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School & Career, Science, Nature and Tech

What is The Point in Learning Maths?

learning maths

Have you ever sat in a Maths class wondering when you will ever need to do long division without a calculator? Or silently cursed your Geography teacher while learning about the formation of oxbow lakes? And History? That’s all in the past and irrelevant, isn’t it?
In this series of articles, we will look at some of the subjects we learn at school, and try and answer the question: What’s the point in learning maths?

Let’s start with Maths. It is a fact of life that while some people are good at Maths, for others it is a daily trial. It is, however, along with English and the sciences the subject considered to be the most important. Why? Of course, we all know that it is important to be able to count, and do simple sums, but when, in real life, do we actually use it?

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News & Politics, Popular

The UK General Election – An Explanation for Kids

Every five years, United Kingdom elects a new parliament. This is called a General Election and it’s pretty complicated. If you’ve ever wondered how a country decides who is going to run things, this is how! We asked our contributor Tina Price-Johnson to write an explanation of the General Election for kids.

When I was in Year 9, my school ran a mock general election, so we could learn how an election works.  I was chosen to be the Liberal Democrat candidate, and two other students were chosen to represent the Conservative Party and the Labour Party.  We didn’t have any other parties at that time!

We had to pretend we were running to be elected as a Member of Parliament (MP), and the other students in the school were the voters.  We created posters and learned what each party stood for, so we could debate in front of the whole school and give our speeches.  We spoke to students in the hallway, and each of us had a team of other students to help us out.  This is exactly what all the candidates for MP in your local area will be doing. More or less! 

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Toys and Games

Princess Leia – The Warrior Princess

Princess Leia

I love Star Wars. It’s my favourite trilogy of films ever. At least, I loved it when I was 8 and 9 and played Star Wars in the park wit my friends. I wasn’t overly fond of it when I was 6 years old and saw Empire Strikes Back for the first time. I still fast forward through the beginning bit of the movie where Luke Skywalker gets kidnapped by an abominable snowman on the planet Hoth and has to be rescued by Han Solo. It terrified me so much when I was 6 and saw it the cinema that my dad had to take me out.

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School & Career

A Homemade School

Dr Lesley Beeton visited South Africa and visited a school to find out what it’s like to go to school in South Africa.

This is the Drakensberg in South Africa. In English, it means ‘Dragon Mountain’. The children in this part of South Africa face a daily commute to school. In the area where I was staying, the nearest town was Bergville. With the windy roads through the mountains, this journey can take almost an hour. School starts early too, at eight o’clock, so that means getting up around 6 am to be ready for the taxi.

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