Sports

The British Skeleton Team – Sliding to Victory

skeleton olympic

How would you like to slide down a very steep and winding track of ice on something very similar to a tea tray at around 140km per hour? Yes, no, maybe. Well, there are people out there who can and do want to. And what’s more, they’re really rather good at it.
 Alongside Bobsleigh and Luge, the Skeleton is one of three sliding sports that take place on artificially refrigerated ice tracks. It’s a really white knuckle experience as each skeleton athlete pushes their sled one handed away from the start before lying down with their face first as they travel the track, using their shoulders, knees and toes for steering.

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Home, Health & Style

Life in an English Village

life in an english village

When we think of a country, we often think of a stereotype – an oversimplified image or idea. These are some country stereotypes – can you guess which countries we are meaning here?

Stereotype 2

Stereotype 1

Sometimes a stereotype is used in a negative way, but often we use them because they are the only things we know about the country we are talking about. They are often based on a truth about the country and can be a part of life in that country.
An English Village is today’s topic. When you search for an image of ‘English Village’ you might find something like this

English Village

You might think that living in an English village is all thatched cottages, red telephone boxes, and Sunday afternoon cricket. That is certainly the stereotype!
If you live in a city, you might also think that living in a village like this would be boring, that there might not be much to do, but you would be surprised how busy life in a small community can be.
We asked our contributor Liz to tell us what it is really like to live in a small English village not far from the capital city, London.

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Home, Health & Style

What Makes a Family?

What does the word ‘family’ mean to you?  It can mean many things in our society. Some define family as a mother, a father and one or more children.  For others, there don’t need to be children in the home for there to be a family.  Where there are children, about three quarters of the parents will be married to each other.

In 2013 the Office of National Statistics, which is a government body which takes surveys on all manner of topics to help the government make policy (rules under which we all live), found that there were 18.2 million people living in this type of family.  Many more of us have families which have a different make-up.  For the purpose of the survey, a family is defined as people living in the same household.   

However, as many of you will know, there are other ways in which we describe our family.  There are children who have two parents of the same gender, there are children who have only one parent with whom they live, other children have guardians and live with aunts, uncles or grandparents. 

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Art & History, School & Career

Girls Don’t Need No Education

‘WHAT?!’,I hear you cry. ‘Of course we need education!’ And you are absolutely correct.
Sadly in some areas of the world, this is not seen as a basic human right. Children, especially girls, are denied access to schools.
I am sure you have all heard of Malala Yousafzai, the young education campaigner from Pakistan who was shot by people who do not agree with her campaign for girls to be educated.
Malala is carrying on a fight for education that other countries have already fought and won. Tina explains how girls in her home country, United Kingdom, were once forbidden from going to school and when this changed.

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