Travel

Exploring Australia: Specsavers, Sunshine and Sexism

When I found out I was coming to Australia for two weeks, I was so excited. Australia’s completely the other side of the world to my home in Birmingham. I fantasised about what it would be like: kangaroos hopping round, koalas on every corner, barbecues every night. It would be so different to what I’m used to.
But when I got here, the first thing that struck me was how similar everything was. Getting the bus from the airport, I noticed they drive on the same side of the road as us. When I got to the bus station, the first shop I saw was a WH Smiths. In fact, lots of the shops are the same: Specsavers, Zara, Laura Ashley, Vodafone, Starbucks, McDonald’s, KFC. The first night I was here, I was truly adventurous and had tea at Nandos (although it wasn’t as nice as the ones in the UK and they didn’t have my favourite Wild Garlic and Herb sauce) and then went back to the hotel and watched Homes Under the Hammer, Time Team and Coronation Street.

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Sports

3 Tips to Make your New Year’s Resolution Stick!

So the new year has begun and you’ve made a New Year’s resolution. How can you make sure it doesn’t go out the window by February? Perhaps these tips for sticking to your resolution will help…

New Year’s Resolution Tip #1: Be specific

Lots of people give up on their resolutions because they choose ones that are too big, vague and overwhelming. Whether your resolution is to do more sport, be a better friend, take up photography or anything else, you have a better chance of making it happen if you narrow it down.

For example, if your resolution is to be a better friend, make it your mission to remember your friends’ birthdays and to write a card for them, or to ask them often about what’s going on their lives. If you want to get more involved in sport, find out what sports your school or community offers and decide on a class to take or a team to sign up for. That way you have somewhere specific to start!

 

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Written By You

A Short Story – Concrete

Cold, rough concrete beneath my burnt yellow hands, ash under my nails. I hold the butt of an already smoked cigarette in my mouth, looking hopeless. Not even the phrase, “Any spare change?” will get anybody to notice me, the old tramp of Brixton, sitting on the side of a busy main road. Every day I get unhelpful comments from young school kids, such as, “The local druggie! Ha, ha, ha…” These don’t make me feel better. It’s not my fault I’m unemployed, homeless and either drunk or high most of the time. Or is it?

People ask me how on earth I find all the money to buy over fifty cans of beer a week and a rather large variety of harmful grasses from drug-dealers. Sometimes I wonder too. I’ve only ever stolen something once. Twice then. OK! I’ve stolen eight times! Where else am I supposed to get money from (not including vulnerable children’s purses)? But, I’ve been thinking… Maybe, just maybe, it would be a slight possibility – just a slight one – that I could consider starting afresh. By ‘afresh’ I mean a new life in which I give up all my addictions, that are slowly rotting my bones, and make lasting friendships, that won’t break. Ever.

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Language & Literature

Talking in Text

Text speak is very confusing for a lot of people, but it is one area in which children and teenagers are far more advanced than adults.  Mobile phones and the internet are recent inventions.
Imagine what it was like for your parents as children.  If your parents are 30 years old, the internet did not exist for them!  Mobile phones were only invented in 1973 but did not become common for 15 or 20 years.  The first ones cost thousands of pounds and were the size of house bricks!

 

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Science, Nature and Tech

Get Cracking With Computer Coding for Kids

Kids computing – there’s a lot of talk going on about it right now.  What do you learn about computing in your school?  Are they teaching you how to make cool video games?  How to come up with a story that makes sense, how to make sure that it’s engaging, that there are challenges at each level, and that there’s a reward at the end?  How to build that? 

How to make the bird you toss flop realistically into a pile of whatever you choose – making sure that gravity works the way you would expect it to (or not).  How to craft the graphics you need to tell your story?  How to publish that to your own smartphone and to share it (or sell it!) to friends and strangers? 

Hmmm, I didn’t think so.  “ I’d rather just do some Power Point and Word exercises, “ said no kid, ever.

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