Making every birthday a milestone

3rd May 2024

Have you ever woken up on your birthday, filled with excitement and wonder, only to find out that despite your age incrementing by a whole year, very little has changed. I distinctly remember aged 6, turning 7, absolutely terrified that I was going to wake on my birthday to find I had grown too big for my bed (unsurprisingly this was a fear that was never realised). If you too have been disappointed by the lack of sudden changes that occur then look no further for I have complied a helpful list of all the things you are allowed to do when you turn a various ages.

Age 11: The typical age at which you enter secondary education (Welcome to all our lovely year 7s, I’m only 8 months late!). TFL require you (or your parents if you’re lucky) to pay (albeit at a discounted rate) for TFL tube and rail. You are the correct age for the dreaded 11+ exams and you are the same age as Harry when he first went to Hogwarts. You can also open a current account in your name.

Age 12: You are the same age as Percy Jackson in the Lighting Thief. You are able to buy and or rent a 12 or 12A rated film. You can be trained to perform in performances of a “dangerous nature” assuming you have been given a licence from the local authorities, the government have not specified further.

Age 13: You can finally start work! (Do be careful however as strict bylaws apply). Specifically, a part time job, so no 9-5 jobs for you! You can also have an account with social media companies like “twitter”.

Age 14: You are now legally responsible for wearing your own seatbelt so be warned, if the police ever catch you, it’s your responsibility! You can be fined up to £500 (which is much more than a fine for training for dangerous performances under 12).

Age 15: You’re allowed to sign up to the armed forces, but you can’t serve until you are 16 and will have to ask for parental consent. You are finally allowed to buy and or rent a 15 rated film. If convicted of a crime you can be held in a young offender institution for up to 2 years so be careful.

Age 16: This is a big one, you can vote in Scotland (although you do have to be a legal citizen in a Scottish town first, but if you’re desperate to have a vote a couple of years early then here’s your opportunity) and can register to vote in the rest of the UK. You will receive your national insurance number and can also buy aerosol paints. You may have noticed a glaring omission, but don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten the most important activity of all, at 16, you are allowed to fly a glider.

Age 17: At 17 you can donate blood (assuming you are not scared of needles and fit the NHS requirements). You are allowed to learn how to drive (upon being asked for driving advice my friend provided the words of wisdom “don’t hit pedestrians”) but forget driving, at 17 you can apply for a pilot and hot air balloon licence! And you can get married with parental consent in Scotland and Northern Ireland (clearly Scotland is the place to be!).

Age 18: You are officially an adult! You are able buy fireworks but be careful, they are only allowed to be bought on the following dates 15 October to 10 November, 26 to 31 December and 3 days before Diwali and Chinese New Year. You can be called up for jury service and can drive lorries weighing up to 7.5 tonnes.  

Disclaimer: This is not a complete list, and is merely based on legislation produced by the UK government, furthermore this list should by no means be treated as a checklist, as unfortunately for all our sakes it’s quite difficult to turn into Percy Jackson.

Making every birthday a milestone

What your revision style says about you

3rd May 2024

To all my Year 10s taking their first ‘proper’ exams, well done for getting through the first week! But the rest of Year 11-13 will be all too familiar with the summer exam season, so I’m hoping we can all find some comfort in knowing we actually aren’t all that different.

The PROcrastinator,

  • Revision starts 24-48 hrs before the exam,
  • You’ve been doing this for years,
  • Your procrastination has probably led you to look up the etymology of the word (hint: from the Latin verb procrastinare meaning to postpone / delay),
  • There will be some tears but somehow, you’ll pull it out of the bag,
  • Example: this (arguably exhaustive) list.

The last-minute.com one,

  • Similar to the PROcrastinator but not quite the same,
  • This is how they work, they live for deadlines and pressure,
  • They will be telling you everything on the entire paper about 5 minutes before the exam,
  • Do they know the content? Yeah… definitely… totally….

The notes royalty,

  • If it’s not colour coded, they don’t want It,
  • I’m thinking full notebooks full of painstakingly organised work,
  • They probably have all the pastel Stabilo highlighters AND the Muji pens,
  • They definitely got their Pen Licence early in primary school (I’m definitely not still bitter…),
  • We ALL wanted to be them at some point,
  • They probably also have a top-notch study playlist somewhere.

Similarly, the one who only makes mindmaps,

  • Extra marks if you did it on pink A3 paper (we love romanticising revision),
  • A step up from making notes, you want to give yourself a bit of a challenge,
  • You’re probably an A Level humanities student trying to find a way to learn as little as possible and still cover everything,
  • Their mindmaps are either utterly stunning or terrifyingly disorganised; there’s no in between.

And their best friend, the flashcard master,

  • If it’s not on a flashcard it doesn’t exist
  • I see you GCSE History students…

The “I’ve done all the past papers” one,

  • We get it, you went back to the start of your specification and did every paper you could get your hands on,
  • We also fear you,
  • Where did you find the time to do so many?
  • You’ve probably memorised the mark scheme by now,
  • You’re either a notes person or a past paper person, I’ve never met one who is both,
  • If you’re in Sixth Form you’re probably a STEM student? Though possibly MFL too…

And their Humanities counterpart: the chronic essay planner,

  • They probably have a whiteboard (extra points if it’s a big one on their wall at home),
  • Their mind is full of quotes but where are they getting them from?
  • There is no question that could come up that they haven’t thought about,
  • They have spent hours on these mindmaps, but at what cost?

To quote a fellow exam-reviser: the one who’s only thoughts are “AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH”,

  • It’s all chaos: which exam is next? We don’t know and neither do they,
  • They probably have notes on the topic… somewhere?
  • Definitely asking last minute questions outside the exam hall,
  • A few deep breaths might be a useful resource.

The one who forgets…

  • “wait… that exam isn’t until next week… right?!”

The eerily calm one,

  • Where is the stress? Are they from Mars? Both questions we’ll never know the answer to.
  • They’ve mastered the art of “Keep Calm and Carry On”,
  • They’re probably organised enough that they learned it all months ago and have been doing active recall for weeks,
  • They probably also know how to use a semi-colon correctly (please enlighten me),
  • I envy you xx

The one who has given up,

  • It’s probably the end of your exam season and the energy is running low,
  • You figure, what’s one failed exam going to matter? It won’t really change your grade…
  • You will then inevitably become the PROcrastinator in the last 24 hours when you realise your mistake,
  • It’s okay, we’ve all been there too,

And finally, the one who thinks they are above revision,

  • Not to be confused with the one who has given up, there is a fine line,
  • To quote a dear friend: “revision is doubting your ability to succeed”,
  • They’re risking it all for those few extra hours of relaxation,
  • They probably are the ones who says “most of it is common sense anyway” a few too many times,
  • “the biology happens inside our body, so my subconscious knows all of it anyway”
  • It either really works for them or really doesn’t,
  • And the less extreme version: watching Netflix in the background because they’re totally above being distracted by the latest gossip in Bridgerton,

And with that my dears, my own PROcrastination ends. Best of luck to all the Year 11s and 13s over the next couple of months!

What your revision style says about you

Could genetically modified organisms solve world hunger?

3rd May 2024

At this very moment, an estimated six hundred and ninety-one to seven hundred and eighty-three million people do not have enough food to eat. One hundred and twenty-two million more people in 2022 than in 2019 faced hunger. One of the main factors for food poverty is climate change; recent years have seen an increase in extreme weather conditions such as droughts and flash floods as a direct result of global warming and these adverse events can cause catastrophic crop failures. Another key cause of malnutrition is poverty; many people with low incomes are unable to afford high-quality nutritious meals and may be forced to skip meals altogether.

Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) have the potential to solve world hunger. Genetically modified organisms are those in which a gene has been transferred into a different organism’s DNA to create desirable qualities, for example immunity to crop destroying bacteria. All reference to GMOs in this article will be refering to crops; however other GMOs are also often used in research for example, in the recent adaptation of a pig heart for human transfusion. Some of the largest users of GMO crops include the USA, Brazil, Argentina, and Canada: however others, such as Germany, France, and Switzerland have total or partial bans on the growth and sale of GMOs entirely. Even the UK has no GMO crops grown commercially as of 2015.

The countries who are against the use of GMOs believe that their usage could damage the enviroment and consumers. There is evidence that suggests that GMOs can fail to germinate, causing crop failure and placing farmers in a worse situation than if they had not grown GMOs. Additionally, some GMOs which have been genetically engineered act as natural pesticides might kill other organisms that are beneficial to plants and can transfer virus resistance to wild relatives of the crop species. This makes it particularly difficult for regular crops to be grown after GMOs. In addition, GMOs may kill beneficial organisms and as a result the crop yield of the GMOs could be lower than their natural counterpart, and the overall reduction of biodiversity from the death of the other organisms negatively impacts ecosystem productivity.

There is also a fear of detrimental consequences on human health from eating GMOs. While there is currently no concrete research providing evidence that human health can be harmed from the eating of commercially available GMOs, many people have little faith in the companies promoting GMOs and due to its synthetic nature people worry it may pose long term health issues which are yet to be discovered.

Furthermore there is also a concern that GMO providers may genetically engineer crops to not naturally regenerate, forcing customers to become reliant on these companies in order to continue to eat. Such a malicious act could occur out of a desire to maximise profit and secure investors for these companies. This would have a distinct negative impact on the overall goal of reducing world hunger as consumers would be forced to buy costly new seeds each year.

Despite this, supporters of GMOs believe there are many benefits which outweigh the possible disadvantages. GMOs have lower production costs and tend to have higher crop yields. In theory, this should allow more food to be placed on the market at lower costs, providing food access and security to more people.

Additionally, GMOs can be engineered to be drought resistant. Preventing drought from impacting crops could increase crop yields  providing more food and hence greater food security in locations where it would otherwise be almost impossible to efficiently grow food due to frequent drought conditions.

GMOs also tend to use fewer pesticides and herbicides whilst growing. Both these products can have devastating impacts on the environment. Pesticides can kill important fauna such as bees and other vital pollinating insects. They are often toxic and can find their way into water supplies, killing more wildlife and possible damaging human life as well. Hence GMOs, engineered to be pest resistant, can be utilised as an alternative, reducing the requirement for such dangerous chemicals.

GMOs have been used in the past to combat vitamin deficiency. According to the World Health Organisation  Vitamin A deficiency is a public health problem for more than half of all countries. Named for its distinctive golden colour, Golden Rice was manufactured by Ingo Potrykus and Peter Beyer to combat vitamin A deficiency in areas of Asia. Golden Rice was engineered to contain beta carotene which allows the human body to produce more Vitamin A. Golden Rice performed well in trials and had the potential to dramatically reduce deaths associated with vitamin A deficiency. Zeneca bought the rights to Golden Rice in 2000 on the terms that they provided Golden Rice for free to farmers and funded futher research. Unfortunately due to tightening of regulations first introduced in the Europe in 2000 and the large-scale Greenpeace protests in 2001, Zeneca (now Syngenta) returned the rights to Golden Rice and it ceased mass scale production production. Despite this set back Golden Rice is still in circulation; however on a smaller scale.

With the increasingly hostile enviroment around us and the growing population, it is becoming more vital to combat food poverty. GMOs have a place within that solution. As demonstrated with the example of Golden Rice, they not only can provide higher rates of food security within drought prone areas, but also have health benefits including combating vitamin deficiencies. Careful monitoring and research is required to prevent damage to local wildlife and to confirm the lack of long-term risk to human health as well as strict independant governance of GMO providers, but with the undoubtable potential to provide essential crops to low and middle income countries in the face of increasingly severe consequences of climate change it is clear that GMOs play a substantial role in the future of worldwide food security.

Could genetically modified organisms solve world hunger?

A Journey in Unconquered Peaks

26th April 2024

As I step into my new role as editor of Unconquered Peaks, I have been going through a lot of new discoveries. Henceforth I thought I would share with you some of my most notable revelations.

My very first realisation upon taking up this role is that I cannot, in fact, spell unconquered. I am very confused as to why it contains a “q.” Apparently, it comes from Latin, so I shall just blame the Romans (no disrespect to Latin scholars, I have a high respect for all of you). That said, the q is my saving grace I tend to just type a word that starts with “un” and has a “q” in it and leave spell check to do the rest! Clearly a work in progress. Please note that if you ever get an email with it spelt wrong, it most definitely was my fault.

For Unconquered Peaks to appear in the lovely format it does, I must upload everything to WordPress. Which I can honestly declare the most intimidating piece of software I have ever seen (and I once made a neon red and green website for a computer science project in Year 8). There are a lot of buttons, still not sure what half of them do, hopefully I will figure them out as I go along (or even more preferably, never have to use them!). All I can say is that I am infinitely grateful (and impressed) by Milly for giving me a crash course. I have an insane level of respect for anyone who had to learn it without the wonderful guidance of those who came before.

I have been given a name badge “in case I forget who I am. Very thoughtful, as that does happen” (Doctor Who. 2011). The name badge in question has the line “caution magnetic” on the back. I cannot tell if this is my calling to become an evil supervillain (Magnetic Man does have a nice ring to it) or if I need to treat it with unnecessary caution like it is an undetonated bomb. Furthermore, I am not entirely sure which bit of said badge is magnetic and I am too scared to try and figure it out, accidentally wiping my hard drive would not be a good start to my summer term. (I have since found out that neither my laptop nor my phone contains a hard drive, and the magnetic bit is unsurprisingly the bit that says “caution magnetic” on it but even so). Currently, my greatest achievement is that it is still in my possession.

I have been provided with social media (follow us @unconqueredpeaks on Instagram, unconquered_peaks on Spotify, and @unconqueredWHS on Twitter). For those who know me, I am utterly useless at social media. For context, just looking for those handles took me longer than trying to write this article, in fact, it went so spectacularly badly that my phone crashed the moment I tried to log onto Instagram, and I ended up having to copy and paste the details from Milly’s emails. My social media incompetence is not limited to Instagram, I have taken numerous looks at the Twitter page and remain in the dark about where I am supposed to be typing. Can I post? Unsure. I have, however, learnt a remarkable amount about the progress of the Alleyns students doing their DofE, congratulations to them. So, whilst I’m sure you are all thoroughly looking forward to me struggling through my lack of skill in social media (a prize goes to the person who can correctly predict the number of incomplete posts I post by mistake), I shall continue to pray for a magical social media god to come down and take control.

I have also discovered that whole school emails are completely terrifying. After my dip into whole school emails during science week I must confess, I was overjoyed by the prospect of never having to send one again, or so I thought until I clocked in my new role I’m expected to send one weekly. (That said, I am absolutely overjoyed at the prospect of being your editor, it has been quite difficult to contain my excitement.) For those of you fortunate to have never sent one, Outlook will remind you that you are sending an email to over 883 recipients and overall attempt to make the experience twice as stressful as necessary.

So, whilst I hope you have enjoyed reading about my shenanigans as I settle into the role, I would just like to say what a privilege it is to be in this position and how thrilled I am for the upcoming year! (And if you are reading this successfully, I have figured out how to use WordPress.)

A Journey in Unconquered Peaks