Pipers Corner School | Aquila Magazine 2022

perspectives

Aquila 2021-22

CONTENTS

5 6

Editors’ Letter

I Fahey

ur Best Gets O Even Better

G johnson

14 16

aper Jungle P D CLerEhugh A Very

Noughties Scandal

N Hamilton

8

The Potential of a Venus

A Watts

10

Covid 19

M McCann

18 20

Music: The

Digital Age

O Lee

Changing

Perspectives of Remembrance

J Tinnelly

12

.O.P.E H O Winchester N Powell

22

Changing Our Perspective.

Period.

I Fahey

I Usmani

34

ur Wonderful O Home

24

A Myth

26

To Write a

P Williams

Misunderstood

I Johnston Woman

C Fowler Whale

36

eality TV: A R Life Explained

A Towell N Dunsmore

37 38

Trust Your Gut

28 28 30

r Perkins M C Powell Perspective

A Davis

C Nicholas

M Ford

n Perspective: O Notes From the Library Desk

B-D Delbrooke-Jones

erspectives: P offering yourself compassion

39

Valete

PERSPECTIVES

32

A Researched Meeting

Perspective a particular way of considering something:

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a i d n I editor Milly Design

Editor’s Letter

Liv

C0-edito r

This year we settled on the theme of Perspective relatively quickly in our first meeting as a team.

As soon as someone suggested the word, heads were nodding, and we all felt instantly connected to this idea as an apt approach to the 2021/22 edition of Aquila.

Perspective encapsulates so much of the change we have seen over the last few years. All of us have had our view of the world we live in shaken, for better or for worse, by the seismic events of the Pandemic and now the war in Ukraine. Back in 2019, it would have never occurred to us to be grateful for simple things such as a tank full of petrol, a second walk outside per day, or the ability to enter a café without wearing a mask. Now, we realise that we have so much to be thankful for in the small moments of life.

Iman Socials & launch

y Imiam ls & Soc launch

I have been immensely proud of some of the unique perspectives and viewpoints that are expressed in this years’ magazine; from our views on period stigma, to an evaluation of one of the most ancient texts of all time, ‘Pandora’s box’. This magazine reflects the enquiring minds that we have at Pipers, about issues both social and academic. I think that anyone reading this magazine would have a good flavour of the inquisitive and probing learners that inhabit our corridors.

Lastly, I am so very proud of my Editorial Team and the tireless work that they have put into the success of this magazine. The Design editors Milly and Anika have had a very clear vision from the start of the process about how the magazine would look, and the result is due to their vision. From the exciting technological take over that our team helped to launch at the start of the year to our social media content, I think we can safely say that we have embraced the process of launching, designing, and editing a magazine to it’s fullest potential. We hope you enjoy reading it as much as we have enjoyed creating it.

I FAHEY

EDITOR IN CHIEF

ADnesiigkna

Lizzie

Co-editor

5

Head Girl’s Article:

‘Our Best gets Even Better’ G JOHNSON HEAD GIRL From my personal perspective as Head Girl reflecting on the incredible past year, the words that come to mind are: strength and gratitude.

There is no denying that Covid-19 has altered students’ perspective of education and school, nevertheless, as covid rates have fallen the success, unity and resilience of our students has risen in true Pipers’ style.

Our community has returned in celebratory style; from the Prefect Team hosting vibrant Christmas markets and donating all proceeds to charity, to the carving of pumpkins overlooking the Arts centre, from the mass gathering of students on the field hunting down chocolate eggs at Easter, to students competing in an Inter-House gingerbread decorating

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competition. Yet, between this return of community and excitement that comes with it, the students of Pipers have equally demonstrated gratitude.

Starting the year with Letters of Kindness, the students shared advice and illustrated what they could be

grateful for when starting a new year that was to be less-affected by the pandemic. This kindness has also been extended through our newly developing Student Parliament, who are able to represent the needs and new concepts posed by students.

Though, the kindness and gratitude of

Pipers students has not been limited to only our community.

Our recent Vigil for Peace which demonstrated solidarity for those in the Ukraine saw all staff and students unite, seeking justice, hope and speaking passionately for the cause of humanity and kindness. The common misconception that Pipers remains in an invisible bubble to the outside world has been entirely burst this year as our students speak out against the crisis in Ukraine, attend climate change protests, promote speaking out on mental health and debate gender difference in society, much like the great feminists of the Twentieth Century.

responsibility has changed. The words of Winston Churchill definitely come to mind “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts”. Having understood the highs and lows of students more intimately over the past year, I have truly discovered that it is not our success, nor our failures, that defines us, but rather our reactions to these outcomes.

The qualities that stand out most to me as Head Girl, are the strength and courage of Pipers students to continue despite adversity and propel themselves into a position where they

will experience success - attributes that will sustain them for life. Further still, I think another important lesson we as a community, and myself as an individual leading the Prefect Team, have learnt is that your best only gets better when surrounded by the right people. This is a statement which, from my ‘perspective’ Pipers Corner completely embodies. The incredible abilities of our teachers, ambition of each student, the support of all staff-members and the incredible communication across the School community means that, year-on-year as I have watched the school grow, our best continues to get better.

Whilst the Secretary of Education Nadim Zahawai suggested the ‘Covid-19 pandemic has created challenges and vulnerabilities for students across the education system’, Pipers’ gratitude, kindness and celebration over the past year has totally defied these statements.

Acting as Head Girl, I cannot only see how the perspective and resilience of students has changed, but I can also reflect upon how my perspective in a position of leadership and

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Is this what I am to you?

The Potential of a Venus A WATTS LOWER SIXTH Women in the Eighteenth Century were seen to be nothing but a domestic carer, devoting their lives to their children, home and husband. It is clear from artworks such as ‘Ophelia’ by Millais, that there was a desire amongst the male art collectors of the century to own an image of a beautiful woman within their homes that was further related to masculine status and power.

The image becomes not a souvenir of respect, rather it exhorts men’s masculinity while controlling life and death for the woman. Ophelia is carefully placed in the brook, yet from another perspective she can be seen as almost willingly offering up her body for control through the vulnerability of her open palms; her hands are turned upwards as a symbol of sacrifice to men.

Though ‘Ophelia’ takes centre-stage of the painting as a drowning woman, she is more reflective of the male fantasy of complete submission.

Millais succeeded in creating an image of a drowning female who was aesthetically pleasing and passive whilst seemingly encouraging the erotic gaze inflicted on women. It could be argued that Millais’ work reveals that the cultural ‘feminisation of suicide’ and fashion for depicting vulnerably displayed bodies which was actually central to the Romantic movement’s popularity. One cannot help but to question whether the enduring popularity of Ophelia throughout the nineteenth-century

was due to this convergence of submission, creating a pleasing sight of male fantasy; however, it is clear that she remains in the idealised manner of a woman: well-dressed, hair done and of course elegant, even in death. Millais’ natural setting increases the fantasy as Ophelia’s body is pictured almost as if she is dissolving into the water surrounding her while in a trance-like state, her dying body and the streams of flora and fauna merge as she nears death, therefore embodying the passive supplication as she submits to nature which we was seen to be so desirable at the time.

Although the Eighteenth Century media presented women in paintings such as ‘Ophelia’ as vulnerable and materialised, the perspective of women has changed. Truthfully men can no longer get away with their past depiction of women. There is a familiar saying: ‘Behind every great man is an even greater woman’ which can certainly be seen as true in many cases in today’s society.

I can debate that a woman may very well be the very thing behind the success of a man, but moreover, men may be the very thing that gives women power.

Despite the struggles women have been through and continue to go through, nothing stops them from achieving their

absolute best. When we look back at modern history, I can see that there are many women that have gained power from not only meeting the expectations of men, but overcoming them. For example, Marie Curie, the first person to win a Nobel prize in two different fields of science.

Women now have the courage to go through needle-sized holes with the knowledge gained from their sisters in the past. The women we see today are empowered. They radiate motivation and exude excellence, rather than giving their ‘palms’ up like ‘Ophelia’.

In the modern word women are the foundations for success. Instead of appearing vulnerable and exposed, as the half-clothed and maimed ‘Venus de Milo’, they venture into the world not as an inferior piece of property to be owned and admired but as equal partners alongside men.

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I think I can speak for nearly everyone when I say that the last two years have really shifted my perspective when it comes to the health of our population and how sharp the divide is when it comes to making medical decisions for the masses. I think it's important to look back over these last few years because now that we have the pandemic mostly under control, we can think over it and potentially learn many valuable lessons from this period.

M McCANN LOWER SIXTH Just three days after the world first heard of Coronavirus, the first person died - from what we now know as Covid-19 - on the 9 January. At this point, although there were only 44 reported cases, between 2,000 and 4,000 people were likely to have been infected, although no-one knew it at the time. Now, exactly two years on, there have been over 409 million cases and over 5.85 million deaths recorded in over 200 countries. But this number can still be debated as many people who died from covid were never tested for it, and do not enter the official totals so the actual estimate could be as high as 22 million, over four-times the official count.

It all started when the vast majority of the planet was getting ready to celebrate New Year’s Eve, go out and party and toast a year of good health and new experiences (one of those certainly happened!) Meanwhile, in Wuhan, China, several people were puzzling doctors with “pneumonia of an unknown cause”. But at this point the world hadn’t even heard of Coronavirus, and it would still be a while until we did. Over the

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next few days, news about the situation in Wuhan began leaking out to a wider audience in the media.

But still, this did not capture the attention of the masses. Except for a couple of speculative articles and tentative tweets by the World Health Organization, it wasn’t until the New York Times ran its first story on the outbreak, in 7 January edition, with a piece buried on page 13, that it started to be noticed. By the end of January, however, there were over 41,000 articles containing the term “Coronavirus” and copious outrageous headlines that spread like wildfire. And from this came a wave of fake news and misinformation which ranged from the unhelpful, to the downright dangerous. These included claims like “If you can hold your breath for 10 seconds, then you don’t have the virus”, and “5G causes Covid’’.

It has been a time of huge uncertainty and there were times when even the government let us down; from Donald Trump telling people to inject themselves with disinfectant, to Matt Handcock very publicly “breaking social distancing”, as he called it. This mishandling of the situation by the people that run the world’s governments was quite breathtakingly arrogant. Not surprisingly people are extremely upset that the rules that they imposed as a mandate on the rest of the country were ignored by the very people that created them. A personal favourite of the media is that Prime Minister Boris Johnson didn’t know the lockdown party in the garden of Number 10 broke Covid rules as “nobody told him”.

One major aspect of the pandemic that is more positive is the creation of the vaccine.

Over 10.5 billion doses of the vaccine have been given worldwide with 55% of the planet now vaccinated. It has been a global effort and one of the most amazing endeavours of this century. The creation of the vaccine was a more incredible feat than most people know. Vaccine development is a laborious process, normally taking about 10-15 years to accomplish.

Vaccines are traditionally created through one of 2 ways but with Covid these approaches had complications, so they took an entirely new path to creating the vaccine. Three different companies managed to create effective vaccines for COVID-19 in less than a quarter of the time it took to achieve the previous record holder of 4 years. This, on its own, is a magnificent triumph for the global healthcare research community.

Over the last two years we have lived through three national lockdowns, mask mandates, evacuation, limited access to social gatherings and for most people, complete isolation, which has had a huge impact on the mental and physical health of the population. And through all of this, we also had to tackle the huge amounts of misinformation flooding in from a huge number of sources.

It wasn’t until people started looking back to early December 2019 that they started to see the articles on the “mystery illness in Chinese city”, of “a mysterious pneumonia that were actually the first signs of the pandemic which future generations will have written as a chapter in their textbooks. We might think that Covid-19 was a once in a lifetime experience and will look on in misty-eyed remembrance when our children are writing out their flashcards and doing practice questions on the pros and cons of lockdowns and asking to look at pictures of us in our masks. But in actuality we have had four major pandemics in the last 100 years, and there is a 60% chance of another pandemic even deadlier than Covid in the next 25. Our experience is certainly the first for our generation but I’m sorry to say it may not be our last.

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H.O.P.E O WINCHESTER & N POWELL YEAR 9 The climate crisis is possibly the most well-known issue in our society today. Climate anxiety is becoming more and more frequently found in children and yet we are not progressing at a rate fast enough to tackle it. Why? Possibly because of how it is near impossible to make much progress individually, or without a structured group-approach.

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HOPE is the way forward.

In 2021 alone, 23 species of animals have become extinct and 25% of remaining species are heading down that route already. Before 2021, only 11 species had ever been officially pronounced extinct: a perfect example of the increasing problem. True, some of these animals have not been sighted for decades, but it is only now that we have to recognise that the damage we have done would prevent them from returning anyway. Ever heard of the Desert Bandicoot? No? Oh, well, it’s gone now.

689 million people are in extreme poverty globally. This means that, should they be victims of a natural disaster, they would not be able to recover from the loss of their homes for lack of funds, and they would have barely any to no financial support, depending on the development and economic status of the country they are living in. Furthermore, due to the climate crisis, foods are increasing in price because of the more erratic and violent weather patterns and also because fuel taxes are going up on fuel as it becomes a more valuable commodiy. This, overall, makes it so much more difficult for people below the poverty line to access as much food as they need. The Climate crisis may not affect this country as much as others but, countries such as Germany, Japan, Madagascar and India are

affected in many ways. Ask yourself what you can do to slow down climate change. You might switch lights off when you are not in the room, or the simpler things like not charging your phone at night. We have certainly begun to make changes within our life at school.

HOPE is the largest community in the School, with 60 student members from a wide-range of year groups and an additional 20 members of passionate staff, allowing us to have a great influence both within the School and in the broader community, building the map of change that can trace the road to a healthier environment.

HOPE, an acronym for ‘Helping Others Protect the Environment’, helps spread awareness in many ways to help rally more people to fight for the environment in many ways including: ● Running assemblies for local

primary schools. Creating assemblies geared at primary school children can help them make sense of the climate crisis earlier and help them develop better habits and/ or ways of thinking that could help them develop a more sustainable way of living in their communities.

parents, which is a huge help for those who wish for a greater insight into the climate crisis. ● HOPE regularly puts together

brochures for various events; such as our Green Christmas brochure to help spread awareness to those who are unable to access our other awarenessraising activities.

● The local Outreach programme

is also playing a key factor in the school’s approach to sustainability.

Helping the environment is a noble cause but it is understandable that not all people are prepared to sacrifice certain ways of living to it.

In retrospect, it has often also been highlighted as a selfish cause, one to protect oneself and one’s way of living.

This is a possible perspective which can also motivate a lot of people.

Are you trying to save others, or are you trying to benefit yourself? Both perspectives have the same to-do list.

● Local schools can book our

Environmentalist-in-Residence to help educate students as well as

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Paper Jungle D CLEREHUGH LOWER SIXTH The Amazon rainforest. Five-anda-half million square kilometres of meandering wildlife; from the giant river otter, to the pygmy marmoset.

A delicately balanced ecosystem, thriving in a harmonious pattern of existence. A transcendent hand offers its palm to a silvery bird song heard above the canopy, the music stretches through the Brazilian landscape, carried by the untouchable Amazon river. Hidden on the depths of the rainforest floor, dew drops fall onto the delicately designed faces of plant leaves, desperate to indulge in their share of sunlight. A lone caiman basks in the shallows of the river, warming her blood in the early morning sun.

An intensity of the jungle green

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intertwined into webs of delicate yet fierce complexity. The design - so intricate - the idea of simple biological coincidence seems unfathomable.

This is how the Amazon thrives.

Covering roughly the same patch of land for fifty five million years, it has no need for growth. Instead, this unique natural phenomenon plateaus, its inhabitants live in accordance with their needs, whilst delivering the ecosystem with its nutrients.

The trees become ventilators, external lungs that feed the rest of the planet over twenty percent of its oxygen. A gentle balance between life and death, a

consistent pattern of rainfall and sunlight is what keeps this forest alive.

In what feels like worlds away from this unimaginable landscape, we hear the churn of diesel from the lorry’s engine, charging through traffic on the infamous M25. From above, the cars look like scorpions, invisible poison leaking from their engines.

0735 hours. The shrill of one hundred alarm clocks echoes through Greater London. Accompanied by the cry of a horn, it overpowers the birds that sing their silvery bird song to announce a new ventilating day. A woman wearing red heels with a red outsole hopped out of a blue, glossy Porsche with a cream leather interior carrying information packed briefcases down 57th Street, New York. Hungry children troop down ugly roads past the washed out yellow brick building of the shuttered Escape travel agency, past the fire-flame kebab shop and head down Razor Street towards Lana’s laundrette with the smashed window.

Sat in a classic dark wood kitchen, with kippers grilling on the aga, a gentleman dressed in an olive waxjacket waits on his tea to cool. His eyes skim over the headlines on a copy

of `The Economist’ that lies on the mahogany table in front him.

urine-stained mattress with his cold hands, his breath begins to labour.

‘Coronavirus fears drive stocks down for sixth day in a row’

Yet these are the consequences. The scorpion stings are no longer invisible.

Across the Indian Ocean, following the path of heavy tankers burdened with exports, we arrive in Delhi. Vast clouds of smog envelop the city.

Overpopulation. Lack of political priority. Motor vehicle emissions.

Humans have an unprecedented desire for perpetual growth. Our impartial affections for consumerism, our desire for wealth and success is what drives this divide in nature. The Amazon Rainforest has thrived on a plateau for a millennia. It has no need for the latest iPhone. It lives in a closed-system, sustainably balanced between its inhabitants and the hand that feeds it. If humans could do the same, valuing a green, renewable approach over an economical one, perhaps we too, could thrive without destroying our own ventilator.

‘Delhi in a chokehold: Air pollution causes public health crisis’ ‘2.2 million die in India’s worst ever year for air quality’ In the dishevelled RS Cikini Hospital, a toddler lies in a crowded hospital dormitory, isolated. His weak lungs wheeze for attention, blackened and diseased. His nose runs, his lips are scabbed. Clinging to the decrepit,

perhaps we too, could thrive without destroying our own ventilator

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A VERY NOUGHTIES

scandal

N HAMILTON | SECOND IN ENGLISH

The ‘noughties’ began when I was 10 and ended when I was 20, and so my teenage years were spent watching MTV, listening to Destiny’s Child and reading Heat Magazine. Now, Destiny’s Child will never not be great, and MTV still has a solid place in the halls of fondly remembered television, but the place of the tabloid magazine has become more problematic as the years have gone by. Perhaps it has something to do with one of the most strange noughties phenomena … the red circle of shame.

The red circle of shame was a laser beam target that was splashed over the covers of many tabloid magazines in the 2000s. It involved paparazzi pictures, mostly of young female celebrities, mostly taken without permission, which exposed some perceived flaw of female beauty. The said flaw would then be highlighted via the red circle of shame on the cover of the magazine in order for the woman’s imperfections to loom large for the reader. A dimple in the thigh here, a smudge of make-up there, an exposed bra strap, a muffin top bulge, you get the idea. Not only was the red circle of shame a symptom of beauty standards posited on womens’ bodies at this point in time, it also exposed a much larger idea: that the imperfect female, especially the imperfect young and celebrated female, was somehow newsworthy.

Indeed there was a canon of young female celebrities, Lohan, Hilton,

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Spears, Winehouse, who were more or less constantly in the tabloids during the early years of the millenium. These so-called ‘fallen’ women were often pictured in states of inebriation and semi-clothed, perhaps, in some cases, even in the midst of mental health crises. Yet far from these images being deemed as uncomfortable or violative in nature, they were seen as newsworthy and lucrative. Young, female scandals sold tabloids faster than anything else. Yet it wasn’t as if there weren’t also male scandals to report, after all, male celebrities in the noughties such as R Kelly and Weinstein were perpetrating genuine criminal offences on large scales, but these were never reported at the time, and were covered up by those around them. So why was it that these young women, committing very public, but often legal, mistakes were such big news? Why were they the targets of such tabloid attention and public scrutiny? The answer lies in the long, long history of female scandal.

In his book ‘Trainwreck’, Sady Doyle posits the idea that there are 3 ‘crimes’ that a female might commit which would render her a target for scandal.

These crimes, which are of a social nature, rather than illegalities in themselves are: sex, need and madness.

SEX The sexually active female has long been a steadfast trope of the fallan woman; think Tess of the D’Urbervilles, The Scarlet Letter, even Eve herself.

The loss of a woman’s innocence has been associated with her downfall for the delight and entertainment of the reader since the dawn of Literature itself (count the fallen women in Ovid’s Metamorphosis for example.)

The sexually active female, that is the sexually active unmarried female, in Literature almost always suffers a downfall, sending a moral message to the reader and allowing them a vantage point of superiority. It’s not easy to see how this maps onto the disturbing trend of ‘upskirting’ that

this time, in fact actress Natalie Portman had done so just a couple of years prior in 2005 for her role in V for Vendetta, yet this wasn’t seen as an act of madness, it was seen as dedication to the craft of acting. There was something about the link between Spears’ decision to remove her hair and her mental health that rendered this newsworthy in the way that Portman’s decision was not.

occurred in the 00s, where paparazzi would photograph underneath the clothes of famous young women as they exited cars for example, always without consent. The leaking of nude photos was also a common tabloid phenomena in the noughties. Both of these types of journalism would be illegal and punishable by law today, but were common practice for the paparazzi back then. Sexualising the bodies of these young women, without their consent, would ensure their association with scandal and sell magazines quicker.

NEED Doyle’s idea of ‘need’ plays into this idea of the desperate female, the lonely female, the rejected female. Again, this is not a new idea and ‘clingy’ women have peppered the page of novels for centuries, just think of the snubbed Lucy Steele in ‘Sense and Sensibility’ or Dickens’ Havisham. These women are ridiculed for being rejected by their male partners, their loneliness is scandalous in that it plays into the age old idea that there is something deeply shameful about the single female. The 00s saw single women such as Jennifer Anisten feature time and time again on the cover of magazines such as Heat. Branded with words like ‘alone and desperate’ these women were presented as lovelorn and pathetic. Years later even, Kate Middleton was dubbed ‘waity Katy’, when she was not engaged within

what the tabloids deemed to be an appropriate time frame. The problem with these stories is that they are based solely on journalist conjecture, in reality the reader has no idea how these women feel. Perhaps they do not feel alone at all, perhaps they feel fulfilled and happy in unwedded bliss.

Yet, once again, nothing sells like the scandalously alone female.

MADNESS In 2007, a series of pictures of 26 year old Britney Spears shaving her head surfaced. Within hours they had become some of the most viewed pieces of photographic journalism of the last few decades. Spears had gone through a very public and distressing divorce and custody battle and had been relentlessly followed and photographed by the paparazzi during this time. Allegedly, Spears felt that by shaving her head she would stop the relentless pursuit of photographers.

What she couldn’t have known is that, in shaving her hair, she had exposed herself to an unprecedented amount of press conjecture and attention.

Branded with the word ‘meltdown’, Spears was portrayed as a woman on the brink of madness. The press revelled in her downfall, there was no sympathy for her plight, or concern over her mental health, the coverage of this incident was nothing short of a gleeful spree into the depiction of a ‘madwoman.’ The strange thing is that other young and famous women had also shaved their heads during

Perhaps it was because there was something about the press coverage of the 2007 ‘meltdown’ that tapped into the image of the ‘madwoman in the attic’, a phrase coined by Gilbert and Gubar about the character of Bertha Mason in Jane Eyre. There has long been a sense of scandal associated with the idea of female madness, perhaps because it is an idea that flies in the face of the reserved and submissive ideals of Victorian femininity. However, this isn’t a trope that begins and ends with the Victorians, for example Stephen King’s novel ‘Carrie’ is his second best-selling novel of all time, right behind ‘The Shining.’ For decades, the scandalously insane young woman sold books and magazines like nothing else. Fortunately, as time has gone on, society as a whole has become much more understanding towards issues of mental health and it is no longer seen as a taboo or scandalous topic.

I can’t help but feel that if Spears had undergone such difficult circumstances now, in 2022, she would have received a vastly different treatment in the press.

Looking back, the 00s was a strange time for journalism and tabloid journalism in particular. With the benefit of hindsight and perspective, many of the paparazzi practices used during that time seem cruel and voyeuristic. Nowadays, there are still the last vestiges of this type of reporting out there for the public to access if they like, but so much of the media content out there today is more ethical and responsible in its depiction of sensitive topics, perhaps because readership today is less concerned with scandal and more preoccupied in creating a fair and inclusive society, one would hope. But when we look back through Literature across the centuries, it’s not hard to see where the 00s concept of the ‘scandalous female’ was forged.

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Music: The Digital Age

By O Lee – Lower Sixth

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There are obvious differences between our current ways of life compared to those of the past, arguably development of technology is one of the main things that has impacted lifestyles. However, whether or not technology is truly beneficial for the music industry is debatable, as there are a range of benefits and drawbacks of the current state of technology within the music industry.

As music has progressed over the decades, it can be seen that ways of making money in the music industry have inevitably changed over time; it is considerable that this is due to the digital-age and growing accessibility of technology which has allowed artists different ways of releasing and sharing their music. The streaming services that the modern consumer would know well - Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube - have been monumental for increasing accessibility for the consumer, providing infinite catalogues of music whilst also enabling convenient features such as playlists, song sharing with friends, recommendations and easy song selection (instead of endless fast forwarding needed to skip songs when using a cassette). Furthermore, all these features are in the portable format which the majority of consumers already own - a smartphone.

Although perhaps less convenient, CDs, vinyls and cassettes allowed artists to make much more revenue; with Spotify paying artists around £0.003 per stream, it is almost impossible for the majority of musicians to make a living solely from streaming platforms. Musician Joe Bonamassa said in an interview: “They are now systematically telling people that creativity and artwork is free”. I think that this statement really sums up the problem with streaming platforms - the music is undervalued and such platforms are only beneficial for the consumer. It is a shame that the same internet which can

“They are now systematically telling people that creativity and artwork is free.”

powerfully boost business to the next level isn’t truly benefitting musicians in the same way.

Social media plays a big part in everyday life for the new generation of consumers, daily usage among teenagers sometimes being five hours plus per day, thus, social media platforms can be highly beneficial for musicians. Visibility online can be useful for marketing and up-and-coming artists to get their name out; a song going viral on TikTok or being used in a Netflix trailer could be a helpful boost of promotion, which could be vital to the success of a new musician. Artists also gain more reach and connection, leading to more loyal fanbases.

However, with social media, attention spans have become shorter, and it could perhaps be said that long term followings and fans for musicians have decreased. The number one in the charts usually changes quite quickly; this is good for more musicians to get their name out however it could be considered negative as the business is more-crowded, making it harder for artists to stay popular or keep listener interest for a longer period of time. It is also considerable that in some cases music can be more about the image rather than the actual music; we see so many influencers posing on Instagram with unrealistic beauty standards, but also abnormal celebrity relationship dramas and controversies. Celebrities

are perhaps making it onto the front cover of a magazine because of controversial drama - rather than something they have achieved or the quality of their music.

Although it could be argued that perhaps the internet hasn’t been as beneficial as it could be for the music industry, accessibility of live gigs and performances has begun to restart after Covid. After research, I have discovered the speculation that there will soon be the next Summer of Love; our current world and that of the first two Summer of Love’s in 1967 and 1989 is surprisingly similar.

The pandemic has enforced the importance of human interaction, and the wave of excitement and desire to go out after being stuck at home is a drive for this generation.

The Summer of Love stood for freedom, peace and connection - factors that are highly-desirable for the young population after two years out of normality. Some of the most popular music came from the summer of ’67 after the outrage of the Vietnam War, and the mix of protest and peace acted as a rejuvenation of the music industry for the time. I feel that although the current state of our music industry does have obvious drawbacks, the drive for live music and celebration of artistry is something that could be hugely valuable for the younger generation.

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J TINNELLY HEAD OF HISTORY A school trip to the First World War of France and Belgium has been, quite rightly, a staple offering of History departments in many schools for many years, certainly since I started teaching twentyplus years ago. With Covid’s arrival, organising a trip abroad became more of a challenge; however, in March 2022, our Year 9 History students were able to visit a Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery, with its iconic white headstones, without even leaving the country. Cannock Chase War Cemetery contains 97 Commonwealth burials of the First World War, most of them New Zealanders who trained at the large military camp at Cannock Chase, and 286 German burials, mainly from the local prisoner of war hospital.

the beautifully maintained cemeteries of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Yet, if we go back to the years preceding the First World War, there was simply no concept of national remembrance for anyone other than the ‘heroic’ leaders of battles.

One of the remarkable things about this cemetery, as with all CWGC cemeteries, is the uniformity of the white headstones, arranged in ‘serried ranks’ to provide military symbolism. No matter the rank, nationality, religion or social class, and whether the soldier is known or known only ‘unto God’ - all those who are commemorated have gravestones made from the same bright white Portland Stone, engraved in the same font at the same angle of 60 degrees and to a uniform depth of three-sixteenths of an inch. This was deemed to be just the right angle and depth to ensure that someone walking between the rows of gravestones could read what was written at a distance of six feet away.

This lack of remembrance wasn’t because there were no conflicts in which ‘ordinary’ people were involved. A century before the First World War, the Napoleonic Wars had seen the number in the British armed forces rising to over 250,000 men. However, national remembrance of the dead was confined to the highest echelons – truly magnificent pieces such as Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square and the Wellington Monument in the Blackdown Hills, for example. The infantry got no such memorials. Drawn from the lowest classes – the ‘scum of the earth’ as Wellington said – their bodies were looted for anything that could be salvaged and sold – including the soldiers’ teeth for use in dentures (indeed, dentures became known as Waterloo Teeth following the huge upsurge in supply after the 1815 Battle of Waterloo).

Ordinary soldiers’ bodies were burned, hastily buried or left in the open to decompose. No records were kept of who died where, much less any marker left to commemorate them.

Families usually didn’t know where their loved ones were killed, and even if they did, they rarely had the money or resources to do anything about it.

Human remains could still be seen on the ground a year after the Battle of Waterloo and, horrifyingly to the modern mind, a fertiliser company was contracted to collect up the visible bones and grind them up to sell to farmers.

So far, so familiar – most people in Britain today will readily associate the remembrance of those who died in the First and Second World Wars with

Perspectives about how to remember those that served in conflict underwent a remarkable and radical shift in the First World War. This was

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partly because soldiers were now drawn from every walk of life – the Pals Battalions recruited for Kitchener’s army famously encompassed men from places and positions that had never before been called upon to serve in the armed forces, and their families were far more able than those of a hundred years before to expect their husbands, brothers and sons to be respectfully interred and remembered. The nature of that remembrance, remarkable for its levelling of social position in the form of the cemeteries we can visit today, was in large part thanks to the efforts of a man named Fabian Ware.

When war broke out, Fabian Ware at 45 years of age was deemed too old to fight. Instead, he took on an ancillary role with the Red Cross mobile ambulance unit on the Western Front, witnessing the First and Second Battles of Ypres and Loos in 1914-5. It soon became clear that the death toll from this conflict was horrific and unprecedented in its scale, and that nothing was being done to systematically record the names and locations of men who had fallen in battle. Indeed, Haig called efforts to identify the dead “purely sentimental”. Ware and his team were keen to dispel this notion and they therefore set about supplementing their ambulance work by meticulously recording the locations of individual soldiers’ burials. By May 1915, Ware’s unit had registered 4,300 graves and their work gained official recognition.

Ware was encouraged to continue with his endeavours and it became a real labour of love. His revolutionary vision was to create permanent cemeteries in the locations where soldiers and

others had been hastily buried during the conflict. His principles, finally laid down in the 1918 Kenyon Report, envisaged the tablet headstones being precisely uniform in substance, size and shape, with optional religious engravings, and arranged to give the impression of soldiers on parade. He aimed thereby to symbolise ‘equality of honour’ and equality in death.

The organisation Ware founded, renamed the Commonwealth War Graves Commission in 1960, remains a thriving and busy institution. Funded by six member governments, it is today responsible for maintaining graves and monuments remembering nearly 1.7 million people in 23,000 locations, not only here and on the Western Front but right across all inhabited continents. Cemeteries range from the huge (eg Tyne Cot remembers almost 12,000 in just one cemetery) to the tiny (eg 2 in Timbuktu) and can be found in over 150 countries, all of which have agreed to the CWGC maintaining its cemeteries there ‘in perpetuity’. Kipling’s words seem no exaggeration. The work begun

by Ware was truly remarkable. Seeing men and women from across the British Empire and beyond buried side by side on our visits to the Battlefields, whether in France, Belgium or here in Britain is testament to the ground-breaking work of the Commission in its commitment to equality.

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Yet, perspectives continue to shift and alter, and it has become apparent in more recent years that this commitment to equality did not always extend beyond the European theatres of war.

In 2019, a Channel 4 documentary ‘The Unremembered’ highlighted the inequality of remembrance between soldiers on the Western Front and those who fought in more far-flung areas of the British Empire. For example, whilst a beautiful and culturally sensitive memorial was constructed at Neuve Chapelle to commemorate the contribution of Indian troops to the Western Front in 1915, the much larger force of Indian troops who fought and died in Mesopotamia received unequal treatment in terms of remembrance.

Around 8,000 missing

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British soldiers are named according to CWGC principles on the Basra Memorial to the conflict in Mesopotamia (in modern day Iraq), as are the names of 665 Indian officers. The 33,222 other missing Indian soldiers who lost their lives are, however, not named on the Memorial, just in the associated register.

An even greater contrast is with the small and anonymous memorials located in East Africa. Estimates suggest upwards of 200,000 African soldiers and labourers died in the First World War. To commemorate these men, the Commission decided to build central memorials in Mombasa, Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, with inscriptions by Rudyard Kipling, but with no names of the fallen or missing. In part this can be explained by a lack of records and of course Fabian Ware and his team had limited resources, not stretching to the conflicts raging in the Middle East and in East Africa. We also need to remember that Ware’s vision was ground breaking for his time. Very few had the mindset we have come to expect today of equality for all. Nevertheless, in a further shift of perspective, the CWGC has in more recent years embraced the challenge of overcoming non-commemoration and the CWGC’s historians are hard at work, accessing archives across the world to try and uncover as many identities of the missing as possible. Fabian Ware’s remarkable and radical vision lives on in their endeavours.

References: Commonwealth War Graves Commission website: https://www.cwgc.org/who-we-are/ our-history/ M Cogan, ‘To what extent was the empire’s commemoration of those who served during the First World War Equal?’ (2020) published on westernfrontassociation.com J Neicho & K Temple, ‘Fabian Ware: the man who changed how we remember the dead’ (2018) published on prospectmagazine.co.uk ‘They shall not grow old’ (13 November 2021) The Economist

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This proposed standardisation of grave markers was, however, truly shocking to many contemporaries and one only has to think of the grand Victorian cemeteries such as that at Highgate to understand why. This was a society where social class defined a person both in life and death. Those with wealth and high status in life were laid to rest in the most elaborate tombs, often with lengthy epitaphs and a heavy dose of Christian symbolism. Fabian Ware’s vision was completely at odds with this and he was required to stand firm in order to see his vision achieved. The Prince of Wales, for example, received protests about Ware’s proposals. There were even debates in the House of Commons and outrage in sections of the press. Complaints were made about bodies being buried in the battlefields “like dogs”. Some were outraged that the cruciform marker would not be used for the graves, with a petition being raised of over 8,000 signatures to register protest at this. Many more were shocked that all ranks would be buried and commemorated in the same way.

Queen Victoria’s youngest grandson – Prince Maurice of Battenberg - was killed in 1914 at Zonnebeke in Belgium. His mother, Princess Beatrice, wrote to Ware about the dishonour she felt would be shown to royal blood by burying him alongside men of lower social standing.

Nevertheless, Ware had his way, and Prince Maurice was buried in Ypres Town Cemetery where his grave is still tended to today by the Commission.

By 1917, having petitioned the Prince of Wales and helped by a team of experts, Ware and his team took on what Rudyard Kipling described as “the greatest piece of work since the Pharaohs, and they only worked in their own country”. This work was the setting up of the Imperial War Graves

Commission. Their enormous task of creating the First World War cemeteries and memorials would not be complete until 1938 and only one year later, the same organisation would be tasked with commemorating the dead of the Second World War.

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Changing our Perspective.

Period

I FAHEY LOWER SIXTH Since sitting down in an all girls assembly and an older female teacher explaining what menstrual cycles were to me, periods have always felt like a thing to keep private. Whether it was because of the way someone delivered a wobbly demonstration of a tampon expanding in a glass of water, or because of the way I saw girls smuggling their sanitary

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products up their sleeves or into their pockets, I don’t know, but, although I was never openly told they were gross, weird or something to be ashamed of, they have always felt like that to me.

However, as I grew up, I began stumbling across social media platforms which embraced periods and openly spoke about them. These kinds of media messages were sparse

in the beginning, but over the last few years, I have seen more and more messages of period-positivity. Slowly, I learned that periods do not need to be something so embarrassing and so ridiculed. Around 50% of the population have periods, perhaps it is time to embrace them, rather than hide them away. I wonder if it is because of the gendered nature of periods in and of themselves, that they have been hushed up as ‘women’s business.’

THE PROBLEM I can’t help but wonder, if men had periods too, would sanitary products be free? Afterall, we are still fighting to have tax-free tampons, let alone free ones. It’s an eye-opener. It appears to me as though people who have periods are simply left to ‘deal with it ourselves’, with the condescending phrases of ‘it can’t be that bad’ or ‘but have you ever been kicked in the balls?’ Well, if anyone you know has ever made those comments, you can tell them that recent studies have shown that periods can sometimes reach the pain level of a heart attack. On top of that, the pain of period cramps can sometimes last for hours or even days for some people, a very different level of discomfort to a short and intense kick to the testicles.

THE STIGMA

embarrassed about or hide. From TV shows showing ‘hormonal’ women who are having their ‘time of the month’, to when women have cried or showed any sign of an intense emotion, they have been silenced with the ‘god is it shark week?’. Or is it the way that advertisements won’t even show period blood on television, and instead show some blue liquid being poured onto a pad to represent it. The fact that the media won’t even show what truly happens to a person during their period is enough damage, cementing the idea that what happens to their body is too shameful and embarrassing to be shown on TV.

THE HOPE However, through all the negativity, I believe that some of the stigma for

periods is wearing down. Since growing up and watching more women openly talking about period cramps, leakage and many other problems that we go through on the monthly basis, it has allowed me and I’m sure many others to not feel so alone when problems with periods arise. We have begun breaking down the idea that sanitary products are something we need to hide. Breaking down all the terrible phrases for periods such as ‘that time of the month, red ribbon, lady day’ or whatever carefully crafted euphemistic names that people have come up with.

I believe it is well-overdue to embrace a natural occurrence, giving us the necessities we need without an extra cost or without it being seen as a luxury and breaking down the word ‘period’ being seen as a bad word.

I believe that the main embarrassment that arises with periods, is how little control we have of them. I’m sure many of us can admit that we have been caught out once or twice in a public bathroom with nothing around us to use but toilet paper. Or raise a hand if you have ever woken up and realised you have leaked onto our bedsheets. Or when we thought our period was over and decided to wear those white skirts or jeans, only to realise our mistake too late. These are just a few scenarios that I, and many other people who experience periods have been caught out in. In a way that could be why periods are embarrassing to talk about, as people living in the Twenty-first century, we are in control of most things. In fact, we can control our Starbucks order down to the temperature, kind of milk and strength of espresso.There is definitely a sense of stigma around those bodily functions, such as periods, that simply can’t be controlled, or won’t fit into the fast-paced, micro-managed style of 2022 living. Maybe it isn’t completely our fault, but the media’s for altering our perspective of a natural occurrence and leading us to believe that we should be able to control our bodies in this way to begin with.

For generations the media has portrayed periods as something to be

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A Myth Misunderstood I JOHNSTON LOWER SIXTH

The myth of Pandora, the first mortal woman on Earth, came into prominence in Theogony (lines 560-612) and so her story dates back to the first centuries of human society. In an epic poem written by the Greek didactic poet Hesiod, in eighth Century BC, she was portrayed as the unnamed first woman figure in Greek mythology. Lines 60-105 revealed her tale; she was formed out of clay by the Gods and then manipulated and exploited as a victim of revenge.

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THE MYTH OF PANDORA You may think that you already know the myth of Pandora and her ‘box’ however, the narrative of the original source tale may surprise you somewhat: After Prometheus purloined fire from the Gods and gave it as a gift to man, Zeus, in retaliation to the theft, commanded the other Gods to form Pandora to be objectified as an emblem of vengeance.

Hephaestus moulded her from clay to be beautifully seductive, creating the concept of the ‘beautiful evil’.

Athena dressed her, taught her needlework and weaving, which were impressive skills of the time.

Persuasion and the Charities gifted her jewellery. Aphrodite “shed grace upon her head”. Hermes gifted her a pretence of the power of speech with “lies and crafty words” and a “deceitful nature”, naming her Pandora id Est - “All-Gift”. Zeus presented Pandora with the pithos jar (which due to later textual corruption by Erasmus, changed to ‘box’ in the 16th Century) and sent her to Prometheus on Earth, who rejected the gift. She was then accepted by Epimetheus, Prometheus’ brother, as his wife.

The pithos held all suffering “ills”, “hard toils and heavy sickness” and mortality which, either by Pandora or Epimetheus, was released, leaving only Elpis (Hope) inside the jar. Thus ended the Golden Age of the race of man’s harmonious and prosperous environment.

D. WILLIAMS - “MYTHS, IN MANY WAYS, ONLY EXIST TO BE MANIPULATED” In his edition of Adagiorum Collectanea in 1500AD, a collection of Greek and Latin proverbs, Erasmus translated pithos (jar) into pyxis (box) twice from Hesiod’s original.

In both errors the use of ‘pyxis’ occurs with Pandora having brought it to Earth with her: “was sent to Prometheus with a box” “Pandora returns, captivating Epimetheus and presenting the box to him”. This translation change caused a contagion effect for Pandora and her myth, most poignantly seen in the great

expanse of modification in the history of art, where she is almost exclusively pictured with a box instead of a jar.

The mistranslation has endured in most languages, except Italian, which is translated as il vaso di Pandora, Pandora’s vase. But why is this mistranslation so important?

Although the change of ‘jar’ to ‘box’, may seem trifling for some, it is indicative of a wider problem, indeed, Erasmus’s work reflects typical Renaissance attitudes towards classical texts: that they were fit for appropriation. Another such careless attitude with translation is the apportioning of blame on Pandora.

In the original text from Hesiod, it is unknown whether Pandora or Epimetheus opened the box, releasing suffering onto the world. However, In almost every subsequent artwork illustrating the myth, Pandora is displayed as the sole individual responsible for liberating the evil spirits into the world, rather than Epimetheus.

However, this time it is not Erasmus’ translation which is to blame for the misinterpretation of the myth. In Erasmus’s Adagiorum Collectanea, it is in fact Epimetheus is described to have opened the box. As Erasmus describes: “Eam simul ac aperuisset, evolantibusque mobis, sensisset lovis”, a direct translation being “and as soon as he had opened it, he had felt that Jupiter’s diseases flew out”.

By emphasising on the use “he” twice, Epimetheus remains the subject of the clause from a grammatical point of view in Erasmus’ translation. So where did this idea of Pandora being the one to open the box come from?

PANDORA THE VILLAIN It could be understood that “Pandora’s box” in the title of Bonasone’s art is solely a factual description of the painting, but what is often forgotten is that it was in fact Zeus’s jar. The modern titling of the myth ‘Pandora’s box’ completely overlooks Hesiod’s assertion that Pandora was actually merely a pawn in her own story. It’s forgotten that she was an abused victim birthed exclusively for revenge.

Rather, artists and writers express her as both the protagonist and the antagonist in Mythology.

Throughout history women have been seen as a threat to humanity, evidential in the blame of Eve for the fall of man in the Bible, a narrative which almost directly maps onto the mistranslation of Pandora’s myth which puts her at the centre of the fault of mankind. Furthermore, the concept of Pandora being a ‘beautiful evil’ or an “oxymoronic woman” links to the Renaissance concept of “De secretis mulierum” - translated to mean “hidden, secret things about the nature of women”. Women have often been painted as evil or malicious because they were hiding their anatomy in a metaphorical ‘box’.

During the 15th and 16th century, women’s bodies weren’t used as cadavers, due to less women being executed. This led to an increase in interest into the sexuality of the female anatomy, which some theorists argue led to the male’s desire to control, out of fear that women were hiding powerful knowledge in a “box”.

This enforces the idea of the sexuality of a woman as a threat, maybe this is where the “box” came from in Erasmus’s version. This has been alluded to in the portrayal of women in the history of art, particularly in Pandora, through the suggestive positioning of the naked Pandora-Eve in Jean Cousin’s painting. The linking of Pandora to female sexuality and its hidden secrets is perhaps one reason why she transformed from victim to villain in the Renaissance period.

Not only was Pandora demonised as a woman hiding a secret, but, due to her status as the first mortal woman on Earth, she also came to represent the evil intrinsic in all of womankind. Even in the original myth by Hesiod, Pandora’s threat was extrapolated in lines 590-93: “from her is the race of women and female kind: of her is the deadly race and tribe of women”. Hesiod goes on to lament about the dangers of the “evil of women”, how “evil contents with good”. Jane Harrisons argues that Hesiod story provides “evidence of a shift from matriarchy to patriarchy in Greek culture”. So, in a similar way to Eve, Pandora comes to represent all women and their faults and failings, their threats and secrets.

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To Write a Woman C FOWLER WHALE TEACHER OF ENGLISH Women are often the victims of violence in literature but historically this trope is overlooked. Only now, with new awareness, are young women seeing the dangers in classic fairy tales: Sleeping Beauty and Snow White do not consent to being kissed; Belle is suffering from stockholm syndrome; and Cinderella changes herself to be more desirable. It cannot be ignored that Disney is presenting stronger female role models in recent releases, yet they still fall back onto historical tropes to ensure the popularity of their brand. Moreover, within the wider literary spectrum, there is still evidence of misogyny, patriarchal influences and the male gaze, which in turn are reflected within our society and how issues of consent are presented. Women’s identities are arguably societal constructs ensuring that the male ideals of womanhood are perpetuated; the dangerous Other is created to ensure inherent fears of femininity become internalised and are then projected onto women, by women.

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The origins of Sleeping Beauty are far more disturbing than the sanitised Disney version. Many will quote Grimm’s fairy tales as ‘darker’ versions of our classics, yet the Brothers Grimm often manipulated and changed the folklores to suit their own audiences.

There are three lesser known origin tales for Sleeping Beauty: Perceforest (1528), Sun, Moon and Talia, and the softer version by Perrault. In both Perceforest and Sun, Moon and Talia, Sleeping Beauty is raped in her sleep, gives birth and it is when her baby sucks the splinter from her finger that she is awakened from the curse.

In both cases, she goes on to marry her attacker. Perrault took a more modern stance and had his princess awaken after 100 years with the prince having not touched her, where they then converse and are later married.

Interestingly, Disney decided to have the prince awaken sleeping beauty (and many of their other princesses) with a kiss. These allowances for a lack of consent are dismissed as minor within childhood with mistreatment often being seen as endearing. Phrases

We must actively deconstruct, not passively accept, these limiting expectations and carve out our own identities. such as: ‘he does that because he likes you’ are common within society and popular culture; however, these subtle approvals contribute to the wider normalisation of a lack of consent across the spectrum of harrassment, assault and rape. This is reflected within society with recent studies demonstrating that only 3.4% of sexual assault cases in the U.K lead to conviction. A recent survey revealed that many women do not recognise that they have been assaulted due to the ‘blurred’ understanding of consent and how male behaviour is often disregarded, even by women.

Furthermore, the ideas of consent and relationship dynamics are often influenced by popular culture (domestic violence increases by up to 38% after a football team loses) and what is presented as normal within the media; yet audiences are still faced with problematic templates: Twilight, Game of Thrones, Noughts and Crosses and unfortunately the list goes on.

Although Disney’s Maleficent attempted to change the narrative of the kiss, we still see a demonised woman presented as the fearful Other.

The fear of female power is often depicted in literature from classics such as Macbeth to The Handmaid’s Tale and Naomi Alderman’s The Power. Alderman presents a society where young girls, at the age when they are becoming awakened to the world, suddenly have a physical power: the ability to electrocute.

Alderman imagines a world where women and girls are no longer the physically weaker sex. Historically, powerful women have been fetishised and sexualised into being the ‘male

fantasy’, demonised as the dangerous Other or for women, they represent a utopian ideal: we no longer have to be afraid. Yet, Alderman demonstrates the reality of power: power can corrupt anyone, no matter your gender. What is most interesting is that this feminist novel is presented as a manuscript written by a man - why does this idea have to be presented through the male lens? It echoes the fears of female authors who used pseudonyms to gain publication and the dangers of a female, feminist voice.

The Otherness often ascribed to women who do not conform is not only perpetuated by men but often women as well. Women have internalised this fear and subconsciously reinforce the patriarchal ideals still prevalent within society; it is this that is the true danger within society and literature, and it is often ignored. It is easier to see the ‘red flags’ of misogyny in out-dated views, but it is when women are presented as furthering the misogynistic and patriarchal archetypes of womanhood that it becomes truly problematic.

In classic texts such as A Streetcar Named Desire, it is Blanche’s sister that condemns her to an asylum after she is sexually assaulted. When, in The Great Gatsby, Tom’s mistress becomes more of a threat, it is Daisy who ‘accidentally’ kills Myrtle. When Edna attempts to leave her marriage in The Awakening, it is Adele who reminds her to ‘think of the children.’ These literary women have been punished because they did not conform to the accepted norms and therefore became the fearful Other; an image that is prevalent throughout history. Throughout literature, female characters and authors have have acted

as the agents of patriarchy, reinforcing the reductive roles open to the fairer sex and this in turn, impacts the way women view themselves and others within wider society.

When women strive to change aspects of themselves, when they compare themselves to others (and find themselves lacking), when they covet aspects of another female, it is arguably due to the internalised male gaze and misogyny skewing the way they view themselves and the world around them. Fundamentally, society is constructing the female sense of self that women have to then actively deconstruct in order to understand who they are. In Bronte’s Jane Eyre, Bertha is a societally constructed madwoman with her character built around this one label and readers have passively accepted this for years. It was only when Jean Rhys gave Bertha an actual identity in Wide Sargasso Sea that readers started to question the reductive characterisation of a female character.

It is clear that language is ultimately being weaponised to perpetuate the ‘acceptable norm’ of womanhood whether it is through social media, literature, film, music, celebrities, or advertisements. Thus, as we critique the world around us, we must acknowledge the socially constructed identity that has been created for us and the layers of embedded misogyny that still influence and hold sway over our perceptions of ourselves and our gender. We must actively deconstruct, not passively accept, these limiting expectations and carve out our own identities.

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Mr Perkins The chalky moonlight filtered through the thin veil that was the lace curtains. The regular collection of clutter that usually enshrouded the desk - that was evidently without purpose - had been moved to the crimson armchair. Free of odds and ends, the desk looked bizarrely organised; it was wrong somehow.

From the frost on the windows, to the harp that hadn’t been touched in months, the room felt bare and unwelcoming. It wasn’t the sort of place you’d go to muse about unanswered questions, or read a book by the heat of the hearth on a cold winter’s night. It was the sort of place that harboured a distinct sense of remoteness and disdain. The sort of place that bright minds and creative imaginations go to die, where words wither on pages. Becoming nothing more than a forgotten soul or a regrettable tear.

Mr Perkins was quite a peculiar man, he was rather tall and frail. Almost as if he’d been whipped into shape by the cruel tongues that carried

C POWELL YEAR 8

outlandish rumours. When placed on the bookshelf in the far corner of the room, a book must be placed upside down with its pages facing anyone who entered. Despite its unusual arrangement, the bookshelf always maintained a neat and dependable order. It was one of the necessities he required in the office; most of them were rather obscure. To the untrained eye, the large fireplace was just that, a large fireplace. What most people would tragically never know, was that deep within the depths of its inferno lay many a disregarded book.

Mr Perkins printed and bound books you see, when he strayed upon one which he proclaimed disagreeable it would be tossed into the flames. Most decided him a lunatic, but I saw the marvellous soul beneath.

More often than not, I typed up his evening ramblings so that they wouldn’t fade beneath the tumults of time. The stained opal typewriter I used to produce such things always seemed to glare at me when I entered. A heavy thing

it was, so it was never moved from the desk in case it was dropped and by consequence broken. Perhaps it was my paranoia, but I couldn’t help feeling it didn’t like me. Its smooth edges and defined posture felt much too grand for my hands to even dream of touching. The bewitching gold letters that adorned its keys were a stark reminder that all the gold I would ever possess was the painted coal Dorothea had given me for Easter. The only thing in the office that didn’t frown at me, or wish ill upon me, was the portrait of Maita.

Maita was 23 years old and could speak adequate English. She was very pretty, and her wit rivalled her intelligence. Mr Perkins doted on her everyday though his affections were not always returned, and he was chastised with regularity. For a parrot she was rather pleasant company.

Glancing at the clock I realised there were only ten short minutes until midnight. I had better leave. Things disappear at midnight, and I found it took a long time for them to return.

Perspective It’s funny, isn’t it, The way our heart is designed to be broken.

Not the way it breaks from loss, But split into pieces like a chocolate bar and handed out; Grubby fingers clawing for a piece.

It’s funny, isn’t it, The way we cling so tightly to the pieces of our hearts, The strings holding it together.

Tangled up with shared memories and inside jokes Our relationships dangling by a thread.

It’s funny, isn’t it, The way we wield our tongues like chisels, Chipping at the pieces we are given, Watching the imperceptible cracks spread across it.

Fragmenting like glass, yet it beats and bleeds on us; It’s funny, isn’t it, The way we view those cracks as ephemeral.

Try and repair them with kind words and presents,

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M FORD YEAR 10 As if we’re plastic surgeons.

As if we can hold our hearts together with duck tape.

It’s funny, isn’t it, When you think about it The way that all our hearts do is beat but we think we can give them away.

Bargain with love and affection; It’s funny, isn’t it, When really all it is, is hormones and neurones, Speeding across our brain It’s funny, isn’t it, When you look at the cache of memories you have for each person formed in your heart, but held in your head.

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On Perspective:

Notes from the Library Desk B-D DELBROOKE-JONES HEAD LIBRARIAN

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WHAT DOES “PERSPECTIVE” MEAN TO THE LIBRARY? The Reference section is always a good place to begin when talking about something that is complicated. The word, “Perspective,” has its roots in the Latin, perspicere: per – “through” – and specere – “to look”, and suggests looking closely at something. Seems easy enough, but we know that the word means more than that. The Oxford Dictionary defines it in a number of ways: PERSPECTIVE (N.) is: 1.) The art of drawing solid objects on a two-dimensional surface so as to give the right impression of their height, width, depth, and position in relation to each other when viewed from a particular point; but it is also 2.) A particular attitude toward or way of regarding something; a point of view; and even 2.1.) True understanding of the relative importance of things; a sense of proportion.

And there are other definitions besides.

When we think about Perspective in these terms, we can see how slippery an idea it can be. It can rely on strict mathematical and spatial rules in order to represent – or create the impression of – reality, yet it is also about attitudes, opinions and the relativity of experience.

“Well, hang on, Mr DJ, how does any of that apply to the Library?” you might ask. Glad you did.

Libraries are funny things. For instance, their books are all arranged in a specific way so that similar books are grouped together. This is so that they are easier to find than if they were placed at random on the shelves. The huge scope of human knowledge has

been sorted numerically according to the Dewey Decimal System: Philosophy in the 100s section, Maths and Science in the 500s, Literature in the 800s, and so on. This is useful to the Librarian and the scholar alike, but the idea that knowledge belongs in discrete boxes is a matter of… perspective. I can flick through books about history and invariably there are maps in them; or geography books that speak of events long ago that have shaped the world. There are books about the Philosophy of Science, Metaphysical Poetry, and Sacred Art. Don’t get me started on fiction and the challenge of “genre”. (If you don’t know what I mean, just try to decide on when something is “Fantasy” or “Magic Realism”.)

My point is that, while the Library may seem to promote one perspective – that you can order all books into neat categories, depicting three-dimensional ideas in a twodimensional space, if you like – really, they take in and share all manner of ideas and perspectives. In fact, they do better than this: They can champion a range of perspectives by having a balanced stock. You can find books that describe the importance of Capitalism, on the one hand, as well as those that outline its various pitfalls. Biographies and accounts of oppressed individuals and groups sit alongside studies of society as a whole, giving us both individual stories and the context in which they took place. We have books that show us how misleading statistics can be, and others that discuss how central statistics are to human flourishing.

Libraries help us to remember that “it’s complicated” and that as passionately as we may feel about something, there are inevitably lots of ways of thinking about it; many, even most, of them valid. By safeguarding a range of

perspectives, libraries remind us to be both empathetic and critically-minded; to have a sense of proportion; to seek true understanding.

Now, these are mighty bold claims and I am far from impartial about the important role libraries play. It is, after all, just my perspective. A Library – our Library – may mean different things to each person in the Pipers Community: a place to relax; to read and celebrate books; to study or do research; to do work; to play chess; to hang out; or to have stimulating conversations with the Library staff… the list goes on. Some of these are perhaps more important than others, but that importance really is a matter of perspective and I often remember the parable of the six blind men and the elephant: A group of blind men heard that a strange animal, called an elephant, had been brought to the town, but none of them were aware of its shape and form. Out of curiosity, they said: “We must inspect and know it by touch, of which we are capable”. So, they sought it out, and when they found it they groped about it. The first person, whose hand landed on the trunk, said, “This being is like a thick snake”. For another one whose hand reached its ear, it seemed like a kind of fan. As for another person, whose hand was upon its leg, said, the elephant is a pillar like a tree-trunk. The blind man who placed his hand upon its side said the elephant, “is a wall”. Another who felt its tail, described it as a rope. The last felt its tusk, stating the elephant is that which is hard, smooth and like a spear.

All were correct in their own way, of course, though you could say that they would have all been closer to the whole truth, that they would have appreciated and understood the elephant that much more, if they had just tried to see it from the others’ … perspective.

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A Rescheduled Meeting I USMANI LOWER SIXTH You have a meeting Friday Midday and you are told it is moved forward two hours. What time is the meeting now?

Some people will say that it is at 2 pm, however, other people will be convinced that the meeting is now at 10 am. I, like 50% of the population in the UK, believe that the meeting is now at 10 am and find it inconceivable that there are people who believe otherwise. Moving the meeting forward by two hours, to me, will make the meeting come closer, meaning that the meeting is now at 10 am.

Everyone’s perception of time will vary, whether you think the meeting is at 10 am or 2 pm. However, what people don’t know is that it says a lot about a person based on what time they pick for the rescheduled meeting question.

People who believe that the meeting is now at 2 pm are said to have the perception that they move through time. This means that for them, time is stationary, and they progress their way through it. This is known as having an ego-moving perspective.

Whereas people who believe that the

meeting is now at 10 am are known to have the perception that they are stationary and time is moving through them. People who believe this have what psychologists term: a time-moving perspective.

Personality tests were conducted comparing the people who have egomoving perspectives and the people who have time-moving perspectives and found the way you view life differs depending on which perspective of time you see.

The scientist that conducted this research found out that, if you feel like your life matters and that you are in control of your life and future, that you are more likely to have an ego-moving perspective. On the other hand, people who viewed their life to be more fatalistic and thought that events are inevitable and predetermined are more likely to have a time-moving perspective.

However, your perception of time can change depending on your mood and feelings towards an event. For example, if you are looking forward

to something, such as a party, you are more likely to switch to the ego-moving perspective. Whereas if you are thinking about an exam or something you are dreading, you are more likely to switch to the timemoving perspective.

This issue of perspective is very much an English language issue. Many different languages will perceive time in vastly different ways. For example, the Aymara (an indigenous group in South America) view the past as in front of them and the future as behind them. This means that when they are talking about the past, they will gesture in front of them and gesture to the back when talking about the future I will never understand how people honestly believe that the meeting is at 2 pm and not at 10 am. The differences in response speak to how different people’s perspectives are, even on something such as time which we usually think of as very fixed and linear. It just goes to show that although time is objectively measured it is subjectively understood.

The differences in response speak to how different people’s perspectives are, even on something such as time which we usually think of as very fixed and linear.

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l u f r e d n o w Our .

E M HO ENVIR S M A I L P WIL

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-RESI N I T S I L A ONMENT

DENCE

We need to put humanity and the future at the top of our thoughts and most definitely our actions This wonderful planet provides us with everything we need to support life: food, medicines, clean water, air and biodiversity.

All interlocked, one supporting the other, one reliant on the other, and one that includes our species: the Human.

As well as needing each other, there is the beauty that having a vibrant and varied world brings.

Wherever you are from, no matter what career path you follow, no matter one’s age, there is nothing more important than looking after our special planet, protecting it, even improving it for future generations so that they can enjoy and benefit the same way we have for generations.

We live in unpredictable times with the virus, wars, refugees, famine, the climate crisis and all that it brings; floods, droughts, forest fires, shortage of food.

We need to put humanity and the future at the top of our thoughts and most definitely our actions, whether you are a politician, business person, student or parent, it’s no good talking about these situations - we have to see actions. Actions from the heart and not just for today, but the long-term future. All of us owe it to our children to really understand the importance of creating a sustainable future.

To create new innovative ways of working and living, whether simple or complex, often requires thinking outside the box, looking for new and creative ways to establish a sustainable future.

The problem for many, especially adults, is

that we are set in our ways, finding it hard to accept and adapt to new alternatives and approaches.

We have good intentions, but are often not aware how our daily lives at home, or at work, impact on the world and sometimes we think that as an individual we cannot make a difference.

Then he asked a question: “Why do you in your world try to make everyone the same? You should respect everyone by celebrating their differences”

We have to change that mindset and realise that as individuals, we are all important and we can contribute to the welfare of this wonderful planet as an important person, no matter age, career or ethnic background. If we all make steps in the same direction, together, those steps become one giant step in creating a sustainable, caring and responsible future for Planet Earth.

Interesting views about us from someone whose life and culture is so very different to ours and yet due to our actions his world is disappearing.

Amazonian Indigenous people bring their children up on three principles.

First, to be the best they can be, second, to create no unnecessary harm to all living things, and third, not to lie.

We need to look around us and really appreciate and enjoy all that this wonderful planet gives us, the colour, the vibrancy and biodiversity.

Juan Kunchikuy, a famous Amazonian Indian guide, from the Ecuadorian rainforest on a visit to the UK was asked while being interviewed on tv that now he had visited the UK would he like to live here?

We have to be humble, respectful and caring and work together to create and develop a sustainable future for all.

Humans as a species need to realise the importance of sustainability for the future of our special planet.

Juan looked pointed to his watch and said “No” The interviewer was surprised and ask “Why?” Juan replied: “I do not know why you base your life around this (pointing to his watch) your life is so stressful. You (we) are only on the planet for a short period of time you (we) should chill out and enjoy yourselves more, enjoy this wonderful and special place.

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Reality TV: A life Examined A TOWELL & N DUNSMORE YEAR 8 “The truth about love and emotions is that there’s always a risk, even if you’re drop-dead gorgeous – that someone prettier, funnier or more engaging might walk in and upset things.”

REALITY RACISM- LOVE ISLAND As television continues to move slowly to diversity, the dating show Love Island has finally followed by casting the show’s first black female contestant, Samira Mighty. Lots of Viewers waited a long time for this and even complained that they were fed up with the lack of ethnic diversity on the show. Samira’s casting on the show has thrown into focus the struggles black women face when dating.

Unlike other shows, Love Island is different, and has been praised for its ‘unfiltered’ portrayal of the sinister side of dating. The show itself and Samira’s arrival highlighted the cast’s very slim (and white) definition of their “type”.

Samira was the last of the Islanders to find a match, with newcomer Sam, and while lots are happy to see her finally paired off, it doesn’t negate the fact her much-delayed date simply mirrors real life on dating apps, black women are less likely to receive responses to messages than any other ethnic group.

PHOTOSHOP EDITING Lots of modern day reality TV celebrities use Photoshop to show off what they claim to be, their ‘natural’ beauty on their social media accounts.

Sometimes photoshopping is used to clear up slight blemishes or adjust lighting, but other times it makes people look unrecognisable. Although Photoshop can be a useful tool for enhancing natural beauty and giving a self-esteem boost, we often see photos of celebrities that look so flawless. It’s hard to believe they’re even real.

This can create impossible standards to achieve, like perfectly carving and changing our bodies through plastic surgery and unnatural modification.

This puts a lot of pressure, especially

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on young teens, to meet these unrealistic requirements.

Buzzfeed recently released the video “Photoshopping Real Women into Cover Models.” The video documents the experiences of three real women as they model in a professional photo shoot and are exposed to Photoshop.

The three models can hardly recognise themselves once they are shown the final product. It left them feeling robbed of their own identities.

Taken aback by the photoshopped images of themselves, they question if anyone actually looks as perfect as they do on the cover of a magazine.

One of the models said, “I feel like it doesn’t even look like me… I like my freckles, I think they add character.

And the fact that they’re gone, I don’t even know who this is.” Whereas another model shared, “This is how I always wanted to see myself, but now that I see it, I’m questionning why I ever wanted to look like that.”

The third model added: “Instead of looking at other things and trying to aspire to be something else, we should just be comfortable in who we are and just try to be our best selves.”

This proves no matter how close you are to the ‘ideal beauty standard’ we shouldn’t change ourselves to fit the same ideal look, as we will regret it. We may discover something we actually liked about our appearances after it’s too late, like one of the model’s freckles.

MENTAL HEALTH This is Sophie Gradon, she was a former contestant on the show ‘Love Island’, in 2016. She had openly talked about being in a ‘dark place’, due to trolls online. She also mentioned her anxiety and depression. However, several weeks later, her partner killed himself. Then Sophie passed after him, also by suicide, on 20 June 2018.

Gradon’s boyfriend had expressed his worries on social media. “They see a claim to fame,” he claimed. “They don’t see that in 10 years’ time, when

you’re married with babies, you’ll still be haunted for the rest of your life.”

The show’s producers say they have systems in place to safeguard people and their cast. However, not much more has been said or proven on the topic.

Jordan Grace, a popular model and a DJ, is aware of how difficult the backlash can be. “I couldn’t have gone on it, knowing the nation is posting stuff on social media about me, and not have any contact with the outside world,” he says. “I’m self-conscious enough.”

This proves that what is on social media is fake; behind the screen these influencers are truly struggling, and obsessing themselves over how they can avoid backlash whilst still increasing a following. It also shows us that these standards for celebrities are really damaging whether it is body image or what a celebrity can or cannot say. This constant pressure of if they say one word wrong could end their whole career.

MONEY- LOVE ISLAND Love Island contestants are portrayed to have a rich and glamorous life, whereas the reality is little of it is true.

Usually, the islander girls are shown in fancy dresses with long painted nails, clean makeup looks and shiny, brushed hair, although, an important factor to remember is that what we see on social media and “reality” tv shows is not always real.

Many teens watching Love Island gain unrealistic standards. A common example of this is fashion. Viewers see the contestants wearing new clothes and the most expensive new shoes and the best bikinis. They then get upset that they can’t keep up with the trends as it gets too expensive. However, behind the scenes the contestants are sponsored by big name brands and don’t even have to pay for the items.

Many viewers don’t recognise this and still try to keep up with the unrealistic spending of money.

HOW FAR IS TOO FAR? Wanting to change our looks is normal, but to what extent. Is obsessing over numbers on a scale healthy? Is wearing a full-face of makeup worth it?

We all have insecurities, but how can we change this? Well, the answer to that is sometimes we can’t, or it isn’t safe. A common insecurity, like your weight, could lead to unsafe obsession.

If you want to gain or lose weight, checking your weight every month or so to see if you made progress is good, however if you check your weight every day can be unhealthy, and lead to severe eating disorders and malnutrition. In the US, 1 in 10 women suffer from an eating disorder because of the unrealistic images that are shown

through various different social media platforms.

Lily-Rose Depp has spoken about her struggle with anorexia, telling French ELLE that she found social media comments about her weight upsetting.

“It hurts a lot and depresses me, because I have spent a lot of energy fighting the disease,” she told the magazine.

“I was much younger when I faced anorexia, it was very difficult to deal with it. All who are familiar with this problem, know how difficult it is to return to a normal life.I have battled an eating disorder for a long time and am very proud of the results that I have achieved.”

Trust Your Gut A DAVIS YEAR 10 The mind is a malleable tool that is shaped by the environmental surroundings; the teenage mind is extremely vulnerable to information which is said or heard. The most common age to have an eating disorder is between 12-25 years old - when the brain is underdeveloped and cannot understand information fully. Therefore 11% of high schoolers in America are diagnosed with a type of eating disorder.

Diet culture is the toxic perspective that your body image is more important than anything else including your physical, psychological, and general well-being. It is the concept that controlling your body and diet in an obsessive way is normal. In recent years, teenagers have had a huge jump in dieting and exercising to lose weight, in fact, between 37% - 44% of teens diet and almost 60% of teens exercise to lose weight. Social media has helped spread diet culture myths like wildfire to young vulnerable minds across the world. The influence diet culture has on young people’s minds is unimaginable, one ‘quick trick to lose weight’, can lead to disordered eating behaviors, and negative controlling thoughts.

Over time as the false information spreads, there is an increase in people beginning to believe the information being told to them as it becomes normalised, an example is comparing portion sizes to your friends, looking who can eat the least. The lack of nutritional knowledge from young people further encourages diet cultures; if young people do not know the facts about balanced diets, people begin to believe that diet culture myths are true. An example of this is not eating past 8pm. Some people are terrified to eat past certain times, due to what society has told them, when in reality, your body feels hunger at any time and should be listened to and respected not deprived and ignored.

Unless someone has studied nutrition and dietetics, people do not have the right to offer health and nutrition advice about eating as ‘low calorie’ as possible. It starts with a harmless diet you saw on social media ‘clean foods only’, then the ‘two-week ab challenge’, but when you do not see results you sit there and cry contemplating why you will never be good enough until you have visible lines chiseled down your stomach as that is the only possible

thing that could ever define your worth.

Exercise began as a childhood memory with friends for fun and to keep fit, but for some it becomes a robotic routine which you blindly follow otherwise you think your life will be over if an ab workout is not completed.

When the compliments about people’s ‘new’ body begin about how good you look, how much weight you have lost, young people’s disorders are fueled like pouring petrol onto a fire. What began as a set of rules to obsessively follow about food and exercise suddenly became your life, it is your daily pattern to count, recount and recount again to triple check to the decimal place how many calories you have consumed. Your young mind does not know adequate information about remaining a healthy relationship with food and exercise and you begin to think this is normal. These are all reasons why diet culture is something which should be left behind in history and intuitive eating and listening to your body is the most important thing you can do for your future.

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Perspectives: offering yourself compassion CLARE NICHOLAS SCHOOL COUNSELLOR Of all stages in life, perhaps the teenage years are the ones where we are asked to meet the highest of standards: of behaviour, achievement, appearance, and so on. Teenagers are scrutinised, held to account, criticised and compared in those years by literally hundreds of adults, as well as thousands of their own peers. Pressure at school, pressure on social media, pressure around leisure activities – all of these can feel relentless and overwhelming. Competing with others becomes the only way we know.

this way. Actually, anything that we feel or experience has been felt or experienced by many others before us. And the chances are that many of our peers are feeling similar things to us too. Connecting with others friends, family, teachers, therapists – is a way of acknowledging and communicating your pain and discomfort, and sharing the burden. Pain and discomfort, after all, are the things that connect you with every other

And all of this happens at a time when the brain is not yet mature – the pre-frontal cortex (responsible for skills like planning and assessing risk) is not fully mature until our mid-twenties – which makes teenagers much more vulnerable to the damaging impacts of stress.

No wonder these are the years where many mental health disorders (such as anxiety, depression and eating disorders) emerge. It’s estimated that in the UK currently, nearly 20% of teenagers are currently experiencing mental health problems. Some of these will be serious disorders which require specialised professional treatment.

But many will stem from what teenagers have experienced across the generations – powerful feelings of inferiority and unworthiness. Rather than catastrophising the statistics, young people can be encouraged to take a more pragmatic and selfcompassionate approach.

The first step might be to normalise what you are going through. Shame is a powerful force – it tells you that you are the only one feeling

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person on Earth… they show that you are a living, caring human being.

Make friends with your body.

As a young client said to me: ‘Your body can be your best friend or your worst enemy, but either way, you’ve got it for life!’ Tune into what you are feeling and where you are feeling it – in your stomach, in your legs, in your head. Allow the feeling of space just to be, and recognise that your physical sensations are your body’s way of communicating

with you. And it works both ways – calming the body is the most direct and immediate way of calming down your emotions. Mindful breathing, gentle exercise, rest: all of these can powerfully communicate calm and safety to a panicky mind.

Act with kindness. To yourself and to others. Kindness is the most powerful of core values. When we consciously acknowledge our own pain and discomfort, this is an act of kindness to ourselves. Offer yourself kind talk – ‘I’m allowed

‘Your body can be your best friend or your worst enemy, but either way, you’ve got it for life!’

to make mistakes’, ‘No-one is perfect’, ‘I am doing my best with the resources I have’. Offer yourself kind deeds – soothing rituals, self-care activities, spending time with people who care for you. Offering kindness to others (as long as it is given willingly and with healthy boundaries) also nourishes the giver.

Acknowledge the barriers. Your brain might feed you thoughts like ‘I don’t

deserve kindness’ or ‘I’m unworthy’.

It might tell you that this is pointless: ‘How’s this going to help?!’ You might notice some prejudice towards the practice of self-compassion: ‘It’s weak!’

‘I just need to be more resilient!’

That’s OK. It’s what our brains do – it’s often easier to stick with old thinking or feeling patterns because, well, at least we know those. But we can just take baby steps towards new, more compassionate ways of being.

Offering yourself compassion can be difficult. We all have a Poisonous Parrot in our brains – he feeds us the negative, self-critical thoughts and does a really good job sometimes of convincing us that we aren’t enough, that we don’t measure up, that others are doing so much better than we are. But self-compassion is the key to accepting that we aren’t perfect, but we don’t need to be. We are definitely good enough, just as we are.

and then needed to open up again in a Covid-compliant manner. She is also somewhat of a Policy Queen and has led our Safeguarding provision in addition to managing the pastoral aspects of the school. Starting early and working late - and yet managing somehow to fit her work in around her weekend volunteering and her family and friends - she has been one of the hardest working colleagues in the school - without the ability to say No to anyone in need.

with students, Rani has also jumped at the opportunity to teach other subjects at all different levels - and as a result has taught Food in Prep and Life Skills. This has allowed her to get to know many students in the school as well as their families and they have always found her door open.

Valete RANI TANDON

DEPUTY HEAD PASTORAL Rani Tandon joined us in September 2018 from Tudor Hall where her pastoral experience with the girls in a busy boarding school had prepared her well for her role as Pastoral Deputy Head at Pipers Corner.

Like any Deputy Head, Rani’s responsibilities have kept her incredibly busy - not least because Rani was the one who wrote endless risk assessments and became the expert on Covid when the school suddenly moved to remote education

A passionate History teacher who enjoys sharing her vast knowledge

However, in spite of always being so busy, with many demands on her time - Rani’s time at Pipers has been defined most of all by her kindness and her patience. She is passionately determined to make a difference to young people and has given up a great

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deal of her time to support students and also those working with them. Her capacity to listen is legendary - as is her ability to say the right thing. Rani connects with people and genuinely enjoys their company.

Having steered the school through a difficult time of regulations - all the time commuting down the M40 from Banbury - it comes as no surprise that Rani now wants to develop her career in an area where she can make the biggest difference - working with children with special needs. So whilst Pipers will miss her we recognise that she will bring her particular skills to those who need her more than we do.

Anybody who knows Rani can imagine the joy with which she will spend her time in her new job - and how much she will get back from it.

We wish her well.

TARA SMITH

DEPUTY HEAD ACADEMIC Tara joined Pipers in 2018 as Deputy Head Academic. When we met on our introduction day I was blown away by her warmth and passion for education.

Tara had responsibility the academic life of the school for almost four years and in that time developed many areas.

She is passionate about philosophy for children and enquiry-based learning and we all gained by her sharing her skills. Tara taught RS as well as EPQ and I know those who were taught by her benefited for her skill, experience and knowledge. There is no way to separate the pastoral and academic life of the school which is something Tara truly believed in and she was a great pastoral support to many girls who valued her wise and kind advice. Tara is a real team player and was a valued colleague to all in SLT. The period that Tara has been at Pipers has been a challenging one for her and her family on a personal level but throughout all of this Tara has remained strong and smiling. She has been a superb role model as to how to deal with adversity with dignity and bravery. Whatever Tara takes on she will excel at and once she is fully well she will I am sure be unstoppable.

NICOLA GEORGE

HEAD OF SIXTH FORM Nicola joined Pipers in 2018 and has been Head of Year 10 and 11 and Head

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of Sixth Form. as well as teaching History and RAW. Nicola is a dedicated and passionate teacher. She inspires her pupils and many go on to study the subjects further. Nicola has a deep interest in Politics and delved an introduction into Politics as part of a post exam unit in lockdown.

Nicola has contributed to many extracurricular activities from debating to Harry Potter nights and a very enjoyable trip to Berlin.

other’s’ achievements in their regular certificate and sticker assemblies.

Through all this the girls in Pre-Prep could always count on Miss Holloway’s encouragement and her belief in them.

We will remember Miss Holloway not only for her glamorous heels and her love of Percy Pigs - but most of all for giving every student who has been through Pre-Prep in her time an outstanding academic foundation for their future learning.

As a Head of Year Nicola has been totally committed to all those in her care. She is endlessly kind, patient and always listens without judgement.

One of Nicola’s defining characteristics is she is a solution finder and she has enabled many pupils to work out what their next steps should be.

Ruthlessly efficient Nicola has gained many events as a Head of Year such a s a wonderful charity tea party which allowed the students to raise money for charity whilst learning valuable leadership skills.

SAM CRUZ-THOMPSON

Nicola leaves to travel to Australia with her husband and daughter due to her husband’s relocation and we wish her a lot of luck in her new adventure

SARA HOLLOWAY

HEAD OF PRE-PREP Sara joined Pipers as Head of PrePrep in 2018 and her time at Pipers has been characterised by her determination to give the students in Pre-Prep the best possible start to their education at Pipers. A meticulous and knowledgeable Keystage 1 and EYFS practitioner she has run the department with considerable efficiency and flair which have allowed all students to thrive.

Alongside her care for the well-being of the children in her charge - Miss Holloway has created a challenging and creative curriculum which takes into account the varying stages of development of her students. Anyone visiting the department during the day will invariably find her students intent on carrying out experiments, weighing ducklings, taste-testing foods as part of their scientific research or creating art work in the style of a famous artist. After school at crèche their laughter spills out of the open windows as they construct ambitious towers and increasingly imaginative homes - and at the end of term they enthusiastically celebrate each

TEACHER OF IT AND COMPUTING Sam joined the IT department in 2018 bringing with her considerable knowledge of both IT and computing.

She has taught IT across many year groups and Computing to Year 9. Her knowledge of business IT networks and JavaScript have been appreciated by her sixth form students, who also know her as a trusted member of staff who will always be a sympathetic listen, whatever the problem! Sam has run an HTML web design club for the last year. This has been enjoyed by many of the students in Year 7 and 8 and has certainly help promote the benefits of taking the subject for GCSE. Sam has played a significant role in developing the school’s Young Enterprise provision and has coached many winning teams. She leaves the School to become Head of IT at Abbot’s Hill School; we all wish her well.

HEATHER MOORE

LEARNING SUPPORT TEACHER Heather joined the Individual Learning department as an SEN teacher supporting English in 2015.

Heather’s role has grown over the past 7 years undertaking her Level 7 Dyslexia training and qualifying as a Specialist Teacher for Dyslexia. She has undertaken diagnostic assessment with students to help identify needs and provision. She has also used her extensive experience with autism to offer training and advice/support to students and staff. In Sept 2021 she stepped up to take on 2nd in the IL dept and widen her role in school.

Heather has an excellent rapport with student and shows patience and understanding of the challenges faced by some of our students. She has offered a sensitive and receptive ear to students alongside suggesting practical advice and strategies to help

overcome worries and concerns. She leaves us to take up a new post at Lord Williams school and we wish her well for the future.

NETTY NICHOLSON FOOD TECHNICIAN

Netty Nicholson joined Pipers only minutes before the country was plunged into our first national lockdown. We had not received confirmation that our practical exams had been cancelled and so Netty was required to source ingredients for thirty students each cooking five dishes at a time when supermarket shelves were empty!

Netty managed to successfully pull all of this together in only her first month of employment! The food practical exams were subsequently cancelled leaving a mountain of fresh, dried, and tinned ingredients unused and no certainty of when we would return.

Netty contacted Slough food bank to ensure that there was minimum wastage from all her efforts. When school returned Netty was a vital cog in the Food Department ensuring that we were able to return to business as usual with our priority being to keep our students safe. Netty has an acute eye for detail and the skills to see all her plans through. All students who pass through the Food Department from Year 3 to Year 13 have benefitted from Netty’s kind, warm nature, the reassurance that they are on the right track, the support to do something for the first time and her knowledge not only of cooking and food but her life experiences too. She will be sorely missed by everyone at Pipers!

AMY LONGSTAFF

HEAD OF SOCIOLOGY Amy joined Pipers Corner in 2017 as Head of Sociology. During her time, she has raised the awareness of the Sociology within the School, as well as inspiring and motivating students about the subject. Amy has directed many students to reach the highest grades and was always thrilled when students choose to continue their learning of the subject at university.

When Amy went on maternity leave this year, we did not think we would be seeing her quite so soon; however, when we were faced with an unexpected need for a Sociology teacher, and despite Amy having moved with her family to Hong Kong,

she very kindly agreed to teach for us again, albeit by Zoom and with an interesting time difference. The School and her students were delighted! From September, we wish Amy every success on her new adventure in Hong Kong.

And a Form Tutor held with much fondness. And. And. And. En3 will be the mansion after Gatsby has left. But rumour has it, he is still to be seen, reading in the hills of Italy.

HELGA ARMSTRONG

SECOND IN MATHS

HEAD OF CAREERS

Helga joined Pipers in 2019 as Head of Careers and has been an extremely valuable member of the school. Helga has ensured that we have a strong development of careers guidance throughout the school culminating in all Year 10 having individual careers interviews followed up over the next three years with bespoke advice and guidance. She has opened the eyes of the students to the possibilities beyond Pipers and students have taken many paths they did not think possible.

Even during lockdown and with Covid restrictions, Helga has ensured she has been connected with many students and parents and as restrictions have been lifted finally organised an in person careers event, our amazing Performing Arts Evening. Before she heads to an exciting retirement she has the next one planned leaving the department ready for new hands to take the reins. We wish her a happy and healthy retirement.

JASON REED

TEACHER OF ENGLISH Perhaps the best articulation of Jason’s six enormous years at Pipers is the photograph of a Founder’s Day: Jason dressed as a hobbit, dramatically posed looking abroad as if about to tackle hordes of orcs.

Jason lived the literature in his classes, steeped in its power, and he dived into his school roles. Plastic costumes of hairy feet and pointy ears held no worry. And his room, En3, was another articulation: a fin-de-siècle literary salon, a cornucopia of books, films, artefacts, a Pitts Rivers Museum for students to discover, probable shrunken heads humorously perched behind the Trump toilet paper. And it was to here that students of all ages flocked to Dead Poets’ Society once a week, a loose agenda falling to general discussion about books, life and … stuff. But Jason also gave hugely of his time for extra help sessions, and poured energy and care into his classes almost to personal exhaustion.

And Pipers Radio. And Bar Mock Trial.

ELIZABETH ROBERTS Lizzie had only been at Pipers for a year when the rest of us descended on her in 2017 and expected her to know the answer to every question we threw at her. She settled into her role here so quickly and has remained an incredibly organised, reliable and hard-working member of the team, getting stronger and stronger every year. She will be particularly missed by her Sixth Form students who seem to see more of the funny (and slightly whacky) side to Lizzie that we have grown so fond of over the last 5 years in the Maths Department. She has never been afraid to get stuck in, helping with Duke of Edinburgh, several athletics events, and more recently in developing the school’s Gifted and Talented provision. She leaves us to take on a role as Head of Mathematics at an international school in Spain. We will all miss her hugely but wish her all the best for this exciting step in her teaching career.

DEIDRE LEE

SECOND IN RS Deirdre joined the RS Department at Pipers in 2020 and this was the moment when calmness descended on all those fortunate enough to have been impacted by her. Deirdre has made such a strong impression on all those students and staff she has got to know these past few years. Deirdre has been an inspirational RS teacher and invaluable Form Tutor in Year 9.

She oozes experience and wisdom and is one of the kindest teachers I have ever worked with. Students trust her like a family member and the staff are losing a loyal friend with a great sense of humour. If popularity is judged by visitors to your office or classroom door, then Deirdre is right up there; I have seen students queuing at her door at times. She has been that person you want to turn to and talk through any problems to. She will be missed by the whole school community and we wish her all the very best in the next chapter of her life.

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Aquila

Great Kingshill, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, HP15 6LP 01494718255 www.piperscorner.co.uk