The Priorian 2018

ST BENEDICT’S SCHOOL

THE PRIORIAN

BENEDICT’S SCHOOL a

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ACA D E M IC YE A R 2017 – 2 018

aling •

London •

W5 2ES

• V 020 8862 2010

M headmaster@stbenedicts.org.uk

F St Benedicts School, Ealing •

L stbenedicts

Issue no. 146

Welcome to the latest edition of The Priorian, a showcase of the excellent work completed throughout the year by pupils of all ages at St Benedict’s. I hope you will enjoy reading through this selection of academic and creative highlights from both the Junior and Senior School.

The Priorian features pieces of work which have been nominated by subject teachers and Heads of Department for their originality, scholarship and imagination. The range is wide, from creative writing competition winners to GCSE and A level Art final examination pieces. I am sure you will be fascinated to read the U4 Ancestors Projects on page 14, where students share family members’ experience of World War II. Among the essays, stories and compositions, there are interesting insights into many aspects of school life: the sports captains talk about the challenges and rewards of leading our sports teams; some CCF recruits describe their experience of camps; our Head Boy gives an account of his Oxford interview (he was subsequently offered a place at Jesus College); and a young entrepreneur reports on the impressive success of his comedy app. Also included are extracts from three Extended Project Qualification written reports – scientific enquires researching the effect of music on the unborn child; the use of placebo in medicine, and CRISPR genetic modification. Unsurprisingly, all were awarded A*s.

St Benedict’s youngest pupils at the Junior School have contributed some delightful creative writing and artwork, and have clearly enjoyed exploring topics such as Hillary’s Heights, Travel and Treason, and Storms and Shipwrecks.

I think you will agree that there is a great deal of talent among St Benedict’s pupils. There really is no limit to what they can achieve if they are given the right support, guidance and encouragement to explore their talents and interests.

I would like to thank the editors for compiling this rich and impressive collection of work.

ST BENEDICT’S

Mr A. Johnson Headmaster

2

Editors: Miss E. Wallace, Miss C. Shah and Mrs D. Johnson Front cover: Ayotenu Dosumu (U4)

Welcome

INTRODUCTION

ART The following selection showcases the Art and Design coursework of GCSE and A level students...

THE PRIORIAN

Isabella Wingrave (U6)

3

4

ST BENEDICT’S

Opposite: Top row – Rachel Kelly (L4) Middle row – Jenom Nyam (L4) Bottom row (L to R) – Bethan Yates (U5); Savanah Navazesh Verze (L5); Shayla Sood (L5)

Right: Madeleine Harris (U6)

THE PRIORIAN

Above: Top – Ravneet Kalsi (U5) Bottom – Stephanie Melik-Abrahamian (U6)

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Opposite: Left (top to bottom) – Athena Sproten (L5); Santiago Rivero Fafian (L5); Eva Stoopin (L5); Ned Gatacre (L5) Centre bottom – Bettina Dow (U5) Top right – Sofia Matheou (U6) Bottom right – Lucien Adhami (U5)

Right: Genevieve Greenall (L6)

THE PRIORIAN

Above: Thalia Sandleson (U5)

7

MUSIC U6 composition Free Composition is worth 20% of the Music A level course. Pupils can choose to compose a piece of choral, orchestral or film music. The extracts illustrate the complexity of composing at this level. Students are required to develop expressive musical ideas and demonstrate a mature awareness of audience and occasion.

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ST BENEDICT’S

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by Shane Duffy (U6)

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 THE PRIORIAN

Flute

by Trinity Yau (U6)

9

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

ENGLISH

Jormungand

CREATIVE WRITING COMPETITION

The fog rolled in around the rickety little fishing boat on the black, black lake. It was the thickest of fogs.

To the men on the boat, the only thing left in the bleak world was a tiny sphere of visibility with the boat, the water and the fog.

Organised by Mr. M. Watts, Literacy Co-ordinator

All pupils from the Middle School took part in a creative writing competition, writing in any form on any theme....

Winning entry – A Hostage to Nature

by Camilla McCosker (L5) Her power was gone. The earth was not listening to her silent screams. The commands that usually were met with effortless ease, were being ignored. So she had no other choice but to run.

And run fast. Her legs ached with every leap. The ground beneath her was trembling, the thorns were scratching at her shins. Despite the agonising pain rushing through her body, she carried on going. Reluctantly, planting one foot in front of the other, her breath shortening and lungs burning, she stumbled over bushes.

Her foot got entangled in the roots of an oak. She caught her breath, her heart skipping a beat.

Tumbling down, stretching her arms out, she cushioned her fall. As soon as her palm touched the moss that blanketed the forest floor, everything began to spin – calmly one moment, but wilder the next. Her dominance over the land twisting out of control. The trees and the bushes vaporised. The thistles and the thorns vanished. The blue sky above her was soon grey and misty.

And then the rain began to pour. Just drip drops at first but torrential soon after, battering down on her back. She was instantly soaked through.

The unforgiving woodland had taken her hostage. She was powerless and vulnerable. Her mind couldn’t comprehend the situation. Her body unable to respond, paralysed out of fear. She couldn’t fathom a solution to this problem. Then, as though a cog had clicked into place, she went into autopilot. Her body taking over. Leaving her disorientated mind behind.

The ground was crumbling away, piece by piece. Her body understanding that it wouldn’t be long until the floor was gone too. So she turned herself around, and flung herself towards the oak, the lone piece of nature in sight.

The ground breaking away, she tucked in her toes. It had happened as fast as it had started. Sucking in her breath, she willed the wind to stop.

ST BENEDICT’S

And it listened.

10

Relief washed through her and hope sparked in her thoughts. She had control again. She could feel all the earth’s energy on her fingertips once more. Glimpsing at the world around her, she steered herself away from the oak. The spectacular sight before her eyes was nothing compared to the wreck that it had replaced.

by Kit Wheldon (Form 3)

The boat creaked ominously as the men hauled up the net, heavier than it should have been, immovable as a mountain. Suddenly the net sprang up the pulleys and flopped onto the boat as limp as a dead fish, a terrible gash in its side, hemp and rope split in two. A jagged rock at the bottom of the lake? But this lake, in the high Highlands of Albion, was rumoured to have no bottom and was said in legends forged long, long ago in the dawn age, to be home to Krakens, Leviathans and the great sea serpent Jormungand.

The men on the boat looked in fear at the terrible rent in the net. The rumours were too dire. The legends too drenched in blood. Fear crept into their hearts, a shadow blacker than the depths of night. And fear in your heart, on the black, black lake always heralds death and doom by icy oblivion under dark depths and the crushing pressure of water. The pressure of thousands of gallons of water in the deepest depths of the black, black lake.

Suddenly, the ripples slowly spreading across the black, black water seemed more ominous, mysterious and sinister. The mist more menacing, mistrustful and altogether unending. The water seemed blacker, bleaker and colder, much, much colder. Spine chillingly, breath quenchingly colder.

The water seemed blacker, bleaker and colder, much, much

colder.

The ripples grew larger. Small waves lapped at the scarred old wood of the boat (in one family of fishermen for generations). The waves grew larger, ever larger, until the boat was rocking as if on the high, stormy seas.

A rippling cascade of silver scales shot into the sky faster than the wings of the red raven of war. A tower of scales, bright silver white as the moon, covered and with the swords Writingintocoral persuade... and cutlasses of long lost heroes buried

hilt deep in the icy armour of the beast.

The huge head of Jormungand peered through the fog, ivory teeth large as lances. Sharp as fear.

had seen its entire race destroyed by fire in a long forgotten war. All the anger and pain that the world could ever hold.

The men on the boat cowered in fear of this mightiest of beasts, their hands in front of their eyes, scant protection from the icy bone white fire of its maw that the last hero of the dawn age had perished in. Its icy, frost blue eyes seemed to peer into their very souls.

Eyes so full of pain and sorrow that

But why make war when it knew the pain of friends and family lost in battle?

The monstrosity that was Jormungand plummeted deep down beneath the black, black waters to die in the depths alone.

Technology: Friend or Foe?

By Victoria Szymanska, L6

The Mingling of Chaos

3…2…1….

by Isabella Ciavola Mooney (U4)

Amber lights gave a warm glow to the bar. Shadows danced along the walls, while their counterparts danced across the main floor. There were flared skirts and peacock dresses flowing in time with the music; there were pressed suits and sharp fedoras tapping along to the beat.

Drinks were spread out across the room sparkling like glitter. The shades of whiskey and wine added to the whole ambience in the room.

Those who weren’t dancing sat at the bar chatting; their words floated around the room above the masses. The music mingled with the outside sounds, blending together in another harmony. The noise was like a hum in the background when she walked in, at five minutes to midnight.

She was the first. No one noticed the stranger, despite her crisp white dress, that shimmered with the light of a thousand stars.

She sat alone at the bar, a whisky in her hands. Her brown hair was tied up under a wide hat that covered her eyes and most of her face. She finished taking a sip as the next one walked in.

She wore a red, fluted skirt that sat up on her waist. Her dark lips were painted with a red that matched her skirt. The lights were dimmed as there were three minutes remaining. Her shoes sounded against the floor like beaters on a drum. She sat down next to the first. Nobody even noticing their presence.

“Well fancy seeing you here?” laughed the first, turning her head to face the second.

“Coincidence, don’t make me laugh. It was fate.” joked the second.

“Well Love, speak of the devil” drawled Coincidence.

In walked a woman in a black floor length dress trimmed with gold.

She walked with elegant poise. Her back was straight, her eyes were faced dead ahead looking towards the other two. Her blonde hair fell around her shoulders in splendorous waves. “’Evening’ Ladies” Fate spoke calmly. She sat down with the others. They all watched all the surrounding humans celebrate around them. What a strange species. They have all these traditions based on nothing but their surroundings and their reactions. It’s oddly beautiful how so many become one in celebrating the passing of time. They still have Hope.

“Pity that Hope couldn’t join us” sighed Coincidence, looking down at her whiskey.

“Don’t be silly Love, she’s everywhere tonight” Fate replied, “It’s a good thing too.

All these humans, all our humans, will need her in the years to come and I know she won’t let them down.”

“It’s true. There are times ahead when they will begin to realise the need to love each other for their differences, I feel we might just start to see more glimpses of acceptance.”

THE PRIORIAN

New Year’s Eve, 1947, when not even the rain could put a damper on their mood. People were swingin’. Music was blaring. Cigarette smoke hung in the air in wisps and swirls. It was a perfect scene, like one you would see in the pictures.

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Forgotten? She denied it. Let’s settle on hidden; Hidden at the back of her slow moving mind; Hidden in this library, in this attic, Centuries made it impossible to find.

Slogging through fragments of memories, It wouldn’t float up itself; Through this cavern of dust, Until, yes, of course, a familiar shelf.

Brown, dusty covers seem to be Soaring into the sky; A blur, not books, Skimming over her eyes.

Perhaps with some help she could just.., No! This was hers.

A mission of will, her will, To find this book first.

The challenge was there, no question.

Once-real opponents slicing through her, The day at the pool: the race, The prize of those yellow carnations.

They were so clear in her memory, Their bright colour, So real it made this book look a dream, Faded, duller.

Running through every aisle, Back to the search, now a race, Dismissing book after book, Trying to attach a time and place.

Would she ever find the thick volume, Bound with her pony’s hair, Golden pages fluttering, Ripped by the whipping air?

When would she take from her shoulders, this suffocating mesh of pools and mums and hurting; longing to breathe air which is fresh.

ST BENEDICT’S

But then, a small shake at first, A tremble in her knees, Falling, falling, down she went, What did she need?

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How fast was she running? wondering, Why was she here?

What were those pages?

That buzz in her ear?

‘They disconnect from their surroundings’, The doctor had said, When diagnosing Dissociative Disorder, And examining her head.

The book was somewhere else, Now she was sure, As she rocked back and forth, On the bathroom floor.

So much wrongdoing; How could she bear The weight of her actions; She followed her mother there.

Confusion and anger, A land of lost searches, To find her book, A mission never deserted.

Her nose bled steadily, drops of red flashed spreading as they hit the floor, and splashed.

Dancing along the filthy tiles, tiptoeing through the grime, crashing into beer bottles, mirroring the wine.

Echoes of her mother’s drunken shrieks, resounding up the stairs, tripping over to the door, to slide the bolt and chair.

Her mind was as blocked as her memory As she watched her thumbs, Twiddling and fiddling, What had she become?

A machine controlled by trauma, Or maybe just a shell, Of what she was before the pool, And what she did, as well.

The first time she saw it, her own mother’s smile, not fooled by alcohol, not covered in bile.

Winning at the pool, just a little race, Made her mother feel so proud, A cause to celebrate.

Now she wasn’t stupid, Now she didn’t doubt, Her mother had no love for her, And drank to block it out.

Her life, the noise, her headache, Her daughter’s need for her, And most of all this clawing, Just to disappear.

Now the wine makes this child unruly an ambassador of cruelty, suffering, revenge and hatred, truly.

THE BOOK OF HURT by Sophia Sandelson (L4)

DRAMA

L6 devised drama performance

THE PRIORIAN

GCSE drama

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HISTORY The following essays come from a History project that posed the question...

How did my ancestors/community experience the Second (or First) World War? This essay will focus on my great grandfather’s role as a Private in the ANZAC forces and his experience in World War One (WW1).

Also, along with other POWs, he received a hand-written letter of thanks from Kind George V on Buckingham Palace letterhead and attended a NZ POW Christmas dinner in 1919.

My great grandfather’s name was James Henry Scanlan and he was born on 8 January 1896 in Dunedin, a small city in the South Island of New Zealand.

James was the eldest of five boys.

His parents had emigrated from Scotland in the late 1890s.

Between January 1919 and his return to New Zealand later that year, James spent time in London sight-seeing and relaxing and being more of a tourist than a soldier. He was officially discharged on 21 May 1919. He then returned to his old job as an insurance clerk with the Standard Insurance Company. He never left New Zealand again, and did not talk much about his experience as he never fully regained his health. He did not fight in WW2 but was a member of the Home Guard and repaid the kindness of strangers who had taken him in in Belgium to American soldiers in New Zealand.

At the time of the war, James was employed as a Clerk in an insurance firm. He decided to sign up for two reasons. Firstly, to earn more money for his family and secondly because like many young men at the time, he thought the war would be an adventure. Also, at that time, New Zealanders were very loyal to the Crown as it was a young country that had been colonized by Britain.

James enlisted on the 19 December 1916. First, he had to undergo a medical test and get a Certificate of Medical Examination to decide if he could fight. Having got this, was sent by ship and he arrived in France on 21 June 1917 and posted to the Somme. His time in the war was mainly spent in the trenches. He used to talk of the friendship amongst the soldiers, but he did not like to discuss the horrors of the war itself, such as the lack of food, the terrible conditions and the fear of losing your life. In April of 1918, near La Signy Farm he was part of an attack that led to 2400 casualties and more than 500 dead.

ST BENEDICT’S

James was missing for seven days and reported as ‘Believed Prisoner of War’ (POW) which he was. During his time in a prison camp in Lille, he lost a lot of weight due the lack of food and the mandatory hard labour that he and the other captives were forced to do, mainly pulling barges. Also, the conditions were unsanitary and led to illness and the rapid spread of disease and in some cases mental health problems.

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James was in the camp until August 1918, when the Allies advanced into occupied Belgium during the Hundred Days Offensive, liberating some areas such as Brussels. Due to this the guards at the camp deserted the prisoners and fled. The prisoners then walked to Brussels, where James said they were greeted by Belgians who threw flowers and took them into their homes to share what they had as gratitude. My grandmother still had correspondence they shared years later.

Because James was not on the battlefields very long, he did not gain honours but he was awarded three Service Medals.

In conclusion James served New Zealand from 1916 until the end of the War. His story is interesting as I learnt about my family and how a member of it played a part in the war and how it played a part in shaping his life. I also learned about New Zealand’s role in the War and the ANZACs and why they are so well thought of.

Richard Mercer (U4)

D

uring World War II, my community faced many difficulties through the hardship of the war.

I have grown up my whole life in Ealing. I want to focus on the Brentham Garden Suburb, which consists of 620 houses, in one of which I live.

The houses in the estate are all twentieth century domestic architectural houses which were designed by Barry Parker and Raymond Unwin. Most houses are based on the Arts and Crafts style, by George Lister Sutcliffe and Fredric Cavendish Pearson. Unfortunately, due to the war, some of the designer’s most beautiful works were demolished and destroyed from the attacks on Britain.

To begin with, in 1938 Britain started to prepare for the war.

In Ealing trenches had been dug and over 12,000 gas masks had been given toexpected, people living on the Brentham estate began to feel the effects quicker than they had for World War I. By the end of 1939, the Brentham Institute (now the Brentham Club) was requisitioned by the Army to have four anti-aircraft guns positioned in Ealing Golf Course.

Because the Brentham Institute was essentially lost, Ealing Tenants offered them the use of 2 Winscombe Crescent, William Hutchings’s (who was a deputy chairman for the founders of the Brentham Estate) old home in compensation.

Meadvale Road) and hid in a dustbin until it was safe to go out again. This was the bomb that killed four people that Sunday, and she was only down the road. In total 26 houses were destroyed: eight from Holyoake Walk (which is the road that I live on), eight in Northview and ten in Meadvale Road.

Although it was hard for many children to grow up during the war, sometimes it was quite fun for them. 50,000 children were sent to the West Country from Ealing Broadway Station but some remained in Ealing. For those who remained there were aircraft spotting sessions which children found enjoyable, despite the fact that they were always fearful of what was to come. Most boys collected shrapnel and incendiary bomb fins and the girls began to adopt responsibilities at home.

This included knitting and collecting salvage – they became ‘little women’.

When the Blitz began, the Brentham estate managed to escape damage during the bombing in 1940–1941. However, there was one bomb which fell by Mount Park which destroyed some of its surroundings. Once the Blitz was over in May 1941, 190 people from Ealing had unfortunately been killed. Despite the deaths, life wasn’t affected much by the war in Ealing. Then the blackouts started to happen which were not around during the First World War. A woman named Jean George said that she has remembered going the Bentham Club only two hundred in complete darkness, having to feel along Despite some of the horrible bombings yards away. hedges in order to reach the Club. She also that occurred in Ealing, it wasn’t a place said that her grandfather, Hubert Brampton, that was very heavily affected. Once the war “insisted on walking in the middle of the road, where he was over, Ealing celebrated VE day with huge bonfires lit on would pause and gaze at the sky, watching the searchlights,” Horsenden Hill and in Walpole Park. They also celebrated by despite the fact that shrapnel would fall from the sky. burning a Hitler effigy all through Ealing. Many street parties were held later in the week after the war had finished in May Up until 1944, the Brentham Estate had not been hit and had 1945. In Brentham, the houses that had sadly been destroyed not been damaged too much. However, on Sunday 20 August were all rebuilt and payed for by the government under the 1944, the Germans introduced their very dangerous weapon, War Damage Act of 1943. Because the war was finally over, the V-1 or ‘doodlebug’. It was a pilotless bomb that shot out a the community could reopen their festivities which included huge amount of explosives at 400 mph. A house on Meadvale the May Day procession. There hadn’t been one in the six Road, number 45, took a direct hit which killed Freddy Watts, years previously due to the start of the war, but on 18 May his wife, his daughter Rosemary and a Canadian serviceman 1946, they held the May Day procession again. The children who was billeted with them. that took part would dress up for the occasion, the girls traditionally wore white dresses and the boys would dress I remember my Grandma telling me about what it was like either as foresters, sailors, soldiers or airmen. They would all growing up during the war. She grew up in Brunswick Road, process down the Brentham roads, following the May Queen. on the edge of the Brentham Estate, and she was one of This tradition is still carried out today and it is something that the few children that was not evacuated during the Second in took part in for years.

World War. She told me about a time when she was walking down her road, which continued into Meadvale Road, and In conclusion, my community was not badly affected by the war, she heard the sirens to warn people that there was going to however, there were quite a few disastrous bombing attacks. be a bomb dropping down. With no time to rush to a shelter, she ran to Pitshanger Park (which is just down the road from Stella Burgon (U4)

THE PRIORIAN

As well as the young girls gaining more responsibilities, older women began to work towards the war and help.

Most women were required to take up employment unless they were in very bad condition. John Chudley, a young boy growing up in Ealing during the war, said that his grandmother, his aunt and his mother began working at King Edward Memorial Hospital in Mattock Lane. “Gran worked in the canteen as a cook, and my aunt and mother worked as clerical officers. It was while she was “fire-watching” in the hospital tower that ...while she was a flying bomb flew past her and buried “fire-watching” in the itself in Abernethies Department Store in the Uxbridge Road only two hundred yards hospital tower that away. I can remember her telling how she a flying bomb flew watched as the many dead andinjured were past her and buried ferried into the hospital by whatever means itself in Abernethies available.” This shows us how dangerous it was during the war, yet people still has to Department Store in get on with their lives. the Uxbridge Road

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16

ST BENEDICT’S

My grandfather was taken to Krakow, where he was loaded into a cattle truck with other men and taken to Vienna, a journey which took one week. There he was sent to work for a farmer, who was a brutal man and a Nazi party member.

My grandfather worked from dawn to dusk, and was treated inhumanely. He was malnourished and weak, so the work was very hard for him. The farmer was not happy with his free labour and wanted to get rid of him, so he reported my grandfather, saying that he had stolen some tools from a blacksmith.

new life. These people had nothing apart from the clothes they were wearing. My grandfather decided to make his way to Italy, which was just the other side of the Austrian Alps.

This must have been quite a remarkable odyssey, literally and figuratively: at this time there must have been huge numbers of people, trying to reach somewhere, perhaps not knowing where, to begin their lives again or not really knowing what awaited them, walking vast distances and relying on human kindness to get them through this journey.

When my grandfather finally got to Italy, he went to join up with the Polish army there. My grandfather remained in Italy until 1947, and although the war was over, it was still a dangerous place to be, because of Italy’s own political problems. He was then shipped to England and the army was de-mobilised. He was discharged from the army and sent to Stowell Park resettlement camp and from there to Daglingworth, where he met my grandmother. They married in 1950.

From my uncle I learned that my grandfather spoke about many good things that happened to him during and after As a result of this, my grandfather was sent the war, that he met good people as to Reichenau, which was supposed to be well as bad. When I learned about the The guards mocked a penal camp or ‘Strafflager’camp. These awful things that happened to him him and said “you camps were staffed by the SS and very from the statements he made in his sadistic guards. My grandfather, then only a lawyer, it is hard to believe he could were too lazy to very young man, not much older or bigger be anything but bitter and angry. It is a work on the farm, than me, was very brutally treated: he was fallacy to think that because Reichenau so they sent you kicked, beaten and hit with the butt of a was deemed to be a ‘Strafflager’ rather rifle. He was woken up at 5.00am, in the than a ‘Konzentrationslager’ camp’ like here. We will make freezing cold (Reichenau is in the Austrian Auschwitz or Dachau (which were death sure you work.”

Alps, near lnnsbruck) and sent to work. The camps), it was somehow an easier ride. guards mocked him and said “you were It was not. No one escaped cruelty and My grandfather was too lazy to work on the farm, so they sent abuse at Reichenau; the prisoners were terrified, but that you here. We will make sure you work.” My at the mercy of sadistic guards who was the purpose of grandfather was terrified, but that was the inflicted beatings, physical and mental purpose of these camps – to terrify people. torture, such as hosing with prisoners these camps – to Breakfast consisted of a slice of bread and with cold water and leaving them in the terrify people. a cup of acorn coffee. Lunch or dinner was icy cold, and were starved and worked soup made with unwashed potatoes, a slice to death like a poor third world donkey. of bread and the acorn coffee. Starving men were beaten Reichenau was iri fact “ein durchgangsstation ins KZ’: a way­ because they were too weak to work. station to the concentration camp, as if it were something not quite so nasty as a concentration camp itself. I am sure most The camp was surrounded by barbed wire and patrolled by prisoners believed that they would die here or be taken to a guards and dogs. Prisoners were taken to the Messerschmitt place of death, so they were effectively on ‘death row’ and factory for forced labour. As a result of heavy allied bombing constantly fearing for their lives, or perhaps hoping for a damage to Messerschmitt factories in lnnsbruck in December swift release.

1943, it was decided to move production into underground factories in region. Most of the men quarrying the tunnels Yet my grandfather did not seem bitter or anger. He were conscripted forced labourer prisoners, like my remembers how a kind SS doctor carefully reset the bones in grandfather. his right hand when it had been crushed in a terrible accident at the abattoir. He also spoke about a kind family in Austria When my grandfather was released from Reichenau, he who looked after him and nursed him when he was released was under orders not to say anything to anyone about what from Reichenau. This family took him in and helped him back had gone on in the camp. There were threats of serious to health, in spite of fearing reprisals. Many decades later, consequences if he did. He was sent to work in an abattoir perhaps when he was 60 or 70, he and my grandmother somewhere nearby and was there until the Americans returned to this Austrian village, and met again with the liberated Austria in May 1945. family, who were overjoyed to see my grandfather again.

They kept in contact and visited until my grandparents died.

My grandfather was then one of millions of people freed from forced labour, trying to make their way home or to a James Hunter (U4)

THE PRIORIAN

I

n February 1942, when my grandfather was 18, without warning there was a ‘round­up’ of young Polish men by the Nazis. A roundup (Polish: tapanka) was a widespread German World War II military tactic used in occupied countries, especially in German-occupied Poland, whereby thousands of civilians were ambushed at random by the Nazis for enforced deportation. The civilians were captured in groups of unsuspecting passers-by, or kidnapped from selected city quarters that had been surrounded in advance

by German forces.

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AN OXBRIDGE INTERVIEW Having applied for Philosophy and Theology, I was presented with a series of syllogisms. These are sets of three statements, the first two (A and B) leading to the conclusion (C) – the most famous of these being (A) Socrates is a man, (B) All men are mortal, therefore (C), Socrates is a man. I had to answer whether or not four sets of these were true or false; by the fourth it had become what I thought was ridiculously hard to answer, but the criteria for a ‘true or false’ answer to these was left open through definitions that came with the task. I thought the lack of a concrete answer was to make it more difficult: in reality, it was probably to help us answer the question through our own methods, rather than looking for a single answer.

ST BENEDICT’S

But that shouldn’t put you off, neither should what you thought (coming out of it) was a difficult interview. They are designed to test the limits of understanding and reasoning rather than knowledge: they are assessing the journey of the interview rather than the destination. An answer that is correct, but that you arrived at by chance, is far less indicative of the ‘right sort of mind’ for whatever subject it is that you are applying for, than a wrong answer that you have come to through a sensible process of reasoning.

I thought my philosophy interview went awfully, only to find that everyone else did as well; they’re not meant to be easy, but to test you.

18

Having only been to two university interviews in my entire life (both of which were completely different), I’m not really in a position to know exactly what each interviewer is looking for, though I have a general idea based on what I’ve been told and my own interview experience. The criteria changes by subject and interviewer, as does the style and substance.

An engineer might be asking for understanding of theory and how it translates into practice; a historian or philosopher might be looking for critical analysis of a source. Ideally, the interviewer will play to what they think you know: a book you’ve referenced in your personal statement, or a topic you’ve shown interest in. I, for one, wasn’t asked about my statement at all; only when I was additionally interviewed at another college did anyone make any mention of it whatsoever. Knowing your personal statement in full is key if they do bring it up: being experts on their subject, they are in a good position to challenge the arguments or assumptions you’ve made, and test you on what you (think you) know. On the other hand, an interview separate from what you have prepared is useful from the university’s point of view: setting a standard, whether that be a set text for every interviewee to analyse or otherwise, provides an objective benchmark to test you against an expected response (though in most cases there isn’t a set, black-orwhite answer). Crucially, they also compare you against the other candidates.

In summary, if I could give advice based on my university application experience it would be: (A) Don’t be surprised if they ask you about what you’ve prepared, but equally don’t be worried if they do the absolute opposite; (B) If you thought it was tough, it was probably as tough for everyone else so, again, don’t worry; and (C) Stick with what you think is right and the answers you have come to yourself, rather than guessing, or saying what you think the examiners want to hear.

Lorcan O’Brien (U6)

“If you thought it was tough,

it was probably as tough for everyone else so, again, don’t worry...

”

INTERVIEW WITH BEN MICHAEL

A new social media app founded

by Ben Michael (L6) aims to give us all something to smile about.

Tell us about your app.

“My app, called Laughs, invites you to share your favourite jokes, videos, memes and web pages. These can then receive a score of between 1 and 5 laughs (rather than likes). They can also be reposted and shared, giving account holders laugh ratings. There’s a logo, website and I’ve patented the idea.”

What gave you the idea for your app?

“I first had the idea for the comedy app when I was 14, and on a rugby tour to Ireland. We’d just been absolutely thrashed, feeling miserable, and on the coach with no Wi-Fi. To console everyone I had the idea of sharing jokes, and giving each one a laugh score.

This cheered everyone up.”

Is it a success?

“Laughs has so far received £75,000 in investment. The app currently has 20,000 users globally, and has even been the number 1 trending app in the US store. Users are of all ages although two thirds of them are between 13 and 24.

My business plan sets out a target of 10 m users.”

Why do you think your comedy app is so popular?

“I’ve noticed the power of laughter in several different situations. For example, when my dad gets in very late from work, and he’s stressed and tired, he finds something funny to watch. I’ve seen how this de-stresses and relaxes him.”

Social media has a lot of bad press.

How will your app be any different?

“I think the Laughs app is a muchneeded positive way to engage with social media. People can connect through comedy as it’s something we all have in common. Everyone needs to laugh, and it’s a good way of dealing

with all the bad stuff you see and hear.”

Lots of comedy can be found online.

What makes your app different?

“I’ve found it difficult to find comedy on Netflix and online. It’s always buried beneath dark, serious dramas and documentaries. My app makes it easy to find something to laugh about when everything seems bleak and terrible, or when we feel stressed.”

How will you deal with negative material posted on Laughs?

“A report button is included in the app, to deal with the obvious risk of offensive material. I’ve also thought about social media’s bullying risk: registration on Laughs is by phone number which is traceable, so potential bullies cannot hide behind numerous email addresses.”

And your plans for the future?

“I’m excited by how Laughs is progressing and I’d like to be a full time entrepreneur.”

THE PRIORIAN

Need a laugh? There’s an app for that.

19

LANGUAGES

German Exchange – Home leg. March 2018 The day had finally come when the German exchange was arriving. I was very excited about it and looking forward to a great experience. We met on the Saturday at about 5pm at Ealing Broadway station and we introduced ourselves to our German partners and then brought them home. We had a very busy school week with lots of activities and trips during and after school.

The highlights of the week were the Nando’s and Bowling trip, our trip to central London for a tour of Westminister Abbey and a matinée performance of Les Misérables. Also, on Thursday we had a football match between the Molveno team and the German exchange team and the final score was 9-5 to the Molveno team. It was a great game!

On Saturday morning Father Thomas said Mass and then we walked back to Ealing Broadway in the snow – to say goodbye – and then the Meschede group went back home. It was a great experience and I can’t wait to go to Meschede in September.

Joseph Brooks (U4)

ST BENEDICT’S

LINGUAFEST

20

U4 perform Ojala que llueva café en el campo by Juan Luis Guerra

Form 3 sing A la volonté du peuple

My abstract portrait uses swirls of colour. The left part of the face starts with black, showing the misery the Apostles were fleeing and the blue shows the sadness they felt when Jesus left them. The red shows the danger the Apostles were in after Jesus left them because they had to hide from the Pharisees and soldiers who were going to execute them for following Jesus.

The orange and yellow in the middle shows the brightness and excitement they felt when Jesus came and visited them in the room they were hiding in. The greens show the new life that the Apostles started living with a new church and the orange on the right of the face represents the ‘fiery’ Holy Spirit that helped guide them through the church.

Ohanna Guede (Form 3)

THE PRIORIAN

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

21

SPORTS CAPTAINS

Emma Lyons, Hockey Captain 22

Ben Keen, Rugby Captain

Jolie Bediako, Netball Captain

Emma Lyons, Hockey Captain...

Ben Keen, Rugby Captain...

Jolie Bediako, Netball Captain...

Participating as a member of the St Benedict’s 1st hockey team has always been enjoyable, but being given the opportunity to captain the team this season was an extremely valuable experience. I have been a part of the sporting community at St Benedict’s since I joined the school six years ago and feel that since then I have really developed to become a much better hockey player, not only improving my own individual skill set but also learning to work effectively within a team. My coaches throughout the years prepared me well for taking on the role of captain, as they made me recognise early on the importance of being a committed and reliable member of a team. I have learnt that these values are of particular importance in sport and I believe they have allowed me to be the best possible leader and role model for my other team mates.

It has been a real honour to be the captain of the school’s 1st XV this season.

Having been at the school since Form 3, I was well aware of St Benedict’s long tradition of excellence in rugby and the number of boys who had progressed to play at representative and international level. Having two team mates from the Upper 6th acting as vice captains (Jack Davies and Josh Chippendale) has helped me share the leadership role both on and off the pitch.

I first started playing netball in 2011 when I joined Form 3 at St Benedict’s, and it could not have been a better way to be introduced to the sport. The coaches were all very supportive and have continued to be throughout my time here; encouraging me to trial for London youth games and Middlesex, of which I was successful in both and were great sporting experiences, motivating me further within my chosen sport. My year as 1st VII captain began with the most exciting Middlesex Cup so far, securing our first win against Godolphin and Latymer in recent years. It was a challenging day for me especially, having broken my thumb 4 days prior to the competition at a hockey match. However, as a team we played extremely well beating rivals such as Notting Hill and Francis Holland. There were low points of the day where our fitness got the better of us although we were able to finish on a high, winning our last match and finishing 3rd, just shy of qualifying.

I enjoy the physical challenge of rugby.

The school has a competitive fixture list, and it is good to test yourself against these stronger schools. Sometimes we had to focus, not on the end-result but on aspects of our performance. This has helped us develop as players and to improve our skills. As captain it was also important to uphold the values of the game and to be an ambassador for the school. This responsibility is something that I enjoyed, and I think it will help me in the future.

I hope to continue playing rugby when I leave school. I have an offer to study Strength and Conditioning at Hartpury, and I would love the opportunity to play in the BUCS Super Rugby League against some of the top student university sides, and possibly even in the National Championship. In the future, if I am back in London, turning out for Old Priorians with my old team mates would be a special moment in my rugby journey.

Once my playing days are over, I would probably like to go into coaching.

This year has been a successful season with a 90% win rate and some really positive challenges, including Seaford Sports Festival. Although it has not been a completely unbeaten season we have taken any loses as a chance to reflect on our areas for improvement as a team and enhanced our determination to win the next fixtures.

As my school netball career comes to end, I am excited to continue netball at university and I wish the girls of St Benedict’s the best of luck with netball and have no doubt that their experience will be as gratifying and fun as my own.

THE PRIORIAN

The hockey 1st XV have had some great successes this season and it has been thoroughly enjoyable to captain my team mates through these wins.

In addition to this, taking on the role of captain has also been a challenge, particularly in games against tougher opposition. It was my job to continue motivating the team and to encourage them to keep going and to try their best no matter the outcome, although at times this proved difficult. However, I did feel that playing these games acted as a valuable learning experience for the entire team and allowed us to grow and to become stronger as the season progressed. Overall, I have always enjoyed participating in sport at St Benedict’s: the competitive aspect combined with the strong sense of team spirit have made it thoroughly enjoyable. In particular, I believe that participating in sport has taught me to manage my time more efficiently and to communicate more effectively with those around me, which are both important attributes. Representing St Benedict’s in hockey as part of the sporting community has been extremely worthwhile and has played a big role in my school life, teaching me many valuable lessons which I hope to further demonstrate in my sporting endeavours beyond school.

Being captain meant a different relationship with the coaches, as I was the link between them and the team.

I have gained confidence in expressing my opinion and attempting to change tactics and training methods. The role has taught me to be disciplined and to lead by example. You couldn’t expect team mates to be turning up at 07:20 am for a gym session in the middle of winter if the captain wasn’t there. On the field I am not one to shout and scream. My leadership style is quiet and considered, but I never shirk a tackle or a physical confrontation. This involvement might have accounted for a few of the injuries and the concussion I picked up during the season!

23

SPORT Over the Easter holidays a group of fifteen pupils and three teachers went on a cricket tour to Sri Lanka. The tour was a great success and we got to develop our cricket skills and understand more about the culture of Sri Lanka. We stayed in three places, the first of which was Kandy.

On the first day after we arrived in Kandy we had the opportunity to go to Easter Sunday Mass in a Sri Lankan church. This was a very different experience, as it was very hot inside the church, but also as I had never been to Mass outside the UK, so it was very interesting. After that we had training, which was very tiring in the afternoon heat.

The next day we went to Mass in the morning and then to a turtle sanctuary whilst on the way to the Foundation of Goodness, a charity which supports rural communities since the tsunami in 2004. The Foundation of Goodness gave us a tour around their project before we had the opportunity to coach some children in football and cricket. It was a very moving experience, as we got to see how our efforts in raising money actually benefited the local people and how grateful they were.

On Monday, 2nd April we played our first game at a very nice ground. It was a 35 over game, which was quite different to what we were used to. We started off very well by taking early wickets, but they still managed to get 191. Unfortunately, despite Conor Lambert’s fifty, we lost. But the highlight of the day was the presentation at the end, as we got to appreciate how far the opposition had come to play us and how different their circumstances were to ours.

On the next day we went on a city tour of Kandy, which was very interesting. On top of that we had the opportunity to visit the Temple of the Tooth, which is a world heritage site, and we got to learn a lot more about the Buddhist philosophy. We then went on to see a culture show, which culminated in people walking on fire, which was very exciting, as it was right in front of us.

On Wednesday, 4th April we played our second and third games at the Pallakele International Ground. We played two T20s against the same school. The first game was very close, with us only just failing to chase down 168. In the second game we performed much better with the highlight being Barney Morris and Dom Taylor’s 110 run partnership in 55 balls. We bowled very well, despite some good batting, and achieved our first win.

On the next day we went to Hikkaduwa, which was a long journey. We stopped off at an elephant orphanage on the way, which was very exciting. We got the opportunity to ride and wash elephants, which was an unusual experience. After lunch we continued our journey, during which there was a lot of rain and some lightning quite near the coach.

ST BENEDICT’S

On Friday, 6th April we played our next match at MCC Lord’s Hikkaduwa. Unfortunately we played against very strong opposition who won the game comfortably. However, we had the opportunity to watch some very good fielding.

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On Saturday, 7th April we had another game at Galle International Cricket Ground, and we batted very well, especially Jared Braddock who hit 69. Then it began to rain, so it looked as if we would not have the opportunity to complete the victory, but, thanks to the umpires and our guide Shanaka, we were able to finish the match and get the win with another good all-round bowling performance.

The following day we began the final leg of the tour with a training session at Galle. It was really nice to have the opportunity to train at a Test venue. After this we had a tour of the fort and went on to Colombo.

On Tuesday, 10th April we had our second last game.

We once again put in a strong batting performance, with Jared Braddock scoring 84. We then bowled very well, winning by 50 runs.

The next day we had a tour of Colombo, including the Gangaramaya Temple.

On Thursday, 12th April we had our final match against the very prestigious St Thomas’ School. We failed to bat out our overs so only made 170. Despite our best efforts they made the target comfortably and we lost. To end the tour we went to the Cricket Café to present our cheque for £7,000 to the Foundation of Goodness in the presence of Rangana Herath, the leading left-arm bowler in the history of Test cricket.

This was a wonderful experience, as we got to meet a world cricketing icon, and it was the perfect way to end what had been a magnificent tour.

Laurence Daly-Jones (L5)

ST BENEDICT’S 2018 TOUR TO

SRI LANKA

INDIA

Gulf of Mannar

INDIAN OCEAN

SRI LANKA

Colombo Hikkaduwa

Galle

THE PRIORIAN

Kandy

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CCF CCF: Operation Winter’s Bite 2018 This year’s Winter’s Bite was my first. I had previously heard a lot about the camp, most of the comments being about the freezing weather and the constant activity.

We left St Benedict’s on the Friday afternoon for Bramley Camp where we were whisked off the minibus and briefed about our mission. We were told that we were about to enter a future Russia where the government had fallen apart and the whole country was in anarchy. An extremist group named ‘The sons of mother Russia’ had captured a scientist who had previously worked on biochemical weaponry for the Russian government. Our mission was to eliminate all ‘hostiles’ and extract the Professor. At roughly 2100 hrs we set off to find our section harbour.

About an hour later we arrived tired, cold and confused. We set up our basha and I had spicy sausage and bean pasta for dinner just before going to sleep, knowing I would be woken up to patrol around the harbour for an hour to make sure we would not be ambushed in the night. The next morning we got up around 0600 hrs and prepared for our Reconnaissance patrol on the base where we had received intel that the Professor was being held. Our patrol established that the Professor was being held there although we came under fire, which meant the enemy had evacuated the Professor as we tried to rescue him.

Later that day we moved to a derelict building in which we could sleep. Although it acted like a wind tunnel it provided partial cover from rain. We spent the night taking it in turns to spend an hour glaring at the Professor’s building from the observation point and recording every single movement we saw on a notepad.

The next morning we initiated our final attack on the building. We fought through buildings and bushes, firing shot after shot at the enemies stationed around the site. Once we had eliminated all of the hostiles we brought the Professor to the evac point and that is where our Winter’s Bite camp ended.

The camp was one of the hardest things I had ever done. Freezing weather and mild sleep deprivation may have played a part in that. But it was also one of the best things I had ever done and I will always be grateful to the CCF for organising it.

ST BENEDICT’S

Joe McDonald (U5)

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New recruits 2017–2018 We both joined the CCF in September.

The first thing we learned was drill.

Drill is marching and turning, which most of us found pretty boring at first but we knew it was an essential part of the CCF and a good way to bond as a team. However, drill soon made way for more exciting parts of the CCF, such as the October Field Weekend.

On this weekend, our first camp, we learnt the principles of camouflage, patrolling, and attacking the enemy, watching senior cadets perform a section attack. The rations were surprising and are stored in pouches like cat food, but were filling enough to keep going. Some menus are different to others and it is just luck what you get to eat; lots of swapping takes place. The NCOs know which menus contain all the best stuff. Our favourite part of the weekend was practising the camouflage and hiding from the NCOs. Theo Zachariou (U4) & Amy Vaughan (L5)

MATHS

Ned Gatacre (L5)

Royal Institution Mathematics Masterclasses review

Max Lubowiecki (L6)

I was invited to the Royal Institution masterclasses during January and February. I found them really inspiring because they introduced me to applications of maths such as game theory and quantum calculus which I hadn’t come across before. They also had lots of interactive activities which really encouraged me to think outside the box and work with other people, many of whom I hadn’t met before, to discuss our ideas and come up with solutions to problems we were set. My favourite session was on maths in space. We used equations to help us understand what happens around a black hole. I found it really interesting because I would never be able to actually go near a black hole but using maths I could find out a bit of what it would be like to.

Phoebe Daly-Jones (L6) THE PRIORIAN

This Lent term I had the amazing opportunity to attend six Royal Institution masterclasses which took place on a Saturday at Queen Mary University. The long train journey up to the university built up anticipation as I wondered what we would be talking about in the upcoming session.

Our first master class was on the topic of modelling climate change, looking at several different equations and variables to create a suitable model for our atmosphere. We used mathematics to show how increasing amounts of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere is having a detrimental effect on our climate. In the weeks after this we covered subjects such as: combinatorial games; 4th dimensional shapes; the mathematics of black holes and quantum calculations. My favourite out of all the masterclasses was the one given by Graham Hoare on ‘Fibonacci, Prime, Fermat, Perfect and Mersenne Numbers.’ I have chosen to undertake an EPQ about the origin of certain mathematical concepts and this session greatly helped me to explore some of these concepts in greater depth. I would like to thank Dr Robb for his help in organising this valuable experience.

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THE EXTENDED PROJECT QUALIFICATION (EPQ) Extracts from three EPQ written reports...

Should the placebo be an effective alternative to Modern Medicine?

Nerina Dow (U6)

The significance and consequences of placebo in health care, the negatives of the placebo and the benefits of the placebo are all questions I hoped to illuminate in my research paper.

The placebo debate centres on the issue of ethics, mainly the ethics surrounding deceiving patients. There is still work to be done on investigating the effect and how to use it alongside modern medicine. I wanted to find out why the placebo is a medical option, even with highly successful modern medicine. I planned to challenge this dominance and to call for the need to build bridges between doctors and their patients.

The word ‘placebo’ originates from the Latin phrase placēbō meaning ‘I shall please’ and through history it has followed this definition. This meaning suggests the origin of the placebo was a type of medicine meant to make patients feel better. This is further emphasised in ‘Quincy’s LexiconMedicum’ written in 1811 by Robert Hooper, an English Physician, who described the placebo as an “epithet given to any medicine adapted more to please than to benefit the patient”. He may have thought the placebo was not a ‘proper’ medicine, but he did not disregard the importance of the placebo.

ST BENEDICT’S

The placebo effect is rooted on expectation; the key idea is the patient’s belief that the pill will cure them. To do this the effect uses the ‘classical conditioning’ idea founded by Nobel Prize winner Ivan Pavlov. ‘Classical conditioning’ suggests that we form an association between a “stimulus and a response”.

Pavlov discovered this by conditioning his dog to believe that when a bell was rung, food would appear. This can be linked to the placebo as patients believe that when they take a pill they will feel better.

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The placebo effect is manufactured in both physical and emotional ways. In physical ways it can take the form of a pill, injection and surgery. The sugar pill is the most common form of the placebo, disguised as a normal looking pill, but containing no medicine. However, according to reports, this method seems the most ineffective way to create the placebo

effect, probably because people are now more used to taking pills than in previous years.

The second method to create the placebo effect is through a saline solution injection, which involves injecting a patient with a mixture of salt and water. Studies show that people have an inbuilt caution with needles that makes the injection seem more serious than just taking a pill so the patients are more likely to believe it is not a placebo which increases the effectiveness of the treatment. The last physical method to create the placebo is through sham surgery. This is said to be the most effective method as having surgery seems the most serious medical treatment; however it does have some risks, such as the anaesthetic, which can have serious side effects.

What is the significance and consequences of the placebo?

The placebo is still widely used even though there are more successful modern medicines available, which suggests the use of the placebo is stilled needed. Most of the benefits in the antidepressant drug are due to the placebo effect, according to Irving Kirsch in ‘Antidepressants and the Placebo Effect’. Kirsch writes that 75% of the improvement in the sample occurred when people were given inert pills.

This benefits patients with depression as it shows them that it can be cured by themselves believing that they are fine, without the use of the antidepressant drug. On the other hand, if no one uses antidepressants, companies which create the drug will lose profit.

A main reason the placebo is flourishing is through failures of modern medicine. This shows that people are getting disgruntled about modern medicine and turning to alternative medicine.

To conclude, both modern and alternative medicine has successes and failures in curing patients.

Aine McColgan (U6)

My project examined the future use of and ethical issues surrounding CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats), a powerful genetic modification tool first discovered in 2012. Germline gene modification has the potential to permanently alter the entire human genome, and through the use of CRISPR this technology could be viable within the next couple of decades.

This raises a number of concerns, such as how gene therapy should be regulated in future, the possibility of far-reaching social consequences, and the moral implications of editing our own genetics. In my report I examined whether research should be limited only to somatic gene therapy, in which any modifications are not passed down to an individual’s descendants. I also examined the possibility of issues regarding the communication and discussion of CRISPR research, as well as current public opinion on genetics research, through the use of an online survey.

The “stewardship” of the human genome “may be the ultimate test of knowledge and discernment for our species”, writes cancer physician and researcher Siddhartha Mukherjee in his latest book The Gene: An Intimate History (2016, p. 495). At first glance this may seem to be an unusual statement.

However, in a remarkably brief amount of time, those words have come far too close to the reality of genetics research.

CRISPR/Cas9 is a technology that is set to revolutionise gene therapy beyond the point of no return, and the focus of my project.

Based on a bacterial self-defence mechanism against viruses, CRISPR has been described by stem cell researcher Paul Knoepfler as a ‘molecular Swiss

army knife’ – an all-in-one tool that can target a precise point in the genome, cut the DNA with molecular ‘scissors’, and then rewrite the genetic code as desired. Firstly, a molecule of RNA (a short genetic sequence) is created to match up with the target DNA. This can be used to scan the entire DNA sequence until it locates the target DNA, which is then ‘cut out’ using the Cas9 protein, acting as a pair of scissors.

The old DNA, having been removed from the genetic sequence, can then be replaced with a new piece of DNA. This allows researchers to edit the genome much more easily than ever before.

The implications of this cannot be overstated: the tools to manipulate the human genome are now well within reach. Genetics is perhaps advancing too quickly – to paraphrase Jurassic Park, there is a danger that researchers will become so caught up by what they could do, that they may not consider whether they should. When, in April 2015, Chinese scientists announced that they had used CRISPR to modify (non-viable) human embryos, a heated debate began within the scientific community about what types of genetic engineering can be considered ethical. “Designer babies” are one issue, but there is also the potential of those changes also affecting future generations to consider. The modifications could have unexpected side-effects, or work differently than expected. One may ask whether it is right to modify an individual’s genes as an embryo, when they cannot consent – or conversely, if we gain the ability to eradicate genetic diseases before an individual has to suffer them, it could be considered wrong not to do so.

Some even argue for the sanctity of the human genome, accusing researchers of ‘playing God’ by influencing the course of human evolution. These are but a few of the various issues surrounding germline gene modification, which I addressed in my project.

Gene modification tools first appeared in the 1970s and, in recent years, CRISPR/Cas9 has begun to revolutionise and rapidly accelerate the pace of this field. Initially discovered in 2012 by Jennifer Doudna and her colleague Emmanuelle Charpentier, CRISPR is remarkably different from previous generations of gene editing technology. No longer slow, expensive and prone to mistakes, Figure 1: Editing genes with CRISPR CRISPR is cheap, quick and CRISPR is a tool used by scientists to precisely edit genes inside cells. It’s comprised of two parts... above all, precise. Compared to previous methods such as zinc finger nucleases which could cost over $5000 and required extensive training to use, CRISPR technology can cost as little as $30, as well as being much quicker and easier to use.

As geneticist Bruce Conklin notes in the same article, gene modification used to be so difficult that changing just one gene “was a student’s entire thesis”. With CRISPR, this has now become a regular occurrence in biomedical research labs. Unlike previous techniques, which had to be specifically redesigned for each gene edit, CRISPR is programmable, meaning that it is easy to adapt to multiple gene edits. Science journalist Jennifer Kahn described it as “basically a word processor for genes”.

Source: Cancer Research UK

THE PRIORIAN

Should CRISPR research into human disease be limited only to somatic gene therapy?

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To what extent does prenatal music exposure directly influence the development of a foetus?

Victoria Szymanska (U6)

Prenatal music therapy has a plethora of therapeutic benefits.

However, it is still not clear whether or not any benefits to a fetus are directly through exposure or indirect by a means of improving the health of the mother. Literature and clinical trials so far have not made direct comparisons between the two or investigated the assumptions the public have about music during pregnancy. In my report I explored the effects of prenatal music by analysis of primary and secondary sources.

I concluded that music has an equally direct and indirect effect on a fetus. It may be a low-cost method of tackling maternal anxiety and enhance the growth of pre-term babies.

From the second of conception, a bundle of cells in a mother’s womb divide and differentiate cumulatively, all preparing a little organism for life in the big extra-uterine world. The first ever philosophical ideas posed about the abilities of an embryo were by Aristotle, who suggested the theory of epigenesis. This theory implied gradual development in which the mother provided the embryo’s ‘matter’ and the father the ‘form’. Up until the 19th century, the embryo was seen as a ‘witless tadpole’ (Rousseau), suggesting people did not respect it as a growing human.

Moreover, no one suggested that a fetus might be capable of eavesdropping on its maternal environment. Curiosity grew in scientists regarding the development of hearing and in 1885 Preyer conducted the first experiment on a fetus’ hearing apparatus claiming that before birth infants had no auditory sensitivity with a ‘probability bordering on certainty.’

ST BENEDICT’S

Following this, many other scientists became intrigued by field of study and one of these individuals was Alfred Tomatis, a doctor specialising in vocal problems in opera singers.

His fascinations for embryology led him to developing a hypothesis that prenatal music stimuli may positively impact a fetus. Furthermore, he proposed ‘The Tomatis method’, a type of listening therapy – stimulation using music with specific rhythmic sequences. This method was mainly aimed at pregnant women, in the hope of a positive impact on their experience and their child’s development. Building on Tomatis’ research, in my report I attempted to investigate and evaluate to what extent prenatal music stimulation affects a fetus and whether any benefits are indirect or direct.

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The EPQ was an opportunity for me to express my interest and widen my knowledge in neural development which was beyond my Biology A level syllabus. Having watched the Ted talk ‘Music and the brain’ (Jessica Grahn) and playing the violin myself drove me to interlinking an academic interest with an extra-curricular hobby. This topic reflects personally on me, as my mother frequently listened to classical music during her pregnancy which could be the cause of my passion for the violin. Every parent wants their child to be imaginative, intelligent and creative, and this concoction of positive traits

germinates in the brain. Could there be any way of enhancing these traits? In the book The Mozart effect for children, Don Cambell states that music may “stimulate brain growth in the womb”. This leads me to my first research question: To what extent can music directly enhance the development of a fetus?

Due to the unethical nature of experiments being conducted on human fetus’, most studies in embryology have been carried out on rats. However, the majority of trials regarding music psychology have been directed at adults. Given its high position in modern day society and the entertainment industry, it is no surprise that psychologist Steven Pinker described music as “auditory cheesecake”. Music also has therapeutic values, decreasing levels of stress and anxiety.

Keeping in mind that “if (a mother’s) hormones very often reflect a state of fear or despair, her baby incorporates that message too”, to what extent does music have an indirect effect on the health of a fetus by reducing maternal anxiety?

In my report, I attempted to synthesise a range of secondary sources to evaluate whether or not music may optimize development and if so, how. To ensure validity of my report, I questioned the reliability and accuracy of my sources as well and provide limitations in the research trials, acknowledging potential bias of authors.

CLASSICS Why is Classics relevant today?

So why is classics relevant today?

It is because the civilisations studied have helped shape the world we live in today; we need to learn more about ancient societies in order to appreciate things they have given us.

Firstly, what would have happened if the Greeks had not won the Persian wars in the 5th Century BC? The world would have taken a very different course in every single aspect of life. At this point in time democracy was beginning to develop; the dramatic arts were transforming into something that we recognise today; philosophical

thought was also growing; Athens was a booming city state and cultural centre. The Persian Empire, despite being a culture with its own particular beauty, could not have been more different from the one in Athens. Had Xerxes succeeded in taking control of Greece it is possible that all of the developments the Athenians had started would never have continued, and the life we lead today would be extraordinarily different. When people are asked what is one of the most significant events in our history, many people will say the First or Second World Wars, but had the Greeks not won the Persian wars our society would be more Eastern, our religion may have developed into Islam, our language wouldn’t be the same, and our political system would be exceedingly altered.

The literature that the Greeks and Romans have bestowed upon us has been so incredibly influential and useful to the study of language, literature and history alike. To quote Queen’s infamous song ‘Another One Bites The Dust’, which is also a term that is familiar to us, few people know that the idiom derives from Homer’s Iliad, in which dying men ‘bite the dust’. The three epic poems not only tell us about heroes, battles, and myths, but they also offer a commentary on society, everyday customs and religion. Not only are these texts incredibly useful, they are also hugely exciting and entertaining to read, no matter what a person is interested in. Other influential books such as Herodotus’ ‘Histories’, Thucydides’ ‘History of the Peloponnesian War’ or Livy’s ‘History of Rome’ start the writing of the history of the world, further deepening our knowledge of ourselves. Yet, without the study of classics these texts may have been overlooked, and the way history is written would be completely unfamiliar.

Everyone should read – or watch – a Greek tragedy or comedy, as they present the reader – or audience – with not only a huge sense of emotion, but also provide messages about how human beings should live and behave. Sculpture, art and architecture further show us the beauty and magic of the ancient world. The philosophies that emanate from the classical period have also influenced Christianity, further sculpting the world around us. Maths and science, too, have been influenced by prominent figures from the classical civilisations.

The possibilities to connect with the classical world are endless.

This is why classics is relevant today, as it is a subject that has such an impact on all of our lives and can teach us so much about ourselves as people – as members of society, and as humankind.

Paulina Sienniak (L6)

THE PRIORIAN

Classics is a dying subject with fewer and fewer people studying either a classical language or classical civilisation at GCSE or A level. This is often because students believe that the subject has no relevance to their everyday life, since everything they study is a least a thousand years old. But all they have to do is look around them and they will see the huge influence that the Ancient Greeks and Romans have had on their everyday lives. From neo-classical architecture, the languages we speak, and the clothes we wear, to something much bigger such as religion or culture, there has been a huge level of input from Ancient Civilisations.

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SOCIOLOGY Have marketisation and privatisation policies increased educational inequality?

Stephanie Melik-Abrahamian (U6)

Until the 1980s, most education was provided by elected local education authorities, directed and funded by central government. However, the 1988 Education Reform Act began the marketisation of education, aimed at raising standards by increasing parental choice and competition between schools. After 2010, there was a substantial move towards the privatisation of education such as the growth of chains of academies run by private businesses. Some sociologists claim that the main impact of marketisation and privatisation policies has not been to raise standards, but to increase educational inequality.

are likely to get poor results and damage the school’s league table position. Schools which are lower down in the league tables do not have the opportunity to be selective and have to take less advantaged, mainly working class pupils, so their results are poorer and they remain unattractive to middle class parents. The league tables and many of the other policies produce unequal schools that reproduce the social class inequalities. This has not led to what Miriam David describes as a ‘parentocracy’ (meaning rule by parents) – but the ‘myth of parentocracy’, where only those parents who know how to ‘play’ the system get their first choice of school.

Many, such as those who support a more left wing view, believe that marketisation and privatisation policies have caused an increase in educational inequality whereby middle class pupils succeed and the poorer working class do not benefit but lose out instead. The New Right and neoliberals disagree with this, however, and their perspective is that privatisation and marketisation leads to better choices for parents, raises standards and aids meritocracy in education.

In 1997, New Labour attempted to balance marketisation with social democratic principles. New Labour used ‘third way politics’, meaning they used a combination of both New Left and New Right ideas. Their own policies had social democratic influences meaning they wanted to promote equality in society and reduce social exclusion. There were three main policies which attempted to do this: Academies, Sure Start, and Educational Maintenance Allowance (EMAs).

Academies allowed failing schools to have a fresh start and were in partnership with employers to provide quality education; the EMAs provided payment to poor students with low income backgrounds; and lastly, Sure Start were programmes and centres to help give young children a better start which parents with young children could easily access to help get support or advice. However, although these policies were supposed to encourage social equality the middle classes continued to gain most from these policies based on new right ideas of competition and choice. Critics such as Melissa Benn see a contradiction between Labour’s policies to tackle inequality and its commitment to marketisation – something that she calls the ‘New Labour paradox.’ For example, the EMAs that were introduced to encourage less well-off pupils to stay in education were contradicted with the fact that Labour also introduced tuition fees for higher education, which may push the poorer pupils away from going to university as they may not be able to afford it, or may to too fearful of the debt and therefore not go into higher education.

ST BENEDICT’S

The 1988 Education Reform Act was introduced by Kenneth Baker and the key idea of this act was to create an ‘education market’ whereby there was encouragement in the competition between schools and more choice for parents. Some of the policies within the act were publishing exam results, open enrolment, and the publication of Ofsted reports and ranks. Supporters of marketisation argue that in an education market, power shifts away from the producers (the teachers and schools) to the consumers (the parents). They claim that this encourages diversity among schools, gives parents more choice and even raises the standards of schools.

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However, despite the ‘benefits’ of marketisation, many argue that marketisation has actually increased inequalities.

For example, Stephen Ball and Geoff Whitty noted how marketisation policies such as exam league tables and the funding formula reproduce class inequalities by creating inequalities between schools. The policy of publishing schools’ exam results in a league table ensures that the schools who achieve higher results are more in demand as parents choose these schools. Will Bartlett argues that this encourages ‘creamskimming’ where the ‘good schools’ can be more selective and choose their own customers and as a result they recruit the high achieving, mainly middle class pupils whose material and culture capital gives them an advantage. Furthermore, Bartlett also argues that marketisation leads to ‘silt-shifting’ where ‘good’ schools can avoid taking less able pupils who

In 2010, the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition government elected in 2010 pushed to move away from an education system based largely on comprehensive schools run by the local authorities. Its policies focused largely on marketisation and increased privatisation as many of their policies were influenced by neoliberal and New Right ideas about reducing the role of the state in the provision of education. From 2010, all schools were encouraged to leave local authorities and become academies. However, whereas

Labour’s original city academies targeted disadvantaged schools and areas, the Coalition government, by allowing any school to become an academy, removed the focus on reducing inequality. As well as this, free schools were set up and supporters of free schools claim they improve educational standards by taking control away from the state and giving power to the parents. Claims were made that free schools give parents and teachers the opportunity to create a new school if they are unhappy with the state schools in their area. However, Rebecca Allen argues that free schools only benefit children from highly educated families. Other criticisms claim that free schools are socially decisive and that they lower standards as well as taking fewer disadvantaged pupils. The growth of these schools only benefit the middle classes as standards only appear to be raised when schools operate strict selection processes. (Far fewer free school pupils are on free school meals.) In addition, while the coalition’s marketisation policies are said to have increased inequality, they also introduced policies aimed at reducing it, such as free school meals and the Pupil Premium. However, Ofsted found that in many cases the Pupil Premium money was not spent on those it is supposed to help. Only one in ten head teachers said that it had significantly changed how they supported pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds. Furthermore, as part of the coalition ‘austerity’ programme, spending on many areas of education were cut: many Sure Start centres were closed and the EMA was abolished with university fees tripled to £9000 a year, greatly putting poorer students at a disadvantage.

Critics argue that cutting Sure Start and the EMA reduced opportunities for working class pupils and discouraged them from seeking higher education.

Ball believes that a key change is taking place in which privatisation is becoming the key factor shaping educational policy. In the process of privatisation education is being turned into a commodity to be bought and sold in an education market. Similarly, Marxists such as Stuart Hall see Coalition government policies as part of the ‘long march of the neoliberal revolution.’ Hall sees academies as an example of handing over public services to private capitalists, such as education businesses. In the Marxist view, the neoliberal claim that privatisation and competition drive up standards is a myth which is used to legitimise the turning of education into a source of private profit, thus causing inequalities in social class. Neoliberals and New Right approaches, however, largely share the functionalist view that education must be meritocratic and must promote social integration, and therefore disagree with the Marxist view of education being based on class inequality.

U6 LEAVERS

Calum Johannsen Benjamin Keen Daniel Kelly Teddy Loxton Emma Lyons Jad Madi Wadih Madi Sofia Matheou Laetitia Matta Aine McColgan Charlotte McCosker Toby McDonald Stephanie Melik-Abrahamian Tanya Michael Henry Mitchell-Bruguera Cristina Moran George Morgan James Munro Malik Ned-Nwoko Lorcan O’Brien Dea Omari Thomas Pickworth James Piercy Lukasz Podgorski Paige Powell Joseph Power Lenard Pratt

Harry Cunningham Alexander Curtis Neel Dasgupta Jack Davies Mark De Monte Furtado Nerina Dow Shane Duffy Paul Dupont Patrick Edis Rian Flanagan Katelyn Fouladgar Anna Maria Louisa Gahol Caroline Gakpetor Thomas Gedye Dulcie Godfrey Amelia Hammani Madeleine Harris David Harutyunyan James Holmes Luisa Howell Owen Humphrys Marcello Jastrzebski Tristan Jenkin-Gomez

Montgomery Pritchard Francesco Procaccini Harry Pye Felix Rees Anna Rice Sofia Romero Waters Patrick Ronan Luke Rutherford Rohan Sandhu Parsa Sarkis Gisela Scarsella Stefain Serkilar Hikesh Sharma Gabriella Shawo Rosalind Sheehan Alexander Stawarz-Whitaker Oskar Szlachetko Victoria Szymanska Richard Szyszko Anoush Terteryan Alexandra Thomas Maddie Tipping Cate Tupper Eleanor Walker Bradley Walsh Isabella Wingrave Trinity Yau

THE PRIORIAN

Douglas Ashby Theo Aspinall Charles Ayson-Parrish Inigo Azpilicueta Waad Baayou Andre Babayan Matthew Barrett James Bartle Amar Bawa Jolie Bediako Joss Bell Ellie Benson Florence Byrne Luke Campbell Tobias Campbell Jake Casali Sebastian Catterall George Charlesworth Joshua Chippendale Thomas Chittenden Eden Comins Myles Contant-Aarons Lewis Cox

In conclusion, there is a sense that the education system essentially reflects the UK’s class inequalities as the middle classes always manage to get the best out of government policies and always succeed further than the working class, even if the policies were based around helping the working class. The middle class manage to manipulate the system to get themselves ahead of the working class – especially in education as they mostly always go to the top schools and universities. Not only does marketisation reproduce inequality; it also legitimises it by concealing its true causes and by justifying its existence with the myth of parentocracy.

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GEOGRAPHY

The importance of heather moorland as a plagioclimax community

ST BENEDICT’S

A plagioclimax community is an area or habitat in which the influences of humans have prevented the ecosystem from developing further. Heather moorland is a plagioclimax because humans intervene in its development through processes such as burning.

Heather moorland is found in many upland areas of Britain, including the Pennines and Cumbrian Fells. There is more carbon locked up in UK peat soils than in all the trees of Britain and France. It represents 42% of our entire carbon stock which is why they are so heavily protected.

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In order to become a plagioclimax the heather moorland had to go through multiple phases such as the pioneer stage, where the seedling is established. Next comes the building phase where plant growth is rapid and where red grouse flourish.

The mature phase is where most management takes place through burning techniques. In the North York Moors, when the woodland was cleared for farming, it left the soil exposed to heavy upland rainfall, leaching nutrients. This left thin podsol soils which lack humus and are relatively

infertile, which is not good for local farmers who rely on the heather as a source of food for their livestock. The management of grouse moors helps to prevent overgrazing, bracken invasion and summer wildfires. It has largely preserved the carbon locked up in underlying peat.

Red grouse shooting has contributed to many upland communities and their economies in parts of the UK. This has resulted in more jobs in the area and better management of local services. However, some would argue that red grouse should be allowed to roam freely and not be used as a sport.

Heather moorland is also used by farmers who graze their sheep in these areas; however, to stop overgrazing, burning techniques are deployed, meaning that the heather can regrow.

The sheep are also vital to local businesses and livelihoods.

Rosalind Sheehan (U6)

LOURDES Over the Easter Holidays some of the Lower Sixth went to Lourdes. We were helping disadvantaged children who had been brought to Lourdes for a week’s holiday. Beforehand I was a bit apprehensive, but I found the week to be enjoyable and fulfilling. It taught me to be more appreciative of my privileges and to be more considerate of others around me. Throughout the week the helpers might say things they didn’t mean because they were tired after not getting a proper night’s sleep but everybody would forgive them because they knew they were just under a lot of pressure.

Seeing all this forgiveness inspired me to try to be more forgiving and understanding of people’s mistakes.

A couple of us joined each group. We were made to feel part of the group right from the start when they sang a song to welcome us into the group! This made me feel really valued and I would like to try be more welcoming to new people in the future. We spent lots of our time being of service to our group by looking after the children, talking to them, carrying packed lunches and making sure we were on time to meet them. It was very rewarding to have the opportunity to serve others, to help give these children such an amazing holiday and fulfil the Benedictine goal of mutual service.

As a group we did many fun activities. We spent an afternoon in the meadow playing games and listening to music in the sun and spent another day in Gavarnie in the mountains where we had to walk through snow at one point!

Talking to all the children during the day helped me to be more appreciative of my own talents. It also helped me to see how taking the time to talk to people or play with them can make someone’s day better. The most memorable event would have to be the Trust mass which about ten thousand people attended. To be in a huge underground basilica with so many other happy people, singing and wearing face paint, was an unforgettable experience.

We also spent time together as a school. We all ate lunch and dinner together which gave us an opportunity to get to know some others on the trip better. We got to try some French food including quiche and crepes which were my personal favourites. Together we also had night prayers, confessions and a visit to the grotto together which gave us an opportunity for reflection which we don’t often get in Ealing. I found it really calming to be able to sit and pray for a few moments. It helped me to appreciate being in Lourdes and to reflect on all the wonderful experiences I’d had during the week.

THE PRIORIAN

Phoebe Daly-Jones (L6)

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LIBRARY INTERVIEWS

Kit Wheldon (Form 3)

Max Bercow (L4)

Aoife McColgan (L4)

What do you love about coming to the library?

Kit – The library is really peaceful (much quieter than the playground!) and most of my friends come here. I usually read or play chess when I visit during break and lunchtime.

What do you love about coming to the library?

Max – I really like the competitions that run in the library. I particularly enjoyed the World Book Day ‘Guess how many sweets are in the jar’ competition and last year’s ‘Book Week’ competition – ‘Guess who is behind the book’ photos, where members of staff held their favourite book in front of their face and you had to work out who it was.

What do you love about coming to the library?

Aoife – There is a really diverse range of books to choose from in the library (I particularly like reading manga!) and it is also a nice place to relax during the day. I visit during break and lunch and sometimes before and after school.

What is your favourite book and why?

Kit – My favourite book is Eragon by Christopher Paolini. This book is the first in the Inheritance Cycle series, about a 15 year old boy who becomes a ‘Dragon Rider’. It is a really gripping read, there’s always something happening and you never get bored with the story.

ST BENEDICT’S

If you could have any author visit the school, who would you invite?

Kit – I think it would have to be Christopher Paolini – I love the fantasy genre and I have really enjoyed reading all of his books.

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What is your favourite book and why?

Max – I think it would have to be The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien. I really like the world that he sets up, the characters are brilliant and fantasy is my favourite genre.

If you could have any author visit the school, who would you invite?

Max – It would be great if we could invite Anthony Horowitz to visit the school. I’ve read his Alex Rider spy series and loved it. Even though you know the main character, Alex, is always going to come out on top, Horowitz is not afraid to kill off some of the main characters along the way. I would like to ask him some questions about where he got his inspiration for these books.

What is your favourite book and why?

Aoife – My favourite book is probably Dragon Rider by Cornelia Funke. In this story there is a really good build-up of suspense, the villain is pretty evil and I was surprised by the ending!

If you could have any author visit the school, who would you invite?

Aoife – Michael Morpurgo. He wrote one of my earliest and most favourite books Kasper Prince of Cats and he has also written a lot of historical books, which I find interesting and informative.

It would be great to meet him in to find out more about his books and life.

PHILOSOPHY Sense or nonsense?

William Coutts (L6)

Every day, we think 60,000 thoughts, speak 20,000 words and breathe 11,000 litres of air – and it all seems very normal. However, this may not be the reality of things.

Before we start to think about what our existence is like, and then maybe conclude that it is often all quite dull, we must first be sure that we are in fact experiencing things as they are. What is it possible to perceive? Are there even physical things at all? Or is it just an illusion?

The philosophical movement known as idealism attempts to address these questions, giving some quite astounding and mind-bending responses. Idealism essentially tells us that physical things rely on the mental; physical objects don’t exist on their own without some kind of mind to create or perceive them.

things was at Berkeley’s time, and to some extent in the modern day too, a mystery to humankind. He goes on to say that if this link isn’t made then the problems of reality can’t be examined at all. Atheism and nihilism will likely ensue.

Therefore, we must accept that everything exists in a mental over physical form, or risk living in a state where we can really know nothing – otherwise we will have to accept that the connection between what is being perceived and the perceiver is unknown, leading to an unforgivably large hole in what we know about ourselves.

Whether or not you think Berkeley’s argument is convincing, confusing, or little more than a complex set of word games, it is hard to say that he doesn’t at least bring to mind a very important and puzzling issue. What is this physical world that we live in? Is it real? And can we ever have any viable reason to think this is the case?

Idealism comes in two main forms: objective idealism and subjective idealism. Objective idealism accepts the possibility of a world of senses and physical objects. We perceive these things so are consequently connected to them in some way. And subjective idealism, which I will discuss here, tells us that nothing really exists except the ideas of spirits and minds, so it is impossible to a have a real physical and independent object, just existing, on its own.

However, Berkeley goes into more detail to justify his view, now presenting us with a surprisingly convincing set of ideas that certainly questions the validity of the reality of the physical world. He points out that the most valid and widelyheld alternative to his subjective idealist view is the idea that: although we experience everything in the form of ideas, it may be possible that we can perceive something external from us, just through our mind. Then we are presented with the idea of this, in our mind.

Berkeley looks at this argument and concludes that it is fundamentally flawed. The problem is the connection between the ideas we have and the objects they are supposed to represent. The relationship between these two

THE PRIORIAN

The 18th century Irish philosopher and cleric, Bishop Berkeley, tells us that everything in the world is only an idea.

He establishes this by pointing out that we believe that we perceive physical objects, but we only really have the ability to perceive ideas, so these physical objects must be ideas.

This sudden jump to ideas being the entirety of existence does, on the surface, seem quite poorly justified – so just because we can’t perceive something means it doesn’t exist?

Surely this argument doesn’t properly rule out the possibility of physical objects?

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COMPUTER SCIENCE Programming a board game in Python Introduction This year I worked on coding a version of the board game Qwixx using the Python programming language. My goal was to create a fully functioning, multi-player game that could be played on-computer as a fun alternative to the traditional version of the Qwixx board game. Creating this game helped me gain a lot of experience in Python which I did not have before and allowed me to see how my knowledge could be used to create more complex projects in the future.

A quick overview of Qwixx Qwixx is a 2–5 player board game which allows players to compete and the highest scoring player at the end of the game is the winner. In Qwixx, each player has their own board and points are earned each turn by rolling six dice and strategically marking an X in a coloured row according to the numbers rolled on the dice. The game ends if a player misses four turns or if two rows are completed and locked. For scoring there are multipliers based on the number of X’s in each row. Missed turns are also taken into account. The game allows for a good mixture of fun and strategy.

ST BENEDICT’S

Figure 1: playersTurn function which updates the game board each turn for every player

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On the left is the PlayersTurn function which uses parameters board, dice, playersName and the current (active) player to loop through each players turn, starting with the current (active) player, allowing them to select where to place crosses (‘X’) in the rows coloured, red (‘R’), etc. depending on what numbers were rolled on the dice that turn. The function then calls two other functions: lock and CheckGameStatus. After each decision made by the player these functions are used to check whether a row has the criteria to be locked and if the game has officially ended (either two rows are locked or a player has skipped four turns).

Finally, the function prepares to loop around again and adds 1 to the “next player” variable so that a new player is used.

Figure 2: Qwixx output in Python Figure 2 on the left shows the output of the Qwixx program when ran in IDLE. The program first asks the users how many people will be playing the game. The names for the amount of people chosen to play are then entered. The active player to begin the game is then chosen automatically. The program then begins on turn 1 and displays the dice rolled for the turn.

The active player’s board is printed out allowing the player to see which rows they have placed ‘X’s on.

For the first round since each player must first decide where to place the white dice onto their board, the program calculates and displays the total for the player to see. Finally the player is allowed to select which row they would like to place the total of the two white dice. They may also skip the turn if they decide too. On the left, if the player now selects a colour an ‘X’ will be crossed on that position in the row chosen.

Future implementation of the project (OOP version) To continue with my Qwixx project I have begun to implement a GUI (Graphical User Interface) into the program.

This is done using Tkinter which is a module introducing the use of buttons and windows into python. This will allow players to visually see the Qwixx board and use each square on the board as a button.

The following code shows how I have mapped coordinates for buttons onto the board. This part of the code uses Object Oriented Programming to create each button on the board as an object. A picture of the Qwixx game board is used in the OOP version and each buttons was manually mapped out as a region of the board using another Object Oriented Program.

The coordinates for each buttons was then transferred into the class ImageTest shown on the right hand side.

THE PRIORIAN

Jules James (L6)

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POLITICS AN EVENING WITH ANN WIDDECOMBE Ann Widdecombe, former Conservative MP and Prisons Minister, gave a talk at St Benedict’s in April.

A lively question-and-answer session followed.

Here are some of the questions.

Paulina Sienniak – Do you think the decision to bomb chemical sites in Syria should have been debated in Parliament?

Ann W – I don’t think necessarily it should have been debated in Parliament because I think if you arrive at a situation where a prime minister cannot take an urgent action without first consulting Parliament, then you weaken our response mechanism.

Which way would I have voted if I had been in Parliament?

I don’t know. I think the moral arguments were very finely balanced between the two, but I don’t think it should be incumbent on the prime minister every single time to go to Parliament when initiating a hostile action. There will be circumstances when you don’t want a warning… you must act… when we ourselves are threatened or an ally, a member of NATO, was threatened. So no, I don’t think it should be incumbent on the prime minister to go to Parliament.

Maddie Tipping – I’d like to know how you respond to the Spectator’s claim that you are a feminist hero?

ST BENEDICT’S

Ann W – I am a feminist, but I’m a 1970s feminist, I am not the sort of feminist we have now, or the sort of feminism

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that began in the 90s and has kept going ever since. When I was graduating from university, it was perfectly lawful for an employer to advertise a job with two rates of pay, one for men and one for women. It was lawful to refuse a woman a higher purchase agreement, without her husband’s signature; it was lawful to refuse a mortgage to a woman just because she was a woman. But that was the society we lived in, and my attitude at that time was very straight forward. I said give us equality of opportunity and we will show you that we are every bit as good, and in some cases better, than the men, but we need the level playing field. That’s what we were campaigning for, that’s what we got with the Equal Opportunities Act. By the time the ‘90s came and women hadn’t made quite the progress that they thought they were going to make, it suddenly became about tilting the playing field towards us.

Now my profession is an obvious example: quite suddenly, begun by the Labour party, there were all women shortlists.

These are another way of saying a man can’t apply in this constituency, it’s reserved for a woman, not even if that man has grown up in the area, sent his kids to schools in the area, and used the health service in the area. That for me is not equality. I believe that every woman has the right to look every man in the eye in Parliament and to know that she got there on exactly the same basis as he got there. And if she can’t do that she is a second class citizen, and I don’t women to be second class citizens in Parliament.

So yes I do call myself a feminist and I am delighted that the Spectator recognises that, but it’s not ‘90s feminism, it’s not 00s feminism and it’s not the current feminism. All I want is a level playing field, I don’t want any special privileges, I don’t want any extra help, I just want to take the men on and beat them!

Ann W – Yes, for this reason. There are two extreme positions on when it is right to take life, most of which are not helpful.

On the one hand, there is the extreme pacifist position, which says that if you have one man in an aeroplane about to bomb five million you still must not kill that man. And the other extreme position is there is no intrinsic superiority about human life, we’re just animals, but rather superior ones and therefore it is ok to take life. Now most people do not sit at either end of that spectrum, most of us somewhere in the middle. But it’s not enough to say oh I’m somewhere in the middle. You’ve actually got to specify what the basis of your moral choice is. And I have always believed that it is right to take life in order to save life. So, for example, I am completely anti-abortion and have campaigned against it in Parliament for years. But if the mother is going to die, then you have a choice of two lives and you may go either way.

In those circumstances I would not say that by law it must always be the mother who dies, but a choice of lives. Now in war, if you are defending yourself that’s fine but fighting an aggressive war, that’s different. If someone comes into your house and you kill that person in the course of defending your family, as a pensioner did recently, that in my view is fine.

So capital punishment, if you said to me we do it because

it’s for retribution, I would say absolutely not. But if you say it’s a deterrent and that by having the death penalty you can save innocent lives, you are taking a life to save life, then I think that is morally sound. So the question then is, is it a deterrent? And so I think it is possible to be a Christian and support capital punishment.

Matthew Barrett – Did you prefer your time on Strictly or in the Big Brother house?

Oh Strictly any day of the week. Strictly was a wonderful release from responsibility. I did it within months of leaving Parliament where for twenty three years everything I did, as a Constituency MP and the way I handled case work, to the way I voted in Parliament, to the policies I enacted as a minister, to the policies I espoused as a shadow minister, everything I did had the potential to affect other people for good or for ill. The only thing I could affect on Strictly were Anton’s shins!

It was a complete departure from responsibility for three months and I had an entirely frivolous time. Now Big Brother, nobody can describe as frivolous. Big Brother is basically a social experiment, you’re lab rats effectively, you’re spending every single day with people you wouldn’t have chosen to spend five minutes with let alone a month with, so it’s very, very different. Challenging and in some ways it’s fun, but not like Strictly.

THE PRIORIAN

Molly Williams – Is it possible to have a strong Christian faith and to support the reintroduction of the death penalty?

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SCIENCE FAIR – WINNING PROJECTS Are soaps really hygienic?

Does music affect your concentration?

We had decided to choose this as our topic because there has always been a debate with teenagers and parents about whether you should or shouldn’t listen to some form of music while doing your homework. We tested this theory by using a BBC reaction game and testing ourselves to play it while listening to different types of music. The reason we chose a reaction game is because we found this would be the best, fair way to test our reactions. The different types of music we played when playing our reaction game were: Jazz, Rock, Classical and no music. Our hypothesis was that all music would adversely affect our reaction times, and thereby our concentration. In the end our hypothesis became our conclusion: we found that when we had no music we had the quickest time but when we had Jazz and Rock we had longer times because we found ourselves listening to the words rather than concentrating on our reaction times. We found this project to be very informative on how we should do tasks (homework or revising) in future and how it is going to influence our lives.

ST BENEDICT’S

Daniel Norris, Daniel Shenas and Lochan Hearn (L4)

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As the Lent term arrived, the science fair was something we really looked forward to. After seeing last year’s projects we couldn’t wait to try it ourselves. Leading up to it, we had to spend a lot of time researching, testing, experimenting and finally writing up our results. Although it may sound like hard work it was a challenge we took on willingly! Our experiment originally was: ‘Are soaps really hygienic?’ But after testing this out we had to develop our original idea and changed it to: ‘Are you really hygienic?’ We chose this topic because as people care a lot about hygiene these days, people would be surprised and fascinated to find out about it.

So, online we bought a UV torch which made bacteria and dust glow.

We used this torch and went round our homes shining it on surfaces in our homes to find out which was the cleanest. We also used Petri dishes as a back-up to make sure our results were accurate. At last, we came to the conclusion that the bathroom was actually one of the cleanest rooms in your house and the kitchen was one of the dirtiest – a fact that surprised both us and many people who came to us on the day of the Science Fair!

On the day of the Science Fair we had to set up our board and stick all our results up, before groups of primary school children came to see our presentation. We think the children were quite fascinated with the UV torch, which we shone on their hands, and the surprising facts we found out. The following week in assembly we were even more surprised when we found out that we had won the highly commended award! We were really surprised but glad at the same time because our work had finally paid off.

Emily Michael and Natalia McFadzean (L4)

THE PRIORIAN

DANCE

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EARLY YEARS

ST BENEDICT’S

Early Years – learning through play in the new playground

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Nursery Nativity

Science Week

THE PRIORIAN

Cooking

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ST BENEDICT’S

Making their mark To acknowledge that we are all individual, but still all part of the St Benedict’s family, PP1 made their handprints on a banner.

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PP1

PP1

PP1 Phonics

PP2

Autumn As part of the Science Curriculum, PP2 visited Montpelier Park to look for signs of Autumn, inspiring their autumnal poems.

London and Our Local Area PP2 visited the London Transport Museum and designed their own village.

THE PRIORIAN

PP2 47

PP3 Habitats Investigating habitats in Montpelier Park, finding woodlice, snails, worms and beetles.

Knights and Castles topic A castle built in Minecraft.

ST BENEDICT’S

London calling A visit to the London Eye and an interesting boat trip along the River Thames.

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PP3

Henry Newman (1P)

Grace Connolly (2P)

Why do you like coming to the Library?

What do you gain from coming to the Library?

I come to the Library about once a week at lunch time and also for a weekly Library hobby. I like to read magazines or play Top Trumps or Chess with friends. Sometimes I come on my own for a bit of quiet. I like to look around and get ideas for the books I want to borrow.

Why do you like coming to the Library?

What do you gain from coming to the Library?

It is a nice space to relax in when I want a quiet space for myself, disconnected from the outside world. Also, when it is wet outside I like coming in at lunch break and being with friends. I like it that in lunch break you can read or draw pictures, and do Origami….

I use the information books for class work and follow up points on the internet.

I like all the information contained in the non-fiction books and gaining new words to enlarge my vocabulary.

What are you reading now?

Young Bond: Strike Lightning by Steve Cole. It caught my eye in our Form Library lesson.

What are you reading now?

Letters from the Lighthouse by Emma Carroll which I recommend to others!

Who is your favourite children’s author?

Anthony Horowitz as I love tension in books and especially spy dramas.

Who is your favourite children’s author?

David Walliams because his ideas are ingenious, a little crazy sometimes, but they make you think.

What is the children’s book you would share with your children?

Sharing a Shell by Julia Donaldson and Lydia Monks because it teaches you about kindness and how to behave. I like books to show how people should behave.

What is the children’s book you would share with your children?

Mustard, Custard, Grumble Belly and Gravy by Michael Rosen.

I love his poems, the sound of the words… I’ve got the CD version too!

What book would you recommend to friends?

Dragon Rider by Cornelia Funke. It is a great story! I enjoyed reading about two species getting along despite people thinking that they shouldn’t.

THE PRIORIAN

LIBRARY INTERVIEWS

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LOWER PREP Guardian of the Green Gem Stone

Cursed candy

Once upon a time there was a boy called James who lived in the old cottage on the outskirts of town. Most of the time he played on his own away from everything. His favourite get away place was the secret door at the back of his garden.

One day as he was playing, he saw something glowing in the bush. As he was coming closer to see what it was, he realised it was a green gem. It looked very precious, very unusual.

As he took it he suddenly saw a portal right in front of him.

A long, long time ago in someone’s great imagination, there were three siblings called Jack, Archie and Olivia. One day they were more bored than they had ever been. That day the three siblings were bored their Mum came in and said “Go out! Go out to the park, you can’t sit on your bottoms all day doing nothing.” So they went to the very fun park. Jack, Archie and Olivia couldn’t think of a game to play. Suddenly, Archie screamed out loud, “ Let’s play ‘It’.” At the same time Archie and Olivia shouted “Jack’s on.” Jack chased Archie and Olivia all around the park suddenly Archie and Olivia fell in to a ginormous hole. Olivia fell first, followed by Archie.

Jack got really worried when he couldn’t find them. Olivia and Archie started shouting “Jack, Jack down here!” Jack didn’t hear the first time or the second time or third time. Next time Jack finally he heard them. Jack jumped to the ginormous hole. Olivia, Archie and Jack started to look around to find everything suspicious. It was dark and spooky and it smelt like rotten eggs. Olivia, Archie and Jack wondered around for two boring hours until Jack screamed “Look, look, a yellow light is shining there, let’s go and check it out!” Olivia then replied “Yes, let’s go!”

Guided by curiosity, he went in. All of a sudden he realised he had entered a very different world! But as there was no way back, he decided to carry on going and explore the new found place. He noticed a forest at the bottom of a steep hill so he went down the hill to explore further. There he found a village with the sign “Columbus village” and went to explore it. He was checking all the cottages hoping he would meet someone but unfortunately there was no one living around.

Suddenly he saw the beautiful sight in front of him. There was a glittering river full of jumping fishes. In amazement he carried on walking where he found a bridge. He went on the other side of it and saw a grey mountain hidden in clouds.

As he climbed it, he entered a black cave. It looked like a hidden kingdom. He felt worried of what could be waiting for him. The whole place was covered by luxurious red carpet, surrounded by golden statues. In between the statues, a big, black hole drew his attention – what could it be?

As it was getting darker and James was getting tired, the gem slipped out of his hands and started falling. If it hit the ground, James would be lost FOREVER. The dragon knew this so he flew fast through the air and caught the gem before it hit the ground. From that moment, James knew that he was always going to go back to visit his new friend.

They found a very large door. Olivia whispered “Should I knock on the door?” “Go on” whispered Jack. “Ok, here we go” and knocked on the door. When she knocked on the door no one answered it. And the second time there was still no answer. So Olivia got really frustrated and knocked on the door as hard as she ever could. When the door opened there was no one by the door. Olivia and Archie thought it was a magic door. Olivia, Archie and Jack took one big step in. They took a few more steps in and all they saw were tiny houses made of delicious candy. They shouted as loudly as they could, “Hello!” but there was no answer. They looked around the place until they saw a door opening. They saw an extensive herd of candies walking out of the huge double door. Olivia, Archie and Jack got really terrified and they thought they must be dreaming so they tried to slap each other. But it didn’t work out and they found out they were definitely not dreaming. They saw most of the candies were very mouldy and disgusting and one of them was even hairy and was rolling around the place. All the candies looked evil as if they were under a spell. The threesome saw a room off to the left and they moved quickly towards it thinking it was an escape. When they went into the room they saw a witch cursing spells on the candies. Olivia got so scared she ran around the place slapping herself as much as she could... finally finding out that it was just a dream.

Matija Koncar (LP)

Else Gillan (LP)

ST BENEDICT’S

As he went further he felt he wasn’t the only one there, he felt the presence of someone near him. Suddenly his gem stone started glowing and lit the whole place. In front of him were colossal red dragons all wrapped in chains. James remembered that one of the statues was showing a hole shaped like his green gem so he went and placed the gem inside. Suddenly a key appeared on the floor. He used it to free the dragon. As the dragon was trapped for a long time, he was hungry and James was the only thing there. As James gave him freedom he looked at him as the only creature he could trust so took him to the river, let the dragon drink water and catch fish. Without warning the dragon picked up James and started flying through the sky.

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Adam Purth looked up from the boring book he was reading.

The only good thing about it was the shiny cover. Across the table on the train, to his surprise, he saw his greatest enemy, Henry Heathfield! Now Henry was a mysterious, unpredictable man. He was eating bananas dipped in cold tea. Unlike Adam who was reading a book called ‘Space’, Henry was holding a rather large suitcase which was intriguing for Adam.

They got off the train and Henry rushed home to build his new ‘Mind-Control Machine’ (MCM) which he had excitedly bought on ‘e-Bay’. He wanted to use it to control people’s minds and become an awful king. Henry was very proud of his MCM, in fact he was so proud he posted a card to Adam... which was probably a bit of a mistake.

The next morning, Adam received a piece of post. He recognised the handwriting in a few seconds. It was from Henry!

Adam opened it apprehensively. He read the note in his clever head. As soon as he read the second last sentence he knew he was the only one who could stop Henry. “You can’t stop me now, loser!” it said. Adam felt very sad, very sad indeed.

Adam was about to go to Henry’s house, but then felt like he needed a cup of luxurious tea to give him luck and courage.

He also had a quick biscuit.

Once he had had his tea, Adam cycled stealthily round to Henry’s house. Then he marched up the front path and knocked loudly on the knocker. There was no answer. Adam heard unusual noises coming from Henry’s garage. He heard buzzes, bleeps and honks that sounded like a machine that could control minds!

Adam walked around the house and peeked through the garage window. He saw Henry testing the MCM on a pigeon trapped in a cage. Henry was wearing protective earplugs because of the loud noises from the machine.

Adam climbed through the window and skilfully jumped down into the large garage. He shouted loudly over the earpopping noise of the big machine.

Henry turned off the MCM and angrily said, “What are you doing here, weirdo?”

“I’m here to stop you of course.”

“Did you read the letter?”

“Yes.” “Then why are you here? Actually I’ve had a great idea.”

“What is it?”

“I`m going to use the MCM on you!”

Henry pressed a button and a red laser shot out of the MCM. Adam grabbed the first thing he could find which was the manual for the MCM. Somehow the laser reflected off the manual. The MCM exploded.

Stanley Watts (LP)

Heerio the Knight who saved the World from the Dragons which stole winter Once upon a winter, Heerio saw a snowy six-headed dragon flying in the sky. The mountains were frosty and people were skiing and snowboarding in the high magical mountains. Every time the dragon opened its mouth it blew fire and melted the snow and ice so that the skiers and snowboarders could not get past! All these people were very angry and upset.

The snow bears, eagles and arctic hares were also unhappy because they were too hot. Something had to be done!

“Heerio to the rescue!” he shouted as he ran down the steep and beautiful staircase of his icy castle.

Heerio gathered up the knights and the animals and opened the golden doors to his castle and charged out. The animals started to look for the dragons. The white snow bears could smell the dragons close by, the knights couldn’t see a thing.

The dragons were camouflaged!

“Oh no!” cried Heerio, “we can’t see the dragons, they might eat us.”

“What shall we do?” asked a knight, “there is no way we can fight the dragons that we can’t see.” They rushed back into the castle and they tried to think of an idea. Soon after five minutes Heerio had an idea. Heerio got all the knights and villagers to run to the top of the four very tall turrets with buckets of red tomato juice.

“On the count of four,” he said excitedly, “everybody throw it at the dragons!”

The knights and villagers did as they were told. They threw the red tomato juice at the dragons...

Dragons love tomato juice, so they drank everything that was thrown at them. Soon they became very sleepy and all flew to the ground and the knights came out of the beautiful castle and carried the heavy dragons into a carriage and drove them to a desert island. It took a very long time by carriage and by boat, but the dragons were still fast asleep.

When the dragons woke up they wanted to go back to the snowy mountains but they didn’t know the way as they had been asleep all the way to the desert island!

The knights had to take back the carriages and boats quickly so the dragons wouldn’t follow them back to the mountains. They were very tired, but because this was a very hard, important job, that Heerio had given them, it had to be done well.

Now the skiers and snowboarders and local people and knights could enjoy the mountains and the snow and the ice and their winter. The Dragons never came back as they could not find their way back to the mountains, but they enjoyed their desert island and made fires that burnt on the beach and they also liked swimming in the sea.

Christopher Le Bouedec (LP)

THE PRIORIAN

Adam Purth

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UPPER PREP The Celts topic

The Boy Who Loved to Dance

ST BENEDICT’S

Once there was a boy called Barnaby, who loved to dance. His secret wish more than anything else was to dance on a stage and glimmer in the spotlight like Michael Jackson. He loved Michael Jackson. He wanted to spin, turn and leap across the stage like a shooting star. When Barnaby danced, his feet had a mind of their own. The beat of the music made his heart sing songs and he loved making up routines and creating shows inside his head. Barnaby liked telling stories through dance steps and in shapes he made. It made him feel so happy and he wanted to make other people feel the same way.

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Unfortunately, when you are 9 years old and a bit shy and you go to a school where other boys don’t like to dance, it’s hard to do that. It’s hard to follow your dreams if you feel like people are going to laugh at you. Some people think that dancing isn’t something a

boy should do. Lots of Barnaby’s friends played rugby or football and loved fighting in the playground while he just stood at the side and watched.

One day there was a talent show at school and Barnaby really wanted to enter but he felt very nervous. “What will everyone think of me? Will they laugh at me?” he thought. It took lots of courage but he finally decided he was going to enter. “How will I make my dreams come true if I don’t try?” he thought. He planned out his steps and picked his costume, but as the show got closer he felt sick.

When the day arrived, he walked nervously up the steps to the stage.

The hall was very quiet and all he could hear was the small tap tap tap of his shoes on the wooden steps.

Barnaby swallowed hard as the big red curtains whooshed open. A hundred eyes were staring right at him. The music started and he took a deep breath as his legs started magically

moving to the beat. Lost in his glitter world, Barnaby tippet-tapped, clippetyclapped, loopy-looped and danced like an exploding firework. He felt extraordinary. He felt like a sparkler on bonfire night. He felt as free as a bird and full of love.

He had no time to look at the audience and no time to feel afraid.

He danced until he was dizzy. The music ended and there was a silence before the hundred eyes became smiles and clapping. Everyone stood up shouting “Bravo!”

Barnaby felt absolutely brilliant. He wasn’t bothered about winning because he knew he had made everyone happy.

He felt loved in his heart.

Two things happened that day.

Barnaby learned that you should never give up on your dreams and that for a moment, dancing on the stage, he felt just like Michael Jackson.

Louis Daniels-Shayvard (UP)

A Titanic Survivor

The captain was sure but forever more the Titanic and its ghost friends will be lost and tossed by the screaming waves.

At the dead of night a great, colossal whale comes dodging and darting to the skeletons of the majestic ship for a great ghost party with jewels and pools of necklaces and reckless fish.

The Titanic is lost and tossed.

Nathan Bridge (UP)

On the fourth night I was in the bar having a drink with Milton Long, a friend I had made on the voyage, when there was a tremendous noise and the boat seemed to suddenly stop.

Our drinks went crashing to the ground. In the confusion that followed I lost track of my parents but Milton and I stayed together and at the last moment we jumped into the dark, deep, blue sea.

Luckily, I surfaced near an upside down life-boat and I managed to pull myself onto it. Looking back I saw the ship’s last moments. Milton was nowhere to be seen. At first there was silence. Then the most awful noise I have ever heard.

People drowning, screaming in fear and calling out to their loved ones. I was reunited with my mother on board the rescue ship, the Carpathia, early the next morning.

I don’t think that I could have survived another hour in those freezing cold waters.

Nancy Timms (UP) Storms & Shipwrecks topic

THE PRIORIAN

Titanic

I was so excited to be sailing on the biggest and “unbreakable” ship of all time, the Titanic! All my friends were saying ”Wouldn’t it just be so cool to go on the Titanic?”

When I first set eyes on the splendid beast it made such an impression on me. It looked so strong and indestructible.

Could I have been more wrong? We set sail looking forward to having fun, fine dining, dancing and of course winning the trophy of being the fastest boat to cross the Atlantic.

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THE JUNIOR SCHOOL: ART

ST BENEDICT’S

Form 2 – Art Week: wire sculpture

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ART

Pre-Prep 2 – Cityscapes responding to Monet topic

Form 1 – Indian purses textile topic

Lower Prep – Art Week: Painting scenes from The Odyssey on plaster

Upper Prep – Egyptian thrones sculpture topic

THE PRIORIAN

Pre-Prep 3 – Art Week: Painting Flags on Shells – Responding to flags on ships from Odysseus’ travels

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FORM 1 The Tower of London Days passed fast but they all remained the same, instead I changed quickly.

One day I was beautiful and people made selfies with me then the next day I was disgusting and useless. People only came to see my prison cells leaving me alone. Even the dead spiders looked happier than me. Then I saw the other towers looking happy with their owners.

They treated these other towers well for example washing their windows and cleaning their pavements.

Oh I forgot, I did not introduce myself.

Apologies! I am the famous Tower of London. I was built between 1078 and 1100 and I was used as a prison for many years. I am not happy with my past. But now I am one of the most visited attractions in London. People come from all over the world to visit me. But now all that people want to see is not only my prison cells but also the wonderful things I now have inside.

I will tell you the story of how I became a joyful attraction to visit.

One day many years ago I saw a marvellous little bird! I start speaking with him.

ST BENEDICT’S

– Hello my little friend are you, alone like myself? The bird nodded.

– Here it is my deal, you will help me to find some jewellery to decorate my walls and windows and I will help you to be the famous bird in London.

The bird starts flying with joy.

– I suppose this is a yes.

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The two together started working day and night, during weeks and months, while the visitors watched them with amazement. After two years of hard work the Tower of London was the most visited attraction in London but the visitors also watched the outside full of incredible jewellery from all over the world. And the bird was known as the best helper in London.

Ines de Mojana (Form 1)

Ruler of the Classroom Oh, another day. Another day of being tortured! I’m in my congested room, bent up in the cramped space, my body positioned like a jack-knifed lorry.

Bump. Bump. Bump. On and on I bounce, up and down in the muffled darkness for what seems like an eternity. An odd sound builds around like a bee buzzing around a flower. Light fills the air as I am wrenched out of my misery and slapped onto a hard, wooden surface. THWACK! The sound of chattering voices echoes around me and it takes a while for me get used to the brightness. I tumble out into what seems like a new dimension as my buddies tumble out with me. My friend, Harry Brown’s (HB for short) slim body was getting pinched and flicked around vigorously leaving a trail of his grey blood.

The hand of a giant loomed towards me and it lifted me up with immense force.

I flinched as I knew what was coming. I spun around like a spinning top and then...

SCCCRAAATTCHH! Why always the same place? It annoys me so much when HB slams his head against my side.

The scratches carry on as I am pushed in every possible direction which makes me feel like I am going to be sick! The odd thing is that I am scratched all over the front of my narrow body leaving behind blue blobs which block my eyesight. Honestly, what do they not understand about others needing to be able to see?

Phew! I can see again; the dreadful thing is that I’ve been stuffed back into my signature jack-knifed position. Grrrrr! At least I can rest, although I wish I was as flexible as my classmates so I could be more comfortable. So unfair! I really want to speak to HB, or even just see him, but he is nowhere in sight. Though I have been here most of my life, I feel lonely and disorientated and it makes my body stiffen up (as if I’m not stiff enough already) with pure misery.

Vigorously, I am snatched out of the uncomfortable place that I am in; my room mates accidentally scratch me as I brush past. Again, I’m smacked onto the solid surface. A German boy (Hans Staedtler) face-plants himself on me – how rude!

Suddenly, 15cm of my body is bent backwards, almost reaching the other side.

Staedtler flies across the surface as the side of my body is flung back into its original place where I shudder for a few seconds trying to regain my balance. Blast! Now I am being pulled from both ends. My stiff body is again placed into a jack-knifed position, this time, I am not in my room.

Suddenly a loud voice booms over the hubbub: “Would you stop messing around with your ruler, Bill...”

That is the last thing I heard, as I felt a sudden crack in my body…

Thomas Kottler (Form 1)

Peace Tagxedo – Emily Moran (Form 1)

Hillary’s Heights topic

THE PRIORIAN

Travel & Treason topic – Tudor banquet

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FORM 2 A dog’s life It was a cold, dreary, miserable day and the first day of my holidays. It was half term, my parents were out shopping, while I was stuck at home watching television with my best buddy, my dog Max. Max is a long hair Chihuahua, he has small dog syndrome where he thinks he can overpower the biggest dog that comes into his path. We were lying on the sofa with Max demanding his usual belly rub!

As I looked at Max I thought how lucky he was and wondered what it would be like to be a dog.

As I was daydreaming of all the adventures you could have as a dog the strangest thing happened. Everything became bigger and I became smaller!

I ran into the hallway and saw my reflection. I was Max! I couldn’t believe my eyes I was a CHIHUAHUA! I tried to shout for help but all I could do was bark. I was stuck in a dog’s body… If that wasn’t the worse thing to happen I had a terrible urge to pee. What could I do? Luckily the cat flap was open so I ran into the garden, I managed to get to the bush just in time, it felt quite weird, while I was just finishing Hercules our neighbour’s dog stuck his head through the fence. “Hey small squirt” he said “not so brave are you?”

Hercules continued to call me names, “goggle eyes, ratty”, and the most hurtful “lap dog!!” No wonder Max didn’t like him.

ST BENEDICT’S

The sight of Hercules terrified me so I ran under the fence and into the street.

Where was I going to go? My nose took me to the park, I began sniffing. Me? Sniffing? The smells were overpowering but I wanted to smell every single one of them, ugh! But it was so lovely.

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Suddenly I heard a scream, a man was grabbing a ladies bag and trying to snatch it off her, I ran as fast as my paws would take me, I leapt towards the man and took a bite at his leg, as I was flying towards his thick leg, I realised

my mouth was small, my nose hit him, he just laughed at me and tried to kick me, what could I do, then it came to me, I managed to do the Max special cartwheel and peed on his leg, the man let go of the bag as the hot liquid ran down his leg, the lady managed to get away and called the police.

I was the local hero, awarded a medal, all the dogs in the area wanted a sniff of me!

Maybe being a dog isn’t so bad.

George King (Form 2)

My Grandad ‘Knock, knock’ ‘Who’s there?’

‘Woo’ ‘Woo who?’

‘Don’t get too excited; it’s only me.’

This is Grandad’s version of hello.

If I could live anywhere in the world, I would live with my Grandad in Kent Lodge Old People’s Home. My best friend is 84 years old and is more entertaining than any of my other friends. It seems odd to me that other people (ie my siblings) don’t realise that there is nothing more fun than an hour spent in the company of an unpredictable, sweary force of nature who does not give a monkeys about what people think of him. Han Solo is a rubbish rebel compared to Tony Ryman (aka King G, Grandidium, Grandad the Great, G Power).

Although Grandad is not a rich man, he is the most generous person I know.

When my Granny was in Ealing hospital, he bought the lady in the next bed packets of custard creams, bottles of squash and rose hand cream because her daughter could not afford the train fare to visit. ‘You’d give your right arm away’ I heard my father scold in exasperation. ‘Well, I’d have one left!’ joked Grandad. ‘You can’t take it with you,’ he tells the newsagent buying the biggest bar of Dairy Milk for me.

Agreeing to sit in the passenger seat of Grandad’s navy blue Fiat Bravo (number plate BD72 GRU which once featured in a CCTV footage on Police Interceptors – I told you he is exciting to be around), is like placing all of your chips on red 23 at the roulette table. Risk rules. No driver is safe from my Grandad’s erratic positioning in the road, constant sounding of the horn (which he justifies as exercise for his arm muscles) and total lack of indication. Circling the roundabout several times deciding which exit he likes the look of is a much cherished manoeuvre. Arriving at a destination (usually an Asda car park) is a mixture of relief and disappointment; relief that no living thing was harmed in the making of the journey and disappointment that the ride is over.

Burnt toast is a taste that you can grow accustomed to – even love with time. Cold, gritty slabs of tinned corned beef layered like bricks between thick mattresses of bread, cemented together with runny, bright, yellow butter are harder to stomach.

Grandad is no male Mary Berry and only the swearing part of Gordon Ramsey, however, it is true that a way to a man’s heart is through his stomach and my heart is the shape of the plate of beans, fish fingers and chips which he made me after school every Tuesday for a year before he had to leave his home because he put his car keys in the oven and forget the days of the week.

‘Knock, knock’ ‘Who’s there?’

‘Carry’ ‘Carry who?’

‘Carry me home; I’m too old to walk.’

‘Knock, knock’ ‘Who’s there?’

‘Abyssinia’ ‘Abyssinia who?’

‘Abyssinia soon’ ‘Abyssinia soon, Grandad’.

Edmund Harper (Form 2)

Travel & Treason topic

THE PRIORIAN

Hillary’s Heights topic

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THE JUNIOR SCHOOL: SCIENCE pic

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Lower Prep planting seeds

NCE Form 1 K’nex

Lower Prep plant models

THE PRIORIAN

Lower Prep fossils display

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STAFF LISTS HEADMASTER Mr A Johnson

SENIOR EXECUTIVE TEAM

Mr L Ramsden Ms F Allen Mrs C Bedwin Mr R Simmons Mrs T Scott

Deputy Head Deputy Head (Academic) Bursar & Clerk to Governors Junior School Headmaster Junior School Deputy Head

LEADERSHIP TEAM AND SENIOR STAFF Mr J Foley Mr S Scicinski Mr D Thomas Mr C Wilks Mrs M Dryden Mr R Ferrett Mrs T George Ms L Pepper Miss C Shah Mr C Smith

SUPPORT STAFF Mrs R Wynne Mrs T Boyle Miss A Dodd Ms M McCarthy Mrs S Trowbridge Mr R Baker Mr N Cave Mrs A de Berg Mrs D Johnson Mrs A McKenna Mrs K Mythen Mrs M McPartlin Mr N Keep

Mrs H Shah Mrs A Dayeh Mrs A Stringer Miss E Wallace Anna Luisa Crespo Jadwiga Henshaw Anna Rodericks Mrs J Wallace Mr W Bedford Mr J Kelly Ms M Lee

Assistant Head: Pupil Welfare Director of Academic Challenge Senior Master Director of Teaching & Learning Head of Human Resources Estates Director Development Director Registrar Marketing Director Director of ICT

Headmaster’s PA Data and SIMS Manager School Office Manager Senior School Receptionist Deputy Heads’ Projects Assistant Old Priorian Association Catering Manager Sixth Form Administrator PR and Marketing Officer PE and Games Administrator Music Administrator Music Administrator Facilities Manager (external lets and minibus) Parent Ledger Accounts Finance Controller Human Resources Officer Librarian Assistant Librarian Assistant Librarian Assistant Librarian Examinations Officer Development Manager School Marshall DofE’s Award Administrator

ST BENEDICT’S

ACADEMIC AND PASTORAL STAFF

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Miss C Allen

Mr N Arratoon

Mr S Atkinson Mr A Billinge Miss A Blanvillan Mr S Bordiss Mr C Bowles

Mrs L Brooks Ms N Burns

Miss H Caldwell Mr M Cattaway Mr C Cave Mr W Clarke Mr S Codrington

Mr J Coles

History, Joint Head of Sixth Form Chemistry, Housemaster of Gervase PE and Games, Rugby Coach Mathematics, CCF French Language Assistant English, Second in Department Physics, Director of Science, Head of Physics Head of Modern Languages Art, Design and Technology, Second in Department Head of Biology Tennis Coach Physics Learning Support Assistant Biology, Director of Gifted and Talented, Head of Academic PE Director of Rugby

Mrs M Comins Learning Support Assistant,

Economics and Business Studies Ms G Comyn Head of Sociology,

Housemistress of Roberts Mr A Cooper Geography Ms T Correia Modern Languages, Lower 4th

Division Head Mrs C Crean Learning Support Assistant (Mathematics) Dr R Curtis Head of Computer Science Mrs V Dale Learning Support Assistant Miss S Dand Geography Miss A Davis Modern Languages,

Head of German Miss S Djukic Chemistry Mr M Donegan Theology and RE,

Housemaster of Pickering Miss G Dunlea Joint Head of Sixth Form Mr C Eastwood Director of Music Mr J Edgar Chaplaincy Assistant Dr T Ennis Modern Languages,

Senior French Teacher Miss C Ferrario Geography, Educational Visits Coordinator Mr M Foley Classics, Upper 5th

Division Head Mr C Gasiorek Mathematics, Middle Manager Pastoral Mr R Gee Drama, English Mrs N Green Hockey Coach Dr J Greenhough English, Centre Coordinator

for EPQ Mr K Grodzicki ADT Technician Mrs E Hansell English Dr H Harper English Mrs A Hayes Biology Mr A Heald Head of History Mrs R Hickman Music Mr Z Higgins Director of Sport Mrs S Hopgood Head of Careers Mrs G Hullis Classics Mr S Hullis Head of Classics, Contingent

Commander CCF Mr J Hunt Hockey Coach Mrs P Jarvis Mathematics Miss B Jones English Mr M Joyce Head of Government and Politics Mr J Joyce Rugby Coach Mr S Jukes Head of JS Boys’ PE and

Rugby Coach Ms J Kelly Biology Technician Miss L Kennett Head of English Miss R Kestenbaum Head of Dance Mrs O Kirtchuk Modern Languages,

Head of Spanish Mrs S Larkam Swimming Coach Mrs A Lewer English Mrs E Lewis EAL Teacher Miss K Linton Art, Design and Technology Ms A Loaiza-Palacio School Counsellor Ms H Mackenzie History, Head of PSHEE and Citizenship Mrs E Maidment Chemistry Mrs S Malik Mathematics, Second in Department Mrs S Marais Biology Mrs I McCahearty Spanish Language Assistant Mr P McCarthy Econ and Business Studies,

Upper 4th Division Head Mr D McKeown Theology and RE,

Third Form Division Head Dr S McLaughlin Theology and RE Mr P McWillams Theology and RE, Second in Department

Mr M Mendes Art, Design and Technology,

3D Product Design Miss H Moores Sports Assistant Mr H Murphy Rugby Coach Mr J Murray Games Coach Ms R Mushaike Mathematics Mr R Mushiso Games Coach Mr K Newell Head of Cricket Mrs N Nicholls History, Second in Department Mr J Nijhar Head of Hockey Mrs K Norris Careers Officer Mrs S Obhrai Learning Support Assistant and

German Language Assistant Mrs D O’Connor Head of Chemistry Mr B O’Hara Hockey Coach Miss A Palmer Head of Netball Ms S Parker Dance Mrs H Passmore Mathematics Mrs I Payne Modern Languages Dr R Pearce Biology Mr R Pereira Head of Art, Design and Technology Mr P Podgorski ADT Technician Ms K M Ravenscroft Head of Drama Mr A Rees Mathematics, Academic Manager Dr D Robb Head of Mathematics Mr H Sadiq Head of Fencing, CCF SSI Mrs T Salisbury Head of Academic Music Mr K Sarrafan-Chaharsoughi Physics Mr I Simpson Head of Economics &

Business Studies Mrs S Smith SENCO Ms S-J Sorohan Classics Mr B Spivey Physics Technician Dom Thomas Stapleford, OSB Chaplain Mr M Stringer Strength and Conditioning

Coach, Head of Athletics Mrs I Szymanska Chemistry Technician Mr M Thain History, Housemaster of Barlow Mr S Victory Economics and Business Studies Mrs C Wall Biology, Lower 5th

Division Head Mr E Walls Head of Theology and

Religious Education Mr P Walton Head of Geography Mr M Watts English, Literacy Coordinator Mr A Wijnberg History, Head of e-Learning Mr O Williamson Mathematics Mrs A Yates Head of JS PE and Games,

Head of Girls’ Cricket Mrs W Yuen Yip Mathematics

VISITING MUSIC STAFF

Mr M Chaundy Singing Ms G Di Laccio Singing Ms O Duque Oboe and piano Mr J Ellwood Brass Mr M Fisher Drumkit & percussion Mr M Fletcher Drumkit & percussion Ms K French ’Cello Mr B Gale Drumkit & percussion Miss C George Woodwind Ms E Jackson Violin & viola Mr P Jaekel Piano Mr J Janik Piano Mr R Leach Piano Mr R MacManus Violin Mrs F Meakins Harp Mr P Michael Bass guitar and piano Mr S O’Regan Flute Mr J Preiss Guitar Mrs A Rayner Singing Mr C Regert Guitar

SCHOOL OFFICIALS Head Boy: Head Girl: Deputy Head Boy: Deputy Head Girl: Senior Decans: Vinciane Allicar Waad Baayou Florence Byrne Luke Campbell Jack Davies Tom Gedye Dulcie Godfrey Calum Johannsen President of School Council: House Captains: Barlow:

Gervase:

Pickering:

Roberts:

GOVERNORS

Mr P Murphy-O’Connor Chair of Governors Mr M Ainslie Mr J Berger Mrs M Boyle Mrs M Doyle Mr C Field Dr P Hopley Mr P Keyte Dom Ambrose McCambridge, OSB Mrs E Pilgrim Abbot Martin Shipperlee, OSB Mr B Taylor Dom Dominic Taylor, OSB Ms S Vale Mr J Walsh Mr J Watson

JUNIOR SCHOOL HEADMASTER Mr R Simmons

SENIOR EXECUTIVE TEAM Mrs T Scott Mrs C Bedwin Mr L Ramsden Ms F Allen Dom Alexander Bevan, OSB

Junior School Deputy Head Bursar SS Deputy Headmaster SS Deputy Head (Academic) SS Senior Chaplain

LEADERSHIP TEAM AND SENIOR STAFF Miss L T Powell

Mrs M Edwards

Miss E Brown Abbot Martin Shipperlee, OSB

SUPPORT STAFF Miss L Hodge Mrs E Taylor Mrs E Murru Ms J Kelly Mrs M Lawry Mrs K Aston

Mrs B Everett

FORM TUTORS Miss K Halpin Miss A Albert Mrs C Lewis Mrs E Kottler Miss L T Powell Mrs R Nwaka Mr J Laffey Mrs F Rutherford Miss E Keenan Mrs L David

2M 2P 2S 1M 1P 1S UPM UPP LPP LPM

Assistant Head, Designated Safeguarding Lead & Head of Key Stage 2 Head of Early Years Found. Stage & Designated Safeguarding Lead Head of Key Stage 1 Chaplain

Headmaster’s PA Receptionist Office Administrator Afternoon Receptionist School Welfare Officer SBJS Assessment & SIMS Administrator Junior School Registrar

Mrs J Loveless Miss M Indra Miss E Brown Mrs D Petrovic Mrs A Cannon Mrs M Edwards Head of Early Years Foundation Stage Mrs A Mullally Head of Nursery

PP3G PP2G PP2Y PP1Y PP1G

Lorcan O’Brien Jolie Bediako Matthew Barrett Victoria Szymanska Emma Lyons Charlotte McCosker Mark de Monte Furtado Cristina Moran James Piercy Harry Pye Anna Rice Rosalind Sheehan Luke Campbell Eden Comins and Tom Gedye Josh Chippendale and Anna Rice Shane Duffy and Paige Powell Dulcie Godfrey and Teddy Loxton

JUNIOR SCHOOL ACADEMIC AND PASTORAL STAFF Miss A Albert Ms C Belizario de Meyer Mr J Coles Mrs F Cox Mrs L David Miss A Derliunaite Mr D Field Mrs T Fletcher Miss K Halpin Mrs V Halpin Mr Z Higgins Mr J Joyce Mr S Jukes Mrs M Keogh Ms R Kestenbaum Mrs B Krok-Paszkowska Mrs S Larkam Mrs J Loveless Mr C Markou Mrs C Matkov Ms K Mazey Mrs M McNelis Mrs S Munro Mrs J Murphy

Mr R Mushiso Mrs S Nee Mr K Newell Mr J Nijhar Mrs R Nwaka Miss A Palmer Mrs T Rebello

Miss M Reid Mrs F Rutherford Mr H Sadiq Mrs C Scott Mrs D Sewell Ms L Sharp Mrs P Sheehan Mrs S Stevenson Mrs C Stimpfig Mrs C Sweetman Mrs S Whiteman Mrs D Yallop

Mrs A Yates Ms J Zaradna

Head of Geography After School Club Assistant Head of Rugby Teaching Assistant Head of PSHCE After School Club Assistant Head of Junior School Music Teaching Assistant Head of Mathematics Teaching Assistant Director of Sport Sports Coach Head of Boys’ Games/PE Teaching Assistant Head of Dance Art/Teaching Assistant Swimming Coach Head of History Head of Art Learning Support Teacher Sports Coach Head of Learning Support Learning Support Teacher Learning Support Teacher & After School Club Assistant Sports Coach EYFS Practitioner Head of Cricket Head of Hockey Head of Religious Education Head of Netball After School Club Assistant/ Lunchtime Assistant Teaching Assistant Head of English Head of Fencing Learning Support Teacher EYFS Practitioner SBJS School Counsellor Teaching Assistant Head of ICT Head of French Head of SBJS Library Head of Science EYFS Practitioner & After School Club Co-ordinator JS Head of Games/PE EYFS Assistant

Decans: Theo Aspinall Amar Bawa Tobias Campbell Jake Casali George Charlesworth Josh Chippendale Eden Comins Nerina Dow Shane Duffy Patrick Edis Tristan Jenkin-Gómez

Ben A Teddy Loxton Laetitia Matta Aine McColgan Stephanie Melik-Abrahamiam James Munro Patrick Ronan Luke Rutherford Alexandra Thomas Maddie Tipping Isabella Wingrave Trinity Yau

SCHOOL CAPTAINS Captain of Cricket: Captain of Fencing: Captain of Girls’ Hockey: Captain of Boys’ Hockey: Captain of Netball: Captain of Rugby: Leader of the School Orchestra:

Luke Campbell Fernanda Da Silva Emma Lyons Alex Curtis Jolie Bediako Ben Keen Victoria Szymanska

SCHOOL OFFICIALS

Head Boy: Arthur Maltais Head Girl: Lily Thornton Deputy Head Boy: Nicholas O’Sullivan Deputy Head Girl: Grace Connolly Prefects: Jonny Connery Nancy Morrey Matthew Curtis Sasha Small Daniel Lurie Paul Thelot

Connor Tierney House Captains: Bede: Niamh Campbell and

Callum MacGregor Fisher: Benedict McCarthy and

Helena Ramsden Gregory: Amelia Dovey and

Gabriel Suarez More: Alexander Le Bouëdec and

Alice Moore English Ambassadors: Edmund Harper

Blaise Georghiades

Jamie Porter-Thomas History Ambassadors: George King

Conleth O’Haire ICT Ambassadors: Felix Brooks Louis Jenkins Tara-Mae Devine Orson Powell Jude Higgins Alessandro Russo

William Zhu Mathematics Ambassadors: Paul Benson James Reiss William Horridge Daniel Sawa Library Ambassadors: Diego Azpilicueta Thomas Marron

Michael Stavrinidis Pre-Prep Ambassadors: Vishal Balakumar Elio Nutt Lucinda Carter Tadhg Scott Zuhayr Khan David Shenas

Ruby Davies-Wright Science Ambassadors: David Dormann

George Aldridge Head Chorister: Artie Hair Mass Leader: Benedict McCarthy School Council Chairs: Freddie Gould

Lexi Sarwan Housemistresses/masters: Bede: Mrs S Stevenson Fisher: Mrs R Nwaka Gregory: Mr J Laffey More: Mrs A Yates

THE PRIORIAN

Mrs J Sapsard Clarinet Mr A Scheuerer Guitar Mr E Stewart Guitar Mr L Taliotis Singing Miss M Thomas Singing Mr M Waldren Singing Mrs N Yeghiazarian Piano

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