Sixth Form MercuryWilson’s School’s newest student-run publication

Volume 1, Issue 2 - September 2010

September:Borneo 2010

Photo Credit: JC

Ladyman’sCorner

Vishnu goes to India

What’s the hardest job in football?

Sixth Form Mercury - September 20102

Examination Success! Max van Oudheusden Another year at Wilson’s School has yet again been met with an outstanding set of results, both at GCSE and A-Level. The current Lower Sixth managed similar suc-cess in their endeavours with close to 80% of the year group achieving 8 or more A* grades, well above the national average. Last year’s Lower Sixth, whose perfor-mance at AS Level was equally pleas-ing, narrowly missed out on topping last year’s AS examination performance. Not forgetting to mention the high-calibre of this year’s leavers, many of whom will be heading to the country’s top universities in the near future. The recently departed Upper Sixth managed an astonishing 71% A*-A grades at A-Level, a feat that the current Upper Sixth will do well to build upon. All-in-all a sincere congratulations to everybody in the Sixth Form is in order and we wish everyone good luck and suc-cess for the coming year.

What’s Inside?

Vishnu Premachandralal’s Trip to India

During the summer of 2010, I took a month-long trip to Chennai, India to vol-unteer at a local state school. I was there to help teach English. Initially it was mostly for the benefit of my personal statement, but as time progressed I realised it was a truly worthwhile thing to do.

Stepping off the plane, the pungent smell of cows, contrasted with welcoming faces, greeted me. Being in a rural area meant that there was open sewage running along the sides of every road I walked down. The aroma wafting into my hostel every morn-ing from these beautiful mosquito breeding hot spots took a while for me to get used to. Despite this, India began to feel just like home.

I arrived at the school early on my first day and saw my first Indian school run, which basically involved piling as many members of the family onto a motorcycle (six was the record) as possible. Each day began with a prayer and pledge to India which was said with a lot more pride than I expected.

After my first day, I could see that the lan-guage barrier was not as much of a problem as I had initially thought. All of the lessons were taught in English so their understand-ing was greater than I had expected. In the following weeks I observed and taught les-sons to see both sides of how the school worked. From speaking to the students, I found out that almost all of them came from very poor backgrounds. Their lack of money would mean that it was very unlike-ly that any of them would go to university. Nevertheless, they still worked as hard as they could.

Whilst at the school, I also learned about the issues that the schools were faced with. Due to the corruption in the education sys-tem, the school needed to raise just over £11,000 in order to gain status as a Ma-triculation School immediately, and this money is just for bribes!

Overall, the experience was very enriching. Both the students and the teachers were

Article PageFrom the Editors 2Examination Success!Vishnu Premachandralal’s Trip to IndiaBorneo 2010 3Ladyman’s Corner

4The Men in the MiddleAdam’s Noticeboard

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very welcoming and easy to talk to. The experience has given me the chance to see a completely different world and I have thoroughly enjoyed it. If I had the chance, I would brave the bowel eruptions, the bottled water and the stifiling weather to go again.

From theEditorsIt is with great pleasure that we publish the second edition of the Sixth Form Mercury and it is pleasing to see that so many peo-ple are interested in having their writing in print!

It has been somewhat hectic in publishing this issue, with UCAS deadlines looming and the chaos associated with the start of term, but we have managed it and are, as always, on the look out for those who want their work published; please get in touch if you have anything to contribute.

Our apologies go out to those whose ar-ticles would not fit in this issue but we can assure you that they most certainly will find their way into the next issue in two weeks time.

Tom Sutherland and Matt Tijousutherlandt@wilsonsschool.sutton.sch.uktijoum@wilsonsschool.sutton.sch.uk

Fill in the blanks so that each column, row and diagonal adds to fifteen, with each number (one to nine) only appearing once.

Johan Rekers

After an uncomfortable night’s sleep in the common room, and then an even more un-comfortable seven thousand mile journey from home, we arrived at our destination of Kota Kinabalu on the island of Borneo. The city, no bigger than Croydon, was to be our headquarters for the next month. No real culture shock here; staying in a typi-cal backpackers’ hostel and eating local food was as uncommon as it got in Kota Kinabalu.

With the short and easy orientation ‘phase’ out of the way we moved on to the moun-tain. Mount Kinabalu, at four thousand and ninety five metres, is the first or fourth high-est mountain in South East Asia (conflicting reports). Two days of warm up treks around the bottom of the mountain were required prior to the summit climb giving the group the chance to explore the unique plants and wildlife. Equipment and paperwork sorted, we proceeded to climb, later than sched-uled. The trek under the jungle canopy was easy enough for the first half kilometre, but as we ventured further and higher up the mountain the terrain became less forgiving. The seemingly never-ending path and mo-notonous landscape slowed the group, but with a final push we dragged our tired legs into the Laban Rata lodge, after starting three hours before. After a meal and a short rest at the lodge, we were woken at 1am to complete the final 2.5km of the climb – at night. The cooler temperatures and the aid of three friendly mountain guides made the final leg much easier, despite a steeper route (which in some parts required the use of ropes) and obvious visibility issues. The group reached Low’s Peak in time to

witness a spectacular sunrise.

Within twenty four hours we were on the road again, this time to our project. We ar-rived at our village, Kampong Kuala Mon-sok, the following day. Greeted by doz-ens of children we were ushered into the community hall, where we met our host families and went over our schedule for the week. Each night we ate with our host fam-ilies, tasting some of the local delicacies; wild boar, snake, fish... chicken nuggets. We immediately started work on a notice board for the school and a cabinet for the community hall. When not working there was the chance to take time out with some of the local children, who introduced to tra-ditional Malaysian games. Each evening, the group took on the locals at a game of football. Kitted out in fake England shirts we had bought from a small bazaar in Kota Kinabalu, we looked and played the part. After retreating back to our houses for din-ner, we all had the chance to sample a local favourite, rice wine. With hilarious con-sequences. On the final day we presented our notice board to the local school and bid farewell to our host families and the local children. Some were noticeably emotional and others less so as we headed back to Kota Kinabalu after our fun and rewarding experience with the villagers.

By now we were virtually half way through the trip. A short stay at Miki’s Jungle Camp, which taught us how people survived be-fore real civilisation, was followed by a trip to the island’s most famous tourist

attraction, the Sepilok Orangutang Sanctu-ary. Even though the orangutangs had been distinctly underwhelming, we were able to see the neighbouring proboscis monkeys, who were more willing to make a show of things.

We spent the final few nights on Sapi Is-land, ten kilometres away from Kota Kinabalu. A tropical paradise, swamped with Japanese tourists, litter and monitor lizards during the day, was all our own at night. It was the perfect way to end a month which had been as much hard work as it had been rewarding.

FeatureBorneo 2010

Sixth Form Mercury - September 2010 3

Photo Credit (including cover): Jordan Childs

ReviewLadyman’s Corner

READING FESTIVAL 2010

Day 1Pulled Apart by Horses - 4/5Mumford & Sons - 4/5Queens of the Stone Age - 4/5LostProphets - 3/5

Perhaps one of the best rock bands of our time, Queen of the Stone Age’s Josh Hom-me treated us to some of their best. Open-ing with Feel Good Hit of the Summer the crowd were loving it from the off. Homme showed his respect for his fans by constant-ly calling them beautiful. Their set finished with the crowd pleaser Song for the Dead. Their appearance was meant to be a warm-up act for the Friday headliner: Guns ‘n’ Roses. However the crowd weren’t shy at showing their dissatisfaction with the high-ly anticipated headline which, after show-ing up an hour late, proved to be quite poor.

Day 2Gallows - 4/5Crystal Castles - 4/5Giggs - 4/5Dizzee Rascal - 3/5

Gallows were the secret band of the week-end, under the alias The Rats on the festi-val’s website. As the front man Frank Cart-er said: “it was one of the worst kept secrets at Reading.” The turn out was massive and the fans knew exactly what to expect. Dur-ing the relatively short set, Carter managed to crowd surf to the end of the venue as well as encourage the creation of a humar pyramid, a wall of death and a mosh pit the size of the whole tent. With Gallows, the music isn’t necessarily key as for a lot of it Frank was swallowed into the crowd with-out a microphone. However, this set prob-ably had the best atmosphere of the acts of the weekend.

Day 3Limp Bizkit - 4/5Kele - 4/5The Drums - 3/5Los Campesinos -3/5

Perhaps the biggest surprise of the week-end was the ex-Bloc Party front man prov-ing that he’s still got it. He opened his solo set with a few smaller songs before getting the crowd jumping. Half way through, Kele teased fans that he had another band and went on to play a variety of Bloc Party hits. From this medley to the end of the slot, the crowd never stopped singing or jumping. A highlight was his solo single, Tenderoni, which he performed brilliantly. He finally ended with Bloc Party’s Flux. Kele man-aged to prove to all his fans, old and new, that he can still create the same atmosphere and energy that he is famous for.

Adam’s Noticeboard

Adam Worsley

Summer 2010 was full of major disappoint-ments; Guns n’ Roses’ set at the Reading Festival and of course, the World Cup. I’m aiming to not make this column a fortnight-ly bitch but unfortunately I’ve not found anything of note that I can write about in a positive way, so I’ll continue to blast Apple for their failings as an ‘innovative’ com-pany.

This time, the new iPod Nano is the subject of my displeasure. You can’t even use it as a watch because it doesn’t have Bluetooth. It’s a tiny square with a screen that you can barely fit your thumb on; what’s the point in using multi-touch technology other than to push up the price or to advertise as a gimmick?

4 Sixth Form Mercury - September 2010

Nick White

Most civil football fans would agree that these guys have the hardest job in football. With every decision highly scrutinised and being the subject of tens of thousands of football fans’ banter and abuse for ninety minutes, they are expected to not only spot every foul, every offside and every hand-ball, but the modern game has now deemed it necessary to spot every petty off-the-ball incident between Premier League quality ‘idols’ who are supposed to conduct them-selves in a gentlemanly manner. Instead, every choice the referee makes is greeted with roaring protests from the players; hordes of tall, well-built men surrounding him and demanding that he brandish a yel-low card.

Despite all this pressure, young referees who have barely experienced the game are thrown in at the deep end and suffer the consequences. Take Stuart Arwell for ex-ample; he is seen as one of the country’s emerging officials. He started in the Cham-pionship, unheard of and with a clean slate. Suddenly he becomes the subject of a wave of publicity as he awards the infamous ‘ghost goal’ at Watford. But yet again, his criticism was overshadowed by the ‘need’ to implement goal-line technology in the game. Instead of that, how about produc-ing experienced referees who won’t make juvenile errors? And to add insult to injury, we now find Mr Arwell officiating in the country’s top division where he is inundat-ed with yet more criticism.

My opinion? Bring back the golden days with referees such as Paul Durkin and Gra-ham Poll. Sure, they were subject to sup-porters’ banter and made the occasional mistake, but they were professionals and they earned the players’ respect, unlike the referees of today. This is one of the modern beautiful games’ major flaws, which needs to be ironed out.

CommentThe Men in the Middle

Photo Credit: Alex Ladyman