school – The Orbital

University is No Longer About the Degree Alone

12May

By Accalia SmithNo Comments

News, Opinion

University is No Longer About the Degree Alone

How to Tackle the State-Private Education Divide, an Interview with the 93% Club. By Accalia Smith At the 1996 Labour Party conference, Tony Blair infamously stated that his three top priorities when coming into office were “education, education, and education”. Indeed, it was a large part of New Labour’s manifesto and although largely adopting the previous Conservative education policies, he did make many changes whilst Prime Minister from 1997 to 2007. This included increasing support and teacher training schemes, and crucially “a 50 per cent target for university participation among young adults”. This emphasis on the importance of education caused a huge influx in university attendees. Choosing university was no longer the exception but rather the expectation. Blair’s son, Eau...

12May

By Hannah ArmourNo Comments

News, Opinion

Strategic Schooling

It was the first day of sixth form and in they came, an influx of kids from all of the surrounding private schools. One, an all girls school, was only across the street from ours. They arrived in their pre-made cliques, ready to learn and ready to get into Oxbridge. Since acceptance rates are higher for state schools, their parents had moved them to us. Their movement was strategic. To the parents, it was simply a stepping stone. For their children, it was two years of their life. Now, don’t get me wrong, my state school might as well have been a private one. Sure, we didn’t have the one-on-one attention private schools do but we had some fabulous teachers. I’m tempted to say the best in the country. Situated slightly outside the city centre of Oxford, we all had some connection ...

4Jul

By Beth CarrNo Comments

Culture & Literature, Film & TV

Losing It: Reshaping Sex Education

CONTENT WARNING: Rape. Beth Carr shines a spotlight on alumna Nina Lemon and her play ‘Losing It’. Watching a musical about sex education isn’t the most usual Friday activity for students, but that is exactly the theme of the latest play by Peer Productions, written and directed by Royal Holloway alumni Nina Lemon. ‘Losing It’ follows a group of school friends as they look back on their seven years at secondary school and the questions they had about sex and relationships, as well as examining what went well and what went wrong in their love lives. The play fits with Peer Productions’ vision “to use theatre to genuinely change young people’s lives” and is being toured around 30 local schools to tell pupils what they really want to know about sex and relationships. It was develop...

Suspected ‘Bomb Scare’ at School in Egham

31Mar

By No Comments

News

Suspected ‘Bomb Scare’ at School in Egham

Zara Gillick reports on the recent suspected 'bomb scare' at Magna Carta School, Egham. Just before 4pm on Friday 27th February 2017, Surrey Police and a bomb disposal team were called to the Magna Carta School in Egham when concerns were raised over an ‘item confiscated from a student’. Staff at the school called the 101 non-emergency number about the object in the afternoon before the police arrived at the school and then contacted the Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) team, who came shortly after. A message was put out on the School’s Facebook page reassuring parents, students and staff, stating that although it was a 'false alarm', it was dealt with 'in accordance to school emergency procedures'. Angela Jenkins, the school’s business manager, confirmed ‘we went through our ...

2Jun

By No Comments

Features

The Real Value of High School Friends

Lets face the facts: you are now in uni. New location, sometimes new country, new courses, and most importantly: new faces. With this leap to sudden independence from all things relating to home it’s easy to sometimes forget about the past, the familiar. High school now seems like a distant memory, something related to the past. However there is one thing that will always surpass this life transition: true friendships. Realistically speaking high school friendships tend to slowly die away, who you used to call your ‘bff’ now leads an estranged life, a casual ‘happy birthday’ and a ‘miss you’ thrown in when an appropriate amount of time passes from the last time you spoke to each other. Some say this is a natural process, I disagree. Because when you meet people who make you happy you shou...