By Max, Max, Tashan, Charlie and Will
Thursday 15 March 2018
Video Games Good or
Bad?
Video games can be good but can also be bad. Everybody has a
mixed opinion on video games. People who play fast paced games can improve
their reaction speed while people who play strategy game will start to think
about decisions more.
Bad influences
Most people think that video games (such as GTA, Doom, Call of
Duty and Bloodborne) can cause children to become violent and disrespectful.
This blame was caused when a teenager, from Finland, named Pekka-Eric Auvinen
caused a fire in his high school, killing classmates and the school’s
principal. This incident caused people to believe that video games manipulated
this boy’s mind and thought it would be good to set fire to his school. Video
games can also cause people to have less time sleeping because, even if you
played it several hours ago, your mind will still think about it and prevent
you from going to sleep. Another thing that they can do is make you obese. This
is caused when you are addicted to games, you will barely go outside and go
exercise. The last thing that video games do, is distract you. In the National
Literacy Study, within the league table for children’s reading skills, England
used to be in third place, in 2001, but then dropped down to nineteenth place
in 2006. Video games got lots of the blame.
Good influences
Quite a few people brush past the positive things about
video games, when thinking on an opinion. Most benefits include quicker
reaction speed, new skills, better hand eye coordination and making the player
to find more than one solution. It has also been proved that video games can
decrease mental decay. Even video games, like Call of Duty, cannot just be bad,
but also good. The fast paced game can make people think quicker and react
quicker. The
game series Professor Layton,
use puzzles that make you think outside the box and also makes you happy when
you finally figure it out.
From a pupil’s
parent here is their opinion:
“I think that they can be good and bad. They can be positive
if they provide entertainment and education but they can lead to people not
leaving the house, not getting exercise or not socializing face to face with
friends. In my experience, they can also lead to stress and bad language. I
think that they are a waste of time.”
In conclusion, people can be affected from the negatives and
positives of video games depending on what they play.
By Charles
BBC School Report –
Does Social Media Cause Stress In Young
Children?
Social media
is rapidly growing and becoming more of a part in our lives. However, the
pressure of others can cause serious effects of people’s lives and causes major
stress among
young people. So the question is: Do you think social media pressures people in the modern day? Many parents are especially concerned for their child as they didn’t have social media when they were kids. Therefore, they do not know how to control or limit their child’s ability to access social media.
Our team at
the West Bridgford School interviewed students and staff and these are some
reactions.
Anonymous
Student- Do you use social media? “Yes.” How
long do you use social media per day? “Between five minutes and half-a-hour.”
Would
you recommend social media to someone? “Yes I would.”
Do you think you and/or your friends suffer from social media stress?
“I haven’t become stressed by it but other people have.”
Do you think it’s inappropriate for young people to have social media?
“I think it is not a good idea for young children because you can become
vulnerable to predators but if they teach it at school it will be safer.”
Are you worried about online bullying? “I
haven’t experienced any but I know people who have so it’s bad.”
So our
students are clearly concerned by the threats that social media poses, but the popularity
of social media will continue to rise but as long as we, as students, can
control our accounts and files than the safety of our generation will be
secure.
Written by
Charlie, Tashan, Will, Max and Max.
Mental health, time to talk week!
Over the
years mental health has been a big problem for society, this week schools
across the country have been involved in Time To Talk Week. This week people
break down barriers to allow honest and non-judgmental discussions about
dating, healthy relationships, bullying, abuse and self-consciousness to build
up confidence and help people with mental health issues.
One of the
main problems that cause mental health issues is bullying, there are many forms
of bullying, these are some: Physical bulling, which includes hitting, kicking,
tripping, pinching, punching and pushing
and causes both long and short term damage. Cyber-bullying, which is
where people bully people online mostly on social media, this can be done
anonymously, which is a bigger advantage for the bully. Social bullying, this
includes name calling, rumors and leaving people out.
At the end
of 2016 a popular app came about, letting people all over the world post
anonymous comments about you. It reached a sudden worldwide success by
mid-2017, it became number one app over 30 countries and gained a quarter of a
billion accounts and more than 1 billion page views, even though this sounds
like a popular fun app, it has a dark turn, this sparked fears of parents after
being notoriously used as a weapon for cyber-bullying. People have received
harsh and life threatening comments that could result to deaths or an even more
of an increase of mental health issues. Fears that vulnerable teenagers at risk
from bullying, self-harming, starving and committing suicide are concerning
parents and children’s organisation around the world.
Many
petitions and protests have gone out to try and shut this app down, it has
caused more harm than good and have left many children and teenagers in danger.
We will
keep you updated on what will happen in the future, hopefully this monstrous
app will be shut down.
Mia,
Charlotte, Mia and Hannah
BBC School Report
Plastic, plastic, everywhere
Due to the headlines, reports, surveys and shocking news, we could
hardly ignore this rapidly escalating issue. Plastic waste. Accounts from
wildlife conservationists and photographers speak of miles of plastic bags,
polystyrene plates and beer can holders floating on the surface of our
oceans. But still the manufacture of
plastic grows, as well as the size of landfill sites and the number of sea life
and wildlife deaths. So Year 8 students from West Bridgford School interviewed
teachers, site staff, and students about their thoughts and knowledge on this
concern. Can we still save our planet- or is it too late?
We
quickly became aware that young people of a variety of ages were uninformed
about the effects of plastic and the scale of plastic wastage. The environment
is suffering and we need a global effort to reduce the amount of plastic in
food packaging, general objects and the amount not being recycled. Families in
the UK, on average, throw away 40kg of plastic into landfill every year, 40kg
of plastic that could have been recycled. However, there is still a large
amount of plastic that cannot be recycled, we recycle around 50% of plastic
bottles, but only 12-15% of mixed plastic can be recycled. We asked Mr. Normington, a teacher at WBS,
about his opinion on the plastic crisis:
“Horrendous,
there is a serious need to take action. I reuse my water bottles to try and
contribute.”
When questioned on whether he feels that we can make a difference,
his reply was, “Definitely. It would take a long time, as plastic manufacture
can’t stop tomorrow, but we can still save the planet.”
Miss
Toms, a Pastoral Assistant for our Year Group, had strong views too. “Plastic
is one of the biggest issues facing our habitat, and I try where possible to
not buy plastic packaged food, and I recycle as much as possible.”
However,
not everyone is as enlightened on the subject- an anonymous student in Year 8
claimed, “I buy another plastic water bottle every day because I don’t know
much about the effects of plastic on our world.” This proves that young people
need to be better educated on the problem- something that one of the kitchen
staff suggested. “We have plastic bottle bins in the dining hall, but some
students still put normal rubbish in it. I really feel that students should be
better informed on recycling, because plastic is now harming the environment by
ending up in the oceans.” The school is currently striving to achieve
relatively plastic free surroundings by providing water fountains for bottle
refills, and exchanging plastic cutlery for bio-degradable ones and ceramic
plates instead of polystyrene.
The
science technician, Miss Taylor, provided some hope that organisations are
trying to tackle plastic waste – and this new innovation can be supported by
the public. A citizen science project was launched to train drones to spot
litter more efficiently and these drones are trained by you. Logging onto the
website https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/theplastictide/the-plastic-tide and completing the tagging activity will
train the drones’ algorithm to detect litter on the coastline, and then
volunteers will be alerted and the litter cleared.
In
conclusion, we know that everyone must get involved in reducing unnecessary
plastic disposal and use. Thank you for reading our report, and we hope that
you will now go and make a difference. ‘You are one in 7.5 billion, and 7.5
billion must come together as one.’
Amelia,
Anna, Sadie and Lucy
Year
8 BBC School Reporters
West
Bridgford School
BBC School Report Day
Peer Pressure and how it can affect you.
What is pressure?
What do you first think of
when you here the verb pressure? It is when you attempt to persuade or coerce
someone into doing something they might not feel comfortable with or don’t
want to do. However, peer pressure is more common in youth’s lives,
especially teenagers.
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Why do teens often doubt their appearance?
There is not specific
reason why teen’s fear how they look,
but most people want to be accepted or be able to ‘fit in’ and it’s hard
being the only one doing something different; this can often link to the use
of products or makeup. Also, teenagers feel like they should break the school
dress codes to seem ‘cool’ and to fit in. Therefore, this can lead to
pressure in school, work, appearance and anxiety of rejection.
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