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Bioplastics – always a good thing?

Plastic bottles

Saskia (Y13) questions whether bioplastics have been misbranded as an eco-friendly material and discusses factors we all should consider as consumers.

In the student leadership team, we have been thinking a lot about connections – within the school, within ourselves, and connections with the wider world. You will be hearing a lot more about the environment this year from Flora, our Environment Rep, but as I have been investigating whether the UK should be investing in bioplastics for my EPQ, I thought I would write about a few of my findings and hopefully encourage all of us to think more about the impact we are having on our world, and how we can work together to connect more with the environment.

Plastic underwater With its many uses – from industrial to home use, packaging, toys and clothes, its durability, light weight and low cost – plastics make economic sense and are in many ways ideal for 21st century living. But we are now all much more aware of the time – up to 1000 years – that plastics take to break down, when put into landfill. An estimated 3 million tonnes of plastic end up in the ocean each year. Alongside the life span factor, the raw material for traditional plastics – commonly from non-renewable sources such as oil – bring questions of sustainability. Acting on this, companies have looked for biomass (wheat, corn, sugar cane, sugar beet, potatoes and other plants) to turn into plastics. Thus, bioplastics have been created. A positive development, we might all agree.

However, straightaway we have to question the energy needed to transport biomass to a manufacturing plant to make bioplastics. We must then consider the energy needed to create them – the energy used in production for any type of plastic is high. Most importantly for the consumer, and what I want to focus on here, is the question of the disposal of bioplastics. It is a misconception to believe that bioplastics are better for the environment than petroleum plastics after life. Bioplastics are not necessarily biodegradable even though they are made from biomass materials. Bioplastics can be made to decompose; however, this is only common in products that have a short life. I am very keen to spread this message!

The Guardian[1] started some months ago wrapping their Saturday magazine supplement in corn starch wrapping. The corn starch wrapping can go into compost bins and decompose – no problems there. However, the new Coca Cola Plantbottle[2] cannot decompose. A plastic bottle, even made from biomass, will on average take 450 years to break down.

Plantbottle What CocaCola want you to do is to recycle your PlantBottle in the correct facility. In keeping the bioplastic of the bottles in use, they are promoting the circular economy that is becoming much more of a consideration for anyone in the manufacturing process. The problem, of course, is the human factor: how can you ensure the correct separation of materials to recycle efficiently and without contamination? If the separation does not work, one type of plastic can easily be mixed into another type and thus contaminate a batch of recycled product. This batch is then not able to be used in certain situations or at all due to the change in properties.

This is just a snapshot of some of the findings from my research. I believe bioplastics are a good alternative to the petrochemical plastics that we have used for so long. I say this with caution though because as I hope I have demonstrated, there are still many downsides to the materials. However, I believe that as our technology improves the impact that bioplastics have will decrease. It is key that we make these changes if bioplastics are ever going to be sustainable especially as the world is developing rapidly.

By focusing on education and minimising the impact humans are having on the environment we will ensure that there is a future for younger generations. It will involve considerable investment; we would need to change the materials we use, spend money clearing up plastic pollution and grow to educate an awareness of the afterlife of all types of plastics, including bioplastics. My main belief is that we need to change the way we use materials. It is just not feasible to continue increasing the amount of plastic packaging that the world is using and thus the most ideal situation is to dramatically decrease the amount of packaging and our dependence on plastics overall. I hope I have inspired you to think; if you have ideas of how we can do this within our WHS community, do let the SLT know.

 

References: 

[1] Natasha Hitti, [website], 2019, https://www.dezeen.com/2019/01/14/guardian-biodegradable-wrapping-design/

[2] CocaColaCo, [website], 2015, https://www.coca-colacompany.com/videos/introducing-plant-bottle-ytaevvjxqwaz8

 

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What is obstetric fistula and why is it so common in developing countries?

Shirley, Year 10, looks at Obstetric Fistula, the most devastating and serious childbirth injury and explores why the injury is so common in developing countries, and the impact it has on the life of women.

Fistula

‘Obstetric Fistula is the worst thing you’ve never heard of’

An obstetric fistula is often considered as ‘one of the most serious and tragic childbirth injuries’, yet very few people have heard of it.

An obstetric fistula is a hole between the vagina and rectum or bladder and is caused by prolonged, obstructed labour without access to timely, high-quality medical treatments such as an emergency C-section. In the case of an obstructed labour, the fetus is unable to come out of the mother’s body, usually because the baby is too big, or is in the wrong position.

Fistula diagram Days of unrelieved labour creates compression and cuts off both blood supplies to the baby and the mother’s internal soft tissue, causing both to die. The dead tissue results in holes (fistulas) in the walls separating the woman’s reproductive and excretory systems.

Why is it so common in developing countries?

Map
Obstetric fistula has been virtually eradicated in developed countries due to the availability of good medical care, such as the C-section and obstetric facilities.

However, this is not the case in developing countries.

Obstetric fistula occurs among women who live in low-resource countries, who give birth without access to medical help. There is often a lack of access to medical facilities, lack of adequately trained medical staff and not enough medical supplies and equipment.

It is estimated that there may be at least two million women and girls, living in poverty, who suffer from fistula. The problem is particularly prevalent in Africa, parts of Asia, parts of Latin America, the Arab States region and the Caribbean.

In many developing countries, girls tend to marry and begin childbearing at a very young age, often before their body is sufficiently developed to cope with this. The lack of formal education and the access to accurate information about family planning, pregnancy and childbirth also make the girls much more vulnerable to an obstructed labour. Cultural beliefs and traditions sometimes also prevent the girls from seeking the necessary medical care they need.

What is the impact of obstetric fistula on the life of women?

‘Obstetric fistula leaves women without hope’

As women with obstetric fistula are unable to control the flow of waste, they are often isolated due to their ‘foul smell’. Her community will almost always detach themselves from her. In many cases, her husband will also leave her and send her back to her own family.

‘She is scorned, bewildered, humiliated and isolated, often being cursed by God.’ – New York Times Column “New life for the Pariahs” on October 31st, 2009

Yet… it is neglected

Despite how life-threatening the condition is, fistula receives very little attention from the media and funding is virtually non-existent, representing 0.07% of annual global health funding. Awareness of fistula is limited as this condition is very rare in Europe and the US.

99% of women who get obstetric fistula will never have a chance at treatment and in order to stop this from happening, we need to raise our awareness of the condition.

Girl

Photos from:

https://www.opfistula.org/obstetric-fistula/

https://www.who.int/features/factfiles/obstetric_fistula/en/ (World Health Organisation)

Further reading:

https://www.fistulafoundation.org/what-is-fistula/

https://www.opfistula.org/obstetric-fistula/

https://www.who.int/features/factfiles/obstetric_fistula/en/

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Is it too late to save our oceans?

Plastic straws wasted

Isabella, Year 9, discusses the impact that plastic has on our oceans, on humans, and what we can do to make a difference.
Plastic pollution is debilitating the Earth’s ecosystems and is a controversial topic being discussed worldwide. It is a material that is in nearly everything we use, despite it being commonly known that it is not a biodegradable substance. In fact, it can take up to 1000 years for a single plastic bag to decompose!

PlasticThe image on the left shows how much plastic enters the oceans every half second. Now imagine how much plastic there is in the ocean. Nearly 400 million tons of plastic were produced last year, and it is estimated that there is more microplastic in the ocean than there are stars in the milky way. All this could remain there for the next 1000 years, and with the current rate of usage of plastic, this number will only increase. This is a dire situation, with catastrophic effects and something has to be done about it.

How does plastic impact the environment?

Recently, my family and I went on holiday to Brazil, where we stumbled upon an organisation called ‘Projeto TAMAR’. Its purpose is to rescue turtles from Turtle covered in plastic the sea that are either injured or in need of help and nurture them back to health. We were lucky enough to witness one of the turtles being released back into the ocean. This particular turtle had been found in extremely poor health, with a lot of plastic in its stomach, including a whole plastic bottle. This isn’t a rare occurrence – in fact, over 50% of turtles have consumed plastic since they cannot differentiate it from food (such as jellyfish). However, turtles are not the only sea creatures to ingest plastic. 100,000 marine mammals and 1 million sea birds are killed by marine plastic pollution annually. It has been predicted that by 2050, the mass of plastic in the ocean will exceed the mass of fish.

Is it only the sea creatures that suffer from plastic?

It is not only the aquatic species that eat plastic. As a result of humans eating fish, there is a strong chance that we are consuming plastic too. A study showed that seafood eaters ingest up to 11,000 tiny pieces of plastic every year. Furthermore, chemicals such as oil, mercury, pesticides, lead and other heavy metals can now be found in the ocean due to plastic pollution. These can all result in dangerous health problems; hormonal issues, reproductive problems, and damage to our nervous systems and kidneys. Mercury is absorbed by plankton, and exposure to this can cause Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s and heart disease.

What can we do?

Firstly, we can support non-governmental organisations like ‘Projecto TAMAR’ which make a huge difference in saving aquatic species. Secondly, we need to start recycling more – the average citizen in London buys 3 plastic water bottles a week – that’s 175 plastic water bottles each year – but on average they only recycle a quarter of them. If the usage of plastic was to decrease (and the amount recycled increase) it would significantly benefit the planet.

How can an individual limit the use of plastic?

We can all do our own bit to help, including:

  • Recycling
  • Use reusable materials
  • Avoid the use of plastic straws and disposable cutlery
  • Buy milk in a glass jar rather than a plastic carton
  • Carry a reusable shopping bag rather than buying one every time
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The Duckworth-Lewis-Stern method: how does it work to ensure a result in an interrupted cricket game?

Cricket

Rebecca, Year 9, looks at how the Duckworth-Lewis-Stern method works to calculate the required score in a cricket match interrupted by the weather.

Raining at Cricket Match
A rain delay at the cricket at the Oval

With the arrival of summer comes the Cricket World Cup in England and Wales. Although England are the favourites, there is no guarantee that they will win. One thing that is pretty much guaranteed though is rain. After all, it is England! But how do you calculate the revised target score in a rain-interrupted match?

The Duckworth-Lewis-Stern method (DLS) is a mathematical formula designed to calculate the target score for the team batting second in a limited over cricket match interrupted by weather or other circumstances. It is an attempt to set a statistically fair target for the second team’s innings, which is the same difficulty as the original target. It was devised by two English statisticians, Frank Duckworth and Tony Lewis, and is generally accepted to be the most accurate method of setting a target score.

This method is needed as there are so many cricket matches that experience rain delays. Without DLS, there may not be a result from the game or the incorrect result (statistically) may occur. There were many other methods set up before DLS, but none of these took into account both the wickets lost/remaining and the revised number of overs remaining. For example, the Average Run Rate method took no account of how many wickets were lost by the team batting second, but simply reflected how quickly they were scoring when the match was interrupted. So, if a team felt a rain stoppage was likely, they could attempt to force the scoring rate without regard for the corresponding highly likely loss of wickets, skewing the comparison with the first team. Therefore, the DLS method was created.

What is the DLS Method?

The basic principle is that each team in a limited-overs match has two resources available with which to score runs (overs to play and wickets remaining), and the target is adjusted proportionally to the change in the combination of these two resources.

The Duckworth-Lewis-Stern method converts all possible combinations of overs (or, more accurately, balls) and wickets left into a combined resource remaining percentage figure (with 50 overs and 10 wickets equalling 100%), and these are all stored in a published table or computer. The target score for the team batting second (‘Team 2’) can be adjusted up or down from the total the team batting first (‘Team 1’) achieved using these resource percentages, to reflect the loss of resources to one or both teams when a match is shortened one or more times.

In the version of DLS most commonly in use in international and first-class matches (the Professional Edition), the target for Team 2 is adjusted simply in proportion to the two teams’ resources i.e.


The actual resource values used in the Professional Edition are not publicly available, so a computer which has this software loaded must be used.

Table of results
A published table of resources remaining percentages,
for all combinations of wickets lost and whole overs lost

If, as usually occurs, this ‘par score’ is a non-integer number of runs, then Team 2’s target to win is this number rounded up to the next integer, and the score to tie (also called the par score), is this number round down to the preceding integer. If Team 2 reaches or passes the target score, then they have won the match. If the match ends when Team 2 has exactly met (but not passed) the par score then the match is a tie. If Team 2 fail to reach the par score then they have lost.

References:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duckworth–Lewis–Stern_method#Target_score_calculations

http://www.espncricinfo.com/story/_/id/19577040/how-duckworth-lewis-stern-method-works

https://thenortheasttoday.com/archive/the-saga-of-south-africa-and-duckworth-lewis-method/

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How is climate change impacting the planet?

Abhini, Year 10, looks at some of the issues surrounding climate change, and the potential impacts this will have on our lives.

During the Easter holidays, London and other parts of the UK witnessed a significant protest against the government with over 1,000 people being arrested for blocking streets. The wave of protest began with Swedish born 16-year-old Greta Thunberg who, every Friday, would sit outside government buildings in September, accusing her country of not following the Paris Climate Agreement.

What are the concerns?

So what is it that everyone is worried about in terms of climate change? The world is seeing more extreme temperatures being recorded increasingly across the globe. The 21st century has seen records broken with increased temperatures all through the season and the rise in temperatures also has an impact on the Arctic and melting ice caps. 2016 was the hottest year on record since 1880, with average temperatures measuring 0.99 degrees Celsius warmer than the mid-20th century mean. Since the 1950s, every continent has warmed substantially.

New Scientist graph on global temperature change


An additional impact that climate change is having on the earth is on sea levels, as they are rising at their fastest rate in 2000 years and currently changing at a rate of 3.4 mm per year, causing major impacts such as increased flooding. If sea levels continue to rise, countries like Bangladesh will cease to exist, leading to a refugee crisis, as an average of 21.5 million people have already been forcibly displaced since 2008 due to climate change-related weather hazards. Not only are our water levels increasing, but the ocean is now 26% more acidic than before the Industrial Revolution. This also means that the waters are now more acidic than at any other point in the last 300,000 years.

NASA data on sea rise change from 1880-present

Another shocking fact that is due to climate change, is the damage of two-thirds of the Great Barrier Reef. In April 2017, it was revealed that two-thirds of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef has been severely damaged by coral bleaching, usually a result of water temperatures being too high. However, there are many more important and recent events due to climate change such as last week’s cyclone attack in Mozambique and the wildfires that took place in California late last year. The pictures below show these significant, global events.

Is climate change real?

What about the people who deny climate change? A large proportion of the public in Western democracies deny the existence of climate change[1]. Some climate change denial groups say that because CO2 is only a trace gas in the atmosphere, it can only have a minor effect on the climate. Climate denial groups also argue that global warming stopped recently, or that global temperatures are actually decreasing. However, these arguments have been made clear to be false and are only based on short term alternates. Climate change deniers are often those who are economically making a financial interest in it and, in some cases, their generation is not necessarily going to be impacted by it.

We all know about ‘being green’ by walking to school or unplugging electronics when we are not using them. However, it is not enough anymore to just switch our light off as times now call for drastic change. The energy sources in our home need to be renewable, gas must go, and people should start investing in an electric or hybrid vehicle rather than using petrol or diesel.

climate change

We cannot sit and wait on the government to change. Change is in the hands of the people. We need to force the government’s hand and can only do so if we unite to try and save a world which we are currently destroying. Change occurs when we take action.

References: 

[1] See https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/14/germanys-afd-attacks-greta-thunberg-as-it-embraces-climate-denial

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What happens when maths goes wrong?

Grace, Year 8, looks at why maths is important in everyday life, and what happens when it goes wrong.

Maths is integrated into our lives. Whether it’s telling the time or looking at our budget for the latest gadget that we want to buy, we all use maths. But sometimes we use it incorrectly.

The Leonard v Pepsi court case

One example of maths going wrong is when in 1995 Pepsi ran an advert where people could collect Pepsi points and trade them in for Pepsi-branded items. Points could be collected through purchasing Pepsi products, or through paying 10 cents per point. For example, a T-shirt was worth a mere 75 points whilst a leather jacket was worth 1,450 points.

To end their campaign, Pepsi stated that the Harrier Jet, which was promoted in their advert, could be bought for 7 million Pepsi points. At the time, each Harrier Jet cost the U.S. Marine Corps around $20 million. Knowing its worth, a man called John Leonard tried to cash it in. This was an extensive task with particular rules, all of which John followed. His amount totalled $700,008.50 which he put into an envelope with his attorneys to back the cheque! Pepsi initially refused his claim, but Leonard already had lawyers prepared to take his side and fight. The case involved a lot of discussion, but eventually, the judges sided with Pepsi, even though Leonard v PepsiCo, Inc. is now a part of legal history.

Errors in the news

Does the maths add up?

Sometimes maths goes wrong on a big scale. For example, the Russian shooting team in the 1908 Olympics left with no medals because they turned up nearly two weeks late as the 10th July in Russia, was the 23rd July in the UK. The Russians were using a different calendar.

Lottery complications

Another example is of human confusion with maths. A UK lottery scratch card had to be taken off the market within a week due to players having problems with negative numbers. The card was called Cool Cash, and had a temperature printed on it. If you scratched a temperature lower than the target, you won. But lots of people playing didn’t understand negative numbers… “On one of my cards it said I had to find temperatures lower than -8. The numbers I had uncovered were -6 and -7 so I thought I had won, and so did the woman in the shop. But when she scanned the card, the machine said I hadn’t. I phoned Camelot and they fobbed me off with some story that -6 is higher, not lower, than -8, but I’m not having it.” These players didn’t know how negative numbers worked, so looked for the numbers that were usually lower when they were positive.

Maths is important in everyday lives as we all use it, sometimes without being aware of it. However, it is important that checks are made to ensure the correct figures and calculations are used. After all, our lives may depend on it.

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Should the periodic table be turned upside down?

Chemistry beakers

Isabel, Y10, explores the comprehensibility of Dmitri Mendeleev’s traditional periodic table and whether it would be more accessible for younger children and enhance learning methods if it were flipped around by 180˚.

The Periodic Table is an important symbol in Chemistry and since Dmitri Mendeleev’s discovery of the Periodic system in 1869, it has remained the same for 150 years; but could turning it 180˚ make important concepts easier to understand, especially in teaching younger children?

This year has been announced the Year of (Mendeleev’s) Periodic Table which has become the generic way of arranging the elements. However, some scientists like Martyn Poliakoff and his team have started to question the comprehensibility of it. After extensive research, they decided to flip the traditional arrangement upside down, so that the information is more understandable and intuitively ordered.

The research team argues that this presentation is more helpful and has many benefits. Firstly, when the table is flipped the properties of the elements such as atomic mass and proton number now increase from bottom to top therefore making more numerical sense. Secondly, it represents the Aufbau principal more accurately, which states that electrons fill up ‘shells’ from low to high energy. Finally, when young children are trying to learn from the table, the more relevant elements to them are located towards the bottom of the table, making its use quicker and more accessible. Therefore, in lessons, students will not have to look all the way to the top of the table to be able to find the right information.

Above: Inverted Periodic Table. Source: University of Nottingham
Above: Traditional Periodic Table

However, when I compared the two versions of the periodic table myself, I found that the traditional form of the table made more sense to me for many reasons. For example, in both situations I found my eyes drawn to the top row of elements, so it did not matter that the elements that I use the most were on the bottom row. However, this could be put down to a force of habit, so I also asked my 10-year-old brother to look at the two perspectives of the table and see where he looked. He immediately pointed to the top of both and when I asked him the reason he said that from top to bottom ‘is the way you read’ so the properties make more sense going down from top to bottom. He also seemed to prefer the traditional table, commenting that it was like a ‘pyramid’ in the way the numbers were arranged and was a much clearer way to display the elements.

Whilst some may argue that the arrangement of the table is more effective if it were upside down, for me the traditional version of the periodic table works just as well. Testing this principle to a larger group will allow different models to be tried to see if it makes understanding the periodic table easier for younger learners.

References:

Martyn Poliakoff et al, Nat. Chem., 2019, https://www.nature.com/articles/s41557-019-0253-6

 

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The feminist blueberries of the Western Cape

Blueberry farm

Rosie, Year 10, explores how a blueberry farm run by her great-aunt empowers women from the local township in Hermanus, South Africa.

Feminist blueberries – a surprising concept! One I found to be very real during half-term, while visiting my great-aunt Alison. Here, I discovered the opportunities which blueberries provide, helping and empowering the lives of women in the area.

Customarily, in the South African agriculture, the women are the workers, while the men make decisions and look after the cattle. As Alison explained to me, there is a common danger for married women in this, that being that their husbands take away their financial freedom. Whilst this is not always the case, it does however restrain many women from choosing to marry in the first place. As a result of this, my aunt Alison tries to employ as many women so that the money could be sure to go straight towards the household – keeping a family fed and looked after.

On the farm there are six permanent jobs held by women, including driving tractors attending the pump house and ensuring that the irrigation systems are clean. However, come high season Alison will employ around 150 women for picking, packing and checking. Normally, these women are from the local area and take the bus to and from the farm; their day typically starting at around 6am and finishing at 2:30pm, allowing them to greet their children when they come home from school.

The women from these local communities – picking up fruit such as grapes and apples – have very little work as it is seasonal. Typically, the picking of fruit lasts from February through to March or April, and this is then followed by a long period of unemployment. By working on the blueberry farm, 150 of these women have an extra four months of employment. In addition to this they are also provided with casual labour, such as weeding or planting new plants, thus making a hugely positive impact on their income.

In South Africa, Monday has a reputation for being a very slow-moving day. Many men either work slowly and without efficiency or don’t turn up, due to hangovers from the weekend. However, Alison does not find this to be the case for her ladies at all. She complimented their fast learning and ability to fill buckets speedily to reach the bonus, while still staying careful and particular when sorting each individual berry.

A huge part of the female empowerment at work here is Alison herself. It is her drive and passion in running the farm that benefits and gives a purpose to so many other women in the area, and makes her a very inspirational woman. There is no doubt that Alison and her ladies grow some pretty special blueberries.  Having been named the best blueberry suppliers in South Africa last year after only their first year of growing, I can certainly testify, having tried them myself, that these blueberries are the most delicious I have ever tasted.

Blueberries

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Review: WHS @Cadogan Hall 2019

Three WHS pupils – Lara, Lizzy and Laura – reflect on the recent WHS concert at Cadogan Hall, where girls in WHS Symphony Orchestra, Sinfonia, Baroque Ensemble, Canto and A Cappella performed to a full house.

Lara (Year 7)

It was a privilege to perform in Cadogan Hall which is a very famous, beautiful music hall in Sloane Square dating back to 1907 that has hosted some of the greatest performances of all time. Its number of staircases, dressing rooms, corridors (and lack of signposts!) shows that the entire building was built to impress and a lot of the backstage is just as ornate as the front room itself. It’s wonderful acoustic and scenery lent itself very well to repertoire we did. I, for one, really enjoyed learning pieces by the likes of Brahms, Prokofiev, Mozart, Whitacre and Marquez in Symphony Orchestra, Canto and Sinfonia. In Symphony Orchestra, most of the songs stemmed back to a dance style with pieces such as Brahms’ first Hungarian Dance, a Conga by Marquez and Danza Ritual Fuego by De Falla. These pieces were all really fun to play with a strong sense of movement and liveliness. In the second half, Canto and A Cappella got the chance to perform with tenors and basses- a rare opportunity in an all-girls school. The Mozart Requiem took up most of the second half of the concert – being in Sinfonia, we got to accompany the choir – a new experience for me. We particularly enjoyed performing all these great pieces in such a prestigious venue.

Lizzie B. (Year 11)

Rehearsals for the concert started as far back as the mid-stages of the Autumn term as there was lots of challenging material to learn, both individually and then putting it together as ensembles. Preparations, however, had been going on even many months before that by the amazing music teachers to select and arrange repertoire that we would enjoy playing and which would show off our abilities. Over all this time each of the ensembles rehearsed for a minimum of an hour each week, not taking into account private practice. This is an especially impressive amount considering that most girls are involved in more than one group, displaying the incredible commitment, enthusiasm and engagement of everyone who performed at Cadogan Hall. Furthermore, as the concert drew nearer, the girls in A Cappella and Sinfonia were involved in a 4-hour long Saturday morning rehearsal during which they first sang with the professional tenor and basses, a really challenging task which was achieved with true Wimbledonian spirit and significant amounts of coffee. Finally, on the day we arrived from 12:30 at Cadogan Hall for our final run-through of the concert, getting used to the slightly different sound due to the addition of professional musicians playing parts we weren’t used to hearing. Then the concert began…

Laura F. (Year 12)

It is incredible to see how WHS’s music-making has progressed over the years we have been playing at Cadogan Hall. This year we saw the addition of four trombone players to the orchestra, as a result of a new scheme teaching trombone in school, and with the twelve-strong brass section, the orchestra was able to perform repertoire such as Prokofiev’s intense ‘Dance of the Knights’ from Romeo and Juliet. The concert included music written over a span of two hundred years from Mozart to Whitacre, showing the breadth of repertoire in the ensembles. In the first half of the concert, the Baroque Ensemble played a rousing rendition of Holst’s St. Paul’s Suite, a challenging four-movement work that celebrated string playing at school. The intermezzo and 3rd movement of the suite that included violin and viola solos, played sensitively by A Level students Miriam and Louisa, were a highlight of the performance, providing some calm contrast before the energetic 4th Movement. At the end of the concert, the year 13s were thanked onstage, as it was their last Cadogan Hall concert; their enthusiasm and participation in musical events will be greatly missed next year. We have all loved preparing for the concert and are so grateful to have had the opportunity to play in such a fantastic venue.

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Is contemporary architecture threatening London’s historic skyline?

Walkie Talkie Building

Maddie, Year 13, argues whether modern buildings are ruining London’s skyline and balances the advantages and disadvantages of modern projects.

London’s historic architecture is one of our greatest assets – culturally, socially and economically. It lies at the heart of London’s identity and distinctiveness, and its very success. It is at risk of being badly and irrevocably damaged. More than 70 tall towers are currently being constructed in London alone, prompting fears from conservation bodies and campaigners that the capital’s status as a low-rise city is being sacrificed in a dash by planners to meet the demand for space and by developers to capitalise on soaring property prices.
There have been many examples of tall buildings that have had a lasting adverse impact through being unsuitably located, poorly designed, inappropriately detailed and badly built and managed. For example, the so-called ‘Walkie talkie’ building which due to bad design concentrated the sun’s rays melting parts of cars on the streets below. And recently there has, yet again, been another proposed skyscraper in the Paddington area to the west of central London. The 224m-high Paddington Tower costing £1 bn would be the fourth highest in the capital and the first of such scale in that part of London. A building of this scale in this location threatens harm to many designated heritage assets across a wide geographical area, including listed buildings, registered historic parks and conservation areas.

London Bridge However, some people think that cities face a choice of building up or building out. Asserting that there’s nothing wrong with a tall building if it gives back more than it receives from the city. An example of a building succeeding to achieve this is the £435 million Shard, which massively attracted redevelopment to the London Bridge area. So, is this a way for London to meet rising demand to accommodate growing numbers of residents and workers?

Well, planning rules are in place in order to make sure that London achieves the correct balance to ensure tall buildings not only make a positive contribution to the capital’s skyline, but deliver much-needed new homes for Londoners as well workspace for the 800,000 new jobs expected over the next 20 years. Furthermore, tall contemporary buildings can represent “the best of modern architecture” and it encourages young architects to think creatively and innovatively making London a hub for budding architects. It also means that areas with already run-down or badly designed features have the chance to be well designed improving user’s day-to-day life whilst also benefiting the local landscape.

Protected viewpoints of the city of London

The protected viewpoints of the city of London. Do skyscrapers threaten this?

Overall, I think that in a cosmopolitan and growing capital city, London needs contemporary architecture, to embody its spirit of innovation. However, this needs to be achieved in a considered and managed way so as not to ruin the historic skyline we already have.