#greengates

Efit issued of man who committed a bogus burglary in Greengates

Police have released an e-fit image of a man they would like to trace following a bogus burglary in Bradford district on Friday (14/09).

The suspect, who pretended to be a council employee, called at the victim’s home, at Kipling Court, at around 3.30pm.

He forced his way into the property and carried out a search, before making off with a small quantity of cash.

The victim suffered a minor arm…

Rider impressing friends on his scooter has it seized by police

A scooter rider who drove up and down a pavement and doing donuts to impress his friends in a coffee shop has had his scooter seized after being caught by police. An officer from the ASB Bike Team was on patrol around the Greengates area of Bradford when his attention was drawn to a scooter some distance down Harrogate Road. The rider of the scooter quickly turned right cutting up an oncoming…

FOLLOWUP ON PINK LADIES AT THE ABC HOSPITAL

What can I say after all these months I got used to it. Used to the horrible pink dress. Used to the nasty patients that give you horrible faces because you entered their room and 11 am, but the so would I. Used to reading out menus. I don’t have to accompanied anymore because I finished the ‘training’ sessions so I may go alone in a floor, which may be good or bad.

It is good because that way I can go at my own pace and take my time. Also when there’s more than one it may be really awkward because one talks and the other one stands there trying to smile. But also bad because it takes longer if one is alone.  Plus when you have someone you get to chat while walking around and make friends, stuff like that. Each one can do half of the floor, or one can be in charge of the menus while the other one takes care of the charts. So in the end it is better to be with someone else.

(Those are the senior volunteers. These pictures are by the entrance of the office.)

It also helps that the voluntaries have this huge library, and it changes all the time because they sell the books to make money, but we can grab one and read it and then return it which is really cool. I feel we could lend them to the patients but then we would have to ask the ‘bosses’ which are the senior voluntaries.

And sometimes they get books from families that don’t want them anymore so this one time we got to see a book that as signed by someone in like 1911, we were amazed. And there is everything. You can find anything from Twilight to Anna Karennina to self help books and biographies, so it is really an opportunity to find a cheap book and read it.

However even after getting used to it, it is hard to think of ourselves real volunteers. By this I mean we are just sparing someone the job to actually call the patient and ask them what they want to eat. And when we enter we say “Good morning, we are from the Volunteers to check if you need anything?”, even if they needed anything there is like a 90% chance we cannot help them. We are not allowed to make any contact with the patients. 

But still after you’ve finished another hour and a half every Saturday you feel great, this sense of accomplishment of “Yay, I did something for someone else” which is really gratifying. And sometimes the patients or their family are really nice, and they ask about what we do, wy are we doing it or they compliment us and go “Oh, but you’re so young”  and they go thank you or they talk with us about the hospital and those are the best days because we feel like we have done something productive.

+12 hours service

C: 39/50, A: 13/50, S: 40/50

With the following learning outcomes:

worked collaboratively with others

shown perseverance and commitment to your activities

considered the ethical implications of their actions

My school, Greengates, like every normal school, publishes every year a School year Book where they put all the pictures of every group in each year and put pictures of activities that have been carried out in school, stuff like that.

This year I was asked to write down a small text that describes what CAS is and all the activities that students carry out. I just wanted to share this with you, I hope you like it.

Does this count for CAS?

These are the words that confirm our education in the IB program. If we think hard enough everything can become CAS hours. But what is CAS besides 150 hours of “hard work” and “dedication”? What is it if not just one piece of our lives that we need to pass the IB? CAS is reinforcing friendship and making new ones, working together, having new experiences, and developing new skills. CAS is becoming aware of where we are weak and being able to confront those activities that we are not particularly comfortable with so that later on we can possibly make them part of out everyday lives, even getting excited about them. For some it can be the discovery of new passions.  Or perhaps, keep the memories in the back of our minds just as good words for our CV, but still to be able to say that we had an opportunity to learn something new and we took it.  CAS is one of the core elements in the IB, as essential as any other, and the one were we are free to choose what to do and how to interpret it. CAS gives us the opportunity to work with others, to initiate out own activities and to undertake new challenges that will make us grow as individuals. Creativity, action and service are the prompts that lead out lives for one and a half years. They involve an enormous range of activities that vary from tutoring fellow students, teaching in public schools or libraries, gardening, learning a new language like Chinese, how to play an instrument or a martial art such as karate and helping in an old peoples home by having small activities like Secret Santa or dancing. There are also many activities outside of school such as running the Spartan race or the Color Run, volunteering in orphanages and hospitals. However easy these tasks may seem, they have represented challenges for all of us. Teaching requires patience, learning a new language requires tenacity. We can now proudly say we have developed those traits. Also there is the existence of the extended project. This is a three-month or 30 hour activity, which mixes two of the CAS categories, with the participation of two or more pupils. Each student takes a different perspective on his or her project. Some have more of a community service project, for example helping the amelioration of horseback riding grounds; others organize football or volleyball tournaments held inside school. But wait, there is more. There have been art classes in school held by students, or shows conducted during the Winter Concert and the International Fair by the Jazz club, which allowed students show their abilities in such fields which we might not see in their everyday lives. This year students have dedicated themselves to unite and make a stronger Greengates community. Many of the activities that give credit hours are held inside school, from students to students, in a way so that every member of our small-scale society can benefit from the school they attend to. By working together we learn new skills from each other and help a peer in an area they can still grow. Also, last december we celebrated the International Volunteer Day by helping to clean green areas in the Bosque de Chapultepec, it was a great opportunity for all those who attended. So far it has been a great year for all those starting the IB program, and we look forward to more exciting activities throughout the course. I thank all those who have participated and the teachers that have supported us in the activities.

Two views of a stone angel on top of war memorial in Greengates, Yorkshire. It posses a sombre, angular air of contemplation.

Greengates War Memorial (1)

Greengates War Memorial (2)

Damian

This is the last french class I went to. The task was to develop a dialogue between the director of the Alianza and a student that want to organise a party, and make them use "L'enchaînement des idées" (linking ideas).

This is the translated dialogue:

Student: Good morning Mrs. Director. (Bonjour Mme. la Directrice)

Director: Welcome (Bienvenue)

Student: We feel like making a small party here in the Alianza but we need your permission in order to do so. (Nous avon envie de faire une petit fête ici a l'aliance mait il faut que vous nous donniez votre permission)

Director: You can organise your party as long as you don't make too much noise. The classes here are small so dont invite more than 30 people. ( Vous pouvez faire une fete alors que vous fait pas beaucoup de bruit. Or les salles ici sont petites donc invitez pas plus de 30 personnes.)

Student: We already invited many people, even if we cancel the party they will come. ( Nous avons deja invité beaucoup de gens, meme si on cancelle (annule) ils vont venir.)

Director: Hm, I don't like the idea, but I will go ask the board of the alianza. (Hm, je n'aime pas l'idée, quand même  je vais aller demander le (au) conseil de l'alliance.)

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My green thumb has almost always been a black thumb of death, so when I decided to join the gardening after school activity in school I was hoping I would be able to learn how not to kill every plant that crosses my path.

The first few classes we were mostly peeling seeds in order to make a natural insecticide, it left our hands smelling sour. The actual seed smells spicy with a touch of almond and maybe even cinnamon, a very special smell indeed. The idea is to make it into an oil and then dissolve it so that we can spay it onto the plants, but it is not so easy to get oil out of seeds. Then we imagined that it would work if we used another oil and 'infused' it with the grounded seeds. We haven't tried it yet as soon after we began to plant seeds.

The first seeds we planted didn't survive, most of them did not even sprout. But the second batch managed great and they are growing strong and beautiful.

Picture credits to my friend Sara who is also in gardening.

These plants are not going directly to the earth, actually it's most likely they will never be planted on earth. My former biology teacher has a hydroponics greenhouse were we will be letting the plants grow. Hydroponics is a fairly simple system to understand. You have a tube that is connected to a water tank and a pump. The pump will make the water flow across the tube and back into the tank. The plants will be placed in small racks in hole on the tube. And special salts with nutrients for the plants are dissolved in the water. Simple, right? Here is a diagram for you to understand better, it is slightly different to what I have described but it is the same principle.

Source

The water tank is supposed to last a long time, but i believe we will be refilling it every one or two months. The only problem is that each one of us had a tray of plants (around 7 people with at least 30 plants each) and there is not enough space in the hydroponics to put them all, so we are cleaning some of the plant beds in the garden to plant them and see if they survive.

This is my friends instagram. Credits go to Sebastian Fleming, Co-Editor (because he insisted on not being cast sole Editor) in Chief of our school newspaper,The Roar, and Maria Fernanda Zaldívar for the Instagram page.

The plants im growing are lettuces similar to the roman lettuce, but i was not able to find the proper translation, so I will post a picture with my next reflection and the grown lettuces.

So another one of the main reasons I joined this activity is my concern on the food supply of the world. I'm not vegan or vegetarian, and I'm not planning on being, but I do feel there is a social responsibility of finding resourceful ways of feeding oneself and others. After watching Interstellar, the new almost apocalyptical movie with Matthew McConaughey, this became an even more urgent thought on my mind. I feel humans (by this is mean those who are privileged enough to have food on their table every day) are not conscious of how much we rely on food and that eventually, maybe not for my generation, there will be no food left to feed the billions of people on the planet. This is why a simple structure like a hydroponic constructions that produce so much with little effort sound like the ideal solution that is possible now.

Learning Outcomes:

engaged with issues of global importance

developed new skills

+ 5

C: 13/50, A: 13/50, S: 5/50, T: 31