The Sixth Charity Week Edition

“Charity Makes No Decrease

in Property”

Interview with Mr Northwood

For this article of The Sixth we interviewed Mr

Northwood. We felt that as he is the

Headmaster of the school we should know more

about his opinions on matters and discover the

‘real’ Mr Northwood. We asked him a range of

questions, from his favourite food and his

hobbies to the new lock down system and the

most significant parts of his job.

So what is the most significant part of your job

and why? My role is to ensure the smooth

running of a complex system, in which there are

a collection of sub systems. While I have my

own responsibilities, my job also entails the

delegation of tasks to a large number of people

and the careful management of these people.

Did you always have ambitions to be a

Headmaster? In a word, no. I started as a

French teacher in a private boarding school in

the south. I ran numerous school sports teams

(basketball, rugby, football, and swimming) and

I was also in charge of the Royal Marine cadet

group. However, I began to feel I had done this

for too long and wanted a change. I became the

Head of French and then later the Head of

Modern Languages in another school. After

this, I persuaded my family to move up north

where I became the Deputy Head of The Nelson

Thomlinson School, in charge of curriculum

(for 3 years.) When Mrs Downes retired I then

applied for the position as Head because I

didn’t want an outsider coming in and changing

what was already a very good school.

Apart from an interest in bird watching what

other sorts of hobbies do you have? A large

interest in wildlife watching, especially big cats,

and going to beautiful places, for example,

India, Egypt, Iceland and Costa Rica. I have a

wildlife website where I display my

photography. I also love my sport (watching the

Six Nations until England lost). I play tennis for

Kirkbride, but 5-a-side football with sixth-

former is the highlight of my week.

What is your opinion of the new lock down

system in the school? I think that it is a sad

reflection of society that we need to take

these measures. But I understand why and it’s

always good to be fully prepared, however

unlikely it is that we’ll have to do this for

real.

Are there any other changes to be made to the

school? There are no changes on the horizon.

However, you never know when the next

governmental edict will come out!

What is your favourite type of food? I would

say Kedgeree, a rice dish with fish and eggs

in it. I’ve also tried sword fish, snails, octopus

and goats head. The latter almost turned me

vegetarian.

Were you in the SAS? No comment!

On your tours around the Sixth Form what

would you like to see pupils improve upon? I

think that in general I would like to see pupils

doing a bit more work in their study periods.

However, overall the visitors and prospective

parents who look around the school are

normally very impressed.

Finally, what are your predictions for the

Commie Cup? To be honest I don’t know the

teams well enough to say. I’m more

concerned about the safety of the players and

not tripping over my own boot laces (which

has happened twice before). If the game is

fair and the best team wins, then that’s what

matters.

By Simon Tatlock and Hayden Carr.

Stress Causes and How to

Resolve Them

The causes of stress this time of year

Exams

Deadlines/time management

Pressure of combining paid work and study

Difficulty in organising work

How it can affect your wellbeing It can be emotional; no motivation, sadness and irritable If this is not taken care of it can become physical; headache, fatigue and lack of focus

How to manage stress

Socialise with friends and family

Set aside time for hobbies (listening to music or watching something)

Physical activities

A Review of Spiderman – Into

to The Spiderverse By Josh Ward and Sam Weakley

I got the opportunity to watch the new Spiderman film recently and surprisingly, it shocked me at how simply amazing it actually was. It has a lot of humble charm to it, which isn’t surprising when you look at who made it – the people behind the Lego Movie. If you enjoyed the self-aware humour in that, you will seriously enjoy this film, perhaps even more than them. So, I walked into this film as a sceptic. I didn’t have high hopes for this film when 2 out of the last 3 Spiderman reboots haven’t been fantastic so I began watching with very low standards. I personally wish my standards were a bit higher before watching it now because this took the web-covered torch and ran with it. It even mocked those failures made in the previous, live-action movies. A brief synopsis of the story then: in this film, a character called Miles Morales is the main character. He’s in an academy which he really doesn’t want to be in because he feels like he doesn’t fit in. He then gets bitten by the radioactive spider which swings everything into motion. So far, very similar to any other but a massive twist in this film is that Peter Parker is killed by the Kingpin, and knowing the comics this was based off, it was still a surprise to me. What the Kingpin was trying to do which forced Spiderman to jump into action was stop a collider which forces open other realities because he wants something from a different dimension (which I won’t reveal). Miles was a witness to this entire thing so feels a massive amount of regret as Spiderman’s last words to him were to destroy the collider. During the fight, a small amount of Spiderman’s DNA which gives the movie this name as Spider people are sucked from their respective dimension into Miles’. The characters are then introduced from the other dimensions. There are 6 in total: Miles; Peter B. Parker, who is an older version of Peter who let himself go; Gwen Stacey as Spidergirl where in her universe Peter was the one to die instead of her as a mirror to the famous comic; Peter Porker, essentially a parody of tropes from cartoons like the Loony

Tunes who is also a pig; Spiderman Noir, a dark version of Spiderman who fights Nazis in 1930’s New York and finally, Peni Parker, an anime version of Spidergirl who was bitten by the spider, befriended it and made a robotic suit. I won’t spoil any more, if you want to know more, watch the film The film has some fantastic twists and some dark moments, but there are obvious themes in the film, like to not give up and to keep trying when things get hard, as well as sacrifice, regret and friendship. The film does an outstanding job of keeping you invested in all of these characters and their motives - you even feel sympathy for the main villain Kingpin at some points. The film has this amazing art style, focused around comic books and graffiti. For example, you can tell when the Spider people are using their spider sense as it is rotoscoped above their heads, sort of like from “Take on Me” from A-Ha. It also has one thing to think about. If you look carefully around the film like I did, the number 42 appears everywhere, like on a lottery ball at the start and on the Radioactive Spider itself. What does it mean? I’ll leave that for you to think and work out I have heard one main complaint about the film and that is the fact that some feel like they are shoehorning in a Spidergirl and a black Spiderman and this shouldn’t be a big deal. The way they did it in this film makes it feel very natural and one of the main points of the film is that anyone could’ve been the Spiderman. This was a much bigger deal in the mid-2000s, however as that was much more forced into the Ultimate series of comics as an apparent cash-grab. In conclusion, this film is one of my all-time favourites because of its wit, intelligence in the way it is presented and how truly fantastic the film is. My main gripe is that the story was a bit too simplistic for my taste, but this film deserves all the praise it gets and more as I see it as a turning point for animated superhero movies and the superhero industry as a whole. If you enjoyed Deadpool’s humour, you’ll probably like this as well. I hope they really develop this when this will eventually get a sequel and hope this amazing idea doesn’t get flushed away with the likes of Spiderman 3.

University Open Days

Durham - Monday 1st of July, Saturday 6th of July, Friday 20th of

September, Saturday 21st of September

Newcastle - Friday 28th of June, Saturday 29th of June, Saturday 14th of

September

Liverpool - Friday 21st of June, Saturday 22nd of June, Saturday 21st of

September, Saturday 19th of October

Manchester - Friday 21st of June, Saturday 22nd of June, Saturday 28th

of September, Saturday 12th of October

Lancaster - Saturday 29th of June, Saturday 13th of July, Saturday 7th of

September, Saturday 14th of September

York - Friday 28th of June, Sunday 30th of June, Saturday 14th of

September, Sunday 15th of September

Photos of Charity Week