Owen Wightman hit-and-run: Driver urged to come forward

Investigators are searching for a man who hit a little boy, at the age of 6. Owen Wightman lived in Kettlethorpe in Wakefield and was hit by a car in fishponds lane which is nearby Kettlethorpe. The driver instantly stopped and stepped out if his car to make sure that his care wasn’t damaged and immediately afterwards he drove away from Owen, as if nothing happened.  The police have CCTV images of the vehicle and they are convinced that their scientist will be able to identify the make and model of the vehicle. Therefore, they ask the driver (young white male) to come forward before they will arrest him.

I love children and I believe that they should be cherished and therefore I got really restless after I read this article. It always hurts me when I find out something terrible has happened to a child. An accident can always happen, it shouldn’t happen but it does. However, if you run away from something you caused then it becomes a crime, in my opinion. How sick can you be when you step out of the car and see if it is damaged and not care about a human life? You can get a new car but you can’t get a new Owen Wightman. We all should be more alert in traffic and not run away from our mistakes!

Volunteers to live life of the isolated elderly

Volunteers have accepted an experiment that will make them live as if they were old. They will have to deal with the same physical problems, for a week, as a senior does for the rest of his life. The volunteers also will be isolated from everything, for example: no telephone, no internet, no face book etc. They will have to live through an isolated life as many elderly do. Research suggests that one in five older people see other people once a week and it also suggests that loneliness can be cured easily; all you have to do is help an older person in the supermarket, look them straight in the eye and see if they want to chat. Jenny Skyes of Friends of the Elderly said that such a small thing can overcome loneliness.  

I personally think this is a great idea, everybody should do this. It will make it much easier for us to understand the elder people and when we understand them we will be friendlier. We live in a world that always has a shortage of time and that is why we don’t stop and talk to an elderly. I have to admit that I wouldn’t have stopped to chat with an elder before I read this article. I would always want to help them but never chat with them because it is so long winded. However, now I think it will be worth talking to them because I will make them feel better, I will give them the feeling that they aren’t alone. I hope I can give someone such a feeling because I cannot imagine how it must be to feel lonely. I hope that when you read this that you also will stop and put some of your precious time in talking to an elder because that will make him or her happier. 

Older people cared for at home lacking basic right

This article tells us how we take care of our seniors. The Equality and Human Rights Commission took a look in how well people above 65 who receive homecare are taken care of.  They discovered that the seniors were treated poorly. The staffs just undress the seniors in front of a window or take the effort of visiting them after 17 hours.  The Equality and Human Rights Commission claim that the seniors have to choose if they want a hot meal or their laundry done. They say that it is because of the limited time the staff has. “Whatever the reason maybe, poor care is never acceptable” said Peter Hay, from the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services. The Equality and Human Rights Commission said that they will search for a solution in how the seniors can protect their selves from such behavior.

How can it be that we just let this happen? What would we do if it happened to our parents of grandparents? Are we in such a world that we don’t care about anything but ourselves? I refuse to believe that! The staff explains that they don’t have enough time to do everything their client whishes; I don’t think that is a proper explanation. It is as Peter Hay said “poor care is never acceptable”. If they don’t have enough time then they should find a solution that gives the staff more time. I don’t think time is the only problem, people just see it as their work and don’t put any hart in to it.

Family disaster

A family drama happened in the street of Braintree, Essex. A mother (Christine) and one of her daughters (Shania) were shot in their house. Her other daughter could escape by jumping out of a window on the second floor and run as fast as she could to her dad who happened to be a neighbor. Once she arrived at her dads home she shouted : “ He is there at the house with a gun”. Obviously, she means her stepfather and the biological father of Shania. The police did not yet exposed who shot Christine and Shania they were only willing to say that they found two bodies (Christine and Shania) and that a man with an injury of gunshots was found and brought to the hospital. Locals say that the police were aware of the problems Christine and her boyfriend (locally called David Oakes) had and that they could have prevent this.

I should have been shocked when I read this nevertheless, I felt sorry for them. When I started to reflect on this I could not help but think how normal “a murder, committing a crime” got for us. I wondered if we are getting hard less or that we are just adapting to the society  we currently live in? If we are just adapting to the society we live in is it then not time to start thinking if this society is wrong? Yes, we should start to think that something is going on and that it is not right. We should try to change this society and not adept to it because ( I know) it is easier to walk along!  I also know that right now you all think of the same question “How can we change this society”? well, that is a good question! Unfortunately, I cannot answer this however I can say that this is a question we should all seek the answer for.

exam errors

This week I read an article on the BBC site that irritated me. This article was about the AS-level exams and that it had an error in it. Apparently the AQA exam board made a mistake by forgetting essential information. This piece of information was needed to make the calculation that would give the answer to how much the profits of a chocolate company were.  A business teacher contacted the BBC to tell about how his students struggled with this question and that they did not have enough time to finish the other questions. The AQA exam board says that they are sorry for the mistake they made and that the students will not be disadvantaged. The question was only worth 3 points out of 80.

Why did this article irritate me when I read this? Well let me tell you: Every year when students take their exams there is an error made in one of the exams. Everybody expects perfectness from the students but it seems as if we don’t expect perfectness form the AQA exam board anymore. Because of such a mistake a lot of students get stuck at the question that contains the mistake and have barely enough time to finish their exam. How can you make the same mistake almost every year? If one of the students would make the same mistake every year they would be kicked out of school. I ask you: how is this fair?

Royal Wedding - invitations

This article is about the Royal wedding and who they are going to invite. If you haven’t received an invitation by now than you are not invited. There are 1,300 guest invited to Westminster Abbey and only 600 of them will attend the queens lunchtime reception at Buckingham palace. Some artists are already known to be invited and they are David and Victoria Beckham, Ben Fogle he is a TV presenter and Tom Bradby and he is a political editor. The politicians have also been invited; Ed Miliband is invited to Abbey, David Cameron is invited to Abbey and lunchtime and George Osborne and Nick Clegg will only be at Westminster Abbey. Furthermore it is not known yet who is invited.

Prince William is going to marry and who is going to be invited? I personally hoped that they would only invite family and friends because a wedding should only include the ones you care about. I was afraid that they would have to invite people because of political reasons or that it would become a “famous people wedding” but I am glad to hear that they simply don’t care about that.  Of course they have invited some of those people but it could be worse. The whole wedding is a big affair considering the hard economical times however they are a part of the royal house and only such a wedding would suit them. They are two people who love each other and are about to be married I wish them all the happiness in the world. 

Private schools line up to become free

When a private school becomes free it means that they are becoming a state-funded, independent school. They can have their own curriculum and control their own admissions. Some critics fear that if there will be more free schools that the neighboring state schools will close because all the students will transfer to the free schools. However, the private schools who want to become free are in opinion that it will do good for all students. These schools want to expand and let all children benefit from their education system and it doesn’t matter what background these children have.

All changes have a good side and a bad side; however I think that this change has more down sides than positive ones. The consequences of private schools becoming a state funded school aren’t very pleasant. The private school get to keep their own curriculum and keep on doing everything what they always have been doing only now they get to do it on the public’s expenses. Of course it would do good for the children whose parents can’t afford a private school but what will happen to the teachers that work in a state school; they will get fired. The article says that they won’t change their class seize so how can they take in new students? I think the government should use the stretched education budget to improve the state schools that already exist.