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On 26 January, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued an interim ruling (one taken before a final decision) in South Africa’s court case against Israel. South Africa claims that Israel is breaking international law by committing genocide against the Palestinian people who live in Gaza, a strip of land bordering Israel. Genocide is a deliberate attempt to destroy part or all of a particular race or group of people. What is the court case about? It concerns the war between Israel and Hamas, a political and military organisation based in Gaza. A long-running conflict between the two became much worse on 7 October last year when Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking around 240 hostages (prisoners). Hamas is classed as a terrorist organisation by the UK and…

Going without breakfast is like trying to drive a car without putting any petrol in it, chef and TV presenter Shivi Ramoutar tells The Week Junior. “You’re not going to go very far,” she says. “If your stomach is grumbling there’s no way you can concentrate.” Ramoutar, who is a chef and a mum, was speaking before the Great Big Breakfast campaign. This is all about people getting together for breakfast. It also asks them to make a small donation to Magic Breakfast, a charity that provides healthy morning meals to around 200,000 children and young people in England and Scotland. Ramoutar hasn’t always cooked for a living. In her early twenties she was a lawyer. She didn’t enjoy it very much; but what she did enjoy was cooking the…

There is a close bond between humans and dogs that has evolved over many thousands of years. We love dogs for many reasons, including their loyalty, their sense of fun and how soft and cuddly they are. Now researchers have found another reason why humans might like dogs: their wagging tails. A research team looked at more than 100 studies on tail-wagging. They noted that dogs wag their tails to communicate but that there are different types of tail-wagging that might be sending different messages. Dogs are descended from wolves, a process that began thousands of years ago and took a long time. However, one study looked at puppies and wolf cubs that had all been raised by humans and found that the puppies wagged their tails far more often…

Birds have nostrils but they don’t have a nose. Their nostrils are called “nares”. Some birds don’t have a very good sense of smell; instead they use their eyes to find bright, ripe fruits. The birds that scavenge (search for dead food rather than hunt it themselves), such as vultures, do have a good sense of smell. They have adapted so they can smell food even over long distances. Enjoy unlimited visits to ZSL London and Whipsnade Zoos, plus a host of other benefits with ZSL Membership. Find out more at zsl.org/membership/zsl-membership…

On 28 January, Jannik Sinner celebrated his first Grand Slam tennis title with victory at the Australian Open. Along with Wimbledon, the US Open and the French Open, the Australian Open is one of the four biggest tennis competitions each year. They are “Grand Slam” events. Sinner, who is 22 and comes from Italy, defeated Russia’s Daniil Medvedev to win the men’s final. Medvedev won the first two sets at the Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne, but Sinner fought back to secure the next three sets and lift the trophy. In tennis, each set is won by the first player to win six games. In the semi-final (the match before the final) Sinner played very well and beat Novak Djokovic, who has won the Australian Open 10 times. In the…

From 7 to 17 February, London’s Southbank Centre will be hosting the Imagine Children’s Festival. The 11-day festival is packed with books, comedy, crafts, dance, music, storytelling and much more. The events and activities are aimed at young people and nearly half of them are free. There are also lots of relaxed performances, which means audiences can make noise and move around, or come and go during the shows. Ruth Hardie from the Southbank Centre describes the festival as “magical”. She says, “Imagine is about children and families being creative together… children are encouraged to play, imagine and express themselves.” One highlight of this year’s festival is the London launch of Starchitects: A Cosmic Adventure. This award-winning dance-circus show, by a company called Motionhouse, features awesome acrobatics with digital projections.…

Big Ben is one of the UK’s most famous landmarks. It has chimed in the new year on the BBC for 100 years and it is the perfect setting for a story. Sam Sedgman’s latest book, The Clockwork Conspiracy, stars Big Ben in an exciting mystery filled with fascinating scientific facts. The story follows Isaac, whose father looks after Big Ben’s great clock. When the hour changes in the spring, Isaac’s father vanishes from the clock tower, leaving behind only a smashed watch and a mysterious notebook of secret codes. Can Isaac discover what happened to his dad? With hidden codes to crack, sinister villains on their tail and lots of amazing science, Isaac and his adventurous new friend Hattie are following clues all through London’s famous sights. This is…

The Children’s Laureate, Joseph Coelho, is running a campaign called “Bookmaker Like You”. The idea is to show children that people from different backgrounds work in the world of books, from writing to illustrating to publishing. As Children’s Laureate, Coelho represents children’s literature across the UK. When he was in sixth form, a Jamaican poet called Jean “Binta” Breeze paid a visit to Coelho’s school and read a poem to his class. “That was the first time I thought, ‘Ah, that could be me’,” he told The Week Junior. The campaign works with new writers and illustrators from lots of backgrounds. They give interviews and talks in schools and at festivals. Coelho said hearing these authors and artists talk about their jobs helps young people see that they too could…

Number fit All of these numbers fit in the grid. Can you work out where they go? We’ve placed one to start you off. 3 numbers 534 578 584 713 778 4 numbers 2784 6253 8163 8682 9756 5 numbers 66508 83874 97677 6 numbers 158727 340871 517382 7 numbers 1103880 7260455 8707470 8 numbers 61280750 65095575 85351581 9 numbers 187421710 383412777 561308044 Sudoku Place the numbers from 1 to 6 exactly once in each row, column and 2x3 bold-lined box, to complete the grid. Wordsearch Can you find all of the words listed here? They are hidden horizontally, vertically or diagonally and may read forwards or backwards. BEDTIME BOOKSHOP BUS CHARADES CHURCH CINEMA COURTROOM DENTIST EXAM GOLF HOSPITAL LIBRARY MUSEUM OFFICE RESTAURANT SCHOOL SNOOKER STUDY TENNIS YOGA Spot the…

The Celia Hammond Animal Trust is a charity team of real-life superheroes who work to rescue cats and kittens that have been abandoned with no one to care for them. The cats are given food, medicines and the care they need, along with a safe and warm place to recover. The charity has nearly 1,000 cats in its care. Once a cat is feeling better, the charity tries to match it with a family who promise to provide a loving and forever home for their new pet. The main goal of the charity is to ensure that every animal is given a chance to live a happy and healthy life. You can find out more at celiahammond.org…

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We love hearing from you! It’s easy – just write a comment when you vote in our online Big Debate poll, or even record a voice note for The Week Junior Show. Last week we asked our readers whether lip-synching should be allowed… “Yes, because big artists need to save their voice if they are doing concerts night after night.” “No, concerts should be about hearing singers’ real voices instead of recorded ones.” “Yes. Some shows use lip-synching to entertain.” “No, they fool the crowds into thinking that the artist is singing.” Tell us what you think of this week’s issue and we’ll print some of the best comments here. If you’ve enjoyed this issue, why not listen to our podcast, The Week Junior Show? Go to tinyurl.com/TWJ-show or scan…

On 27 January, the UK, US and several other countries paused their funding for a UN agency that provides aid to Palestinian people. The agency, called UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency), offers healthcare, education and other support to Palestinians in Gaza and other areas. The funding pause came after UNRWA announced it had sacked some of its staff because of claims made by the Israeli government that they were involved in Hamas’s attack on Israel last year. UNRWA is now investigating the claims.…

THREE LIONS Three lions have been transported from Ukraine to a wildlife park in France. Ukraine has been at war with Russia since February 2022, and the captive animals were upset by sounds of explosions. ​They will live together in a 5,000-square-metre enclosure. A BEAUTIFUL SCOTTISH BEACH A beach on the island of Berneray, in Scotland’s Outer Hebrides, has made it onto a list of 100 top beaches around the world. West Beach was chosen by the guide book publisher Lonely Planet. The sandy stretch made headlines in 2009, when photos of it were mistakenly used to promote a hotel in tropical Thailand. A BLUE PETER FAN Zoe Rainey, a 15-year-old who has had 11 brain operations because of several medical conditions, has received her eighth Blue Peter badge. Rainey,…

In October 2023, a study was published that checked how much dog owners care about their pets compared to cat owners. It asked them several questions, including how willing the owners (from the UK, Austria and Denmark) would be to pay for life-saving treatment. The study found that in all three countries people seemed to care more about their dogs than their cats, but the difference was much smaller in the UK than the other two countries.…

Northern white rhinos Scientists transferred a lab-grown southern white rhino embryo (a very young organism that grows into a baby) into a female rhino, who became pregnant. They hope to use the same method with a northern white rhino embryo, to save the rare species from extinction. Greenland’s ice sheet A new study has shown that the Greenland ice sheet, which covers around 80% of Greenland, is melting faster than scientists thought. It has lost 5,000 square kilometres of ice since 1985. The melting ice, which is a result of global warming, has contributed to rising sea levels.…

In December last year a former British politician said the Parthenon Marbles (also known as the Elgin Marbles) should be returned to Greece. The Marbles are in the collection of the British Museum in London. People have been debating which country should own them for many years. What are the Parthenon Marbles? They are a series of more than 30 stone sculptures that date back 2,500 years. The sculptures were created to decorate the Parthenon, an enormous temple built between 447 and 432BC in Athens, Greece. The sculptures were part of a frieze (a collection of art painted or carved onto a wall). How did they come to England? At the start of the 19th century, Lord Elgin was the British ambassador (representative) to the Ottoman Empire, which ruled Greece…

Nat Sciver-Brunt England’s Sciver-Brunt was named Women’s Cricketer of the Year by the International Cricket Council for a second year. Maidstone United In the men’s FA Cup, Maidstone beat Ipswich Town 2-1 in a shock win. Maidstone play in the National League South, four divisions below Ipswich. Australia netball team Australia defeated England 69-49 in the final of the Nations Cup in Leeds, England. West Indies men’s cricket team Bowler Shamar Joseph took seven wickets to secure the West Indies’ first test match victory in Australia in 27 years. The series was drawn and finished 1-1.…

Would you time-travel to the past or the future? The recent past – I’m not going anywhere before the invention of flushing toilets. What’s your favourite London landmark? Big Ben. The clock’s machinery is larger than a car. When the 13-tonne bell strikes, you can feel its song vibrating through your ribcage. What inspired you to write this book? I learned that the French used to measure time with 10 hours a day and I became obsessed with how that worked. What is your favourite fact? The 60 segments around the edge of a clock face are called “chapters”. If you were an inventor, what would you make? I’d invent a clock without numbers, that strikes to tell me what I need to know: “You’re going to miss your train!”;…

Safer Internet Day takes place every year in February. It is a way to get young people, parents and carers, teachers and even politicians to talk about how to stay safe online. The event was first held in 2004 and now involves around 190 countries across the world, according to its organisers. 2024’s Safer Internet Day takes place on 6 February, and like previous years there’s a theme. This year it is “Inspiring change? Making a difference, managing influence and navigating change online”. That’s a bit of a mouthful, but it means talking about how young people feel about new technology and change; how they can use the internet to make change for the better; and asking them what changes they would like to see online to make them feel…

Samuel Volery loves the mountains and hates going to the hairdressers. So he asked his friend Julia Schuy to cut his hair while he hung upside down from a highline (a bit like a tightrope) over the Swiss Alps (a range of mountains). She chopped at his long locks and tossed the hair into the wind. Volery explained that he wanted to go out into nature and have an adventure instead of spending a boring hour at the hairdressers. He said, “I admit that the haircut was less than good but at the same time it was free.”…

Name: Danny “On 4 and 5 January I spent 13 hours sightreading my way through Hymns Ancient and Modern on the piano. It was much harder than I was expecting and I was very tired afterwards! I was raising money for the London Music Fund, a charity that pays for music lessons for kids who couldn’t afford them – and I was amazed to raise over £1,000. I think it’s important for children to learn musical instruments because it’s educational and fun. I am a chorister at Temple Church in London so I have to sing hymns often. Now I have played 533 hymns, I am a bit fed up of them. Find out more at tinyurl.com/TWJ-Danny” What have you been up to lately? Which books have you enjoyed reading?…

Imagine if there was a “no-teacher day” at school. Pupils could turn up and decide how to spend their day and what they wanted to learn – if anything at all. Some might choose to practise football skills; perhaps others would prefer to read or play a video game; and some could just chat to their friends. This is the essence of “unschooling”, a system where children choose how, what and where they want to learn. Parents who choose to let their children educate themselves say that it allows them to follow their passions and takes the stress and competition out of schooling. Others say children can’t possibly receive a useful education without the structure and discipline of teachers and timetables. What do you think? Should children educate themselves? Yes…

There are dozens of varieties of viburnum, which is a shrub found in gardens all over the UK. Introduced to the UK from the Mediterranean in the 16th century, some are deciduous (lose their leaves in winter), some are evergreen, and they flower at different points of the year. Viburnum bodnantense Dawn flowers in late autumn, through winter and into spring. The plant stands between two and three metres tall and its branches grow upright. Its oval leaves are dark green with ragged edges. The plant has clusters of tiny flowers, with dark pink buds opening into white and pale pink flowers with five petals. Its strong, sweet honey-like scent attracts any bees that are active at this time of year.…

Conservationists have managed to get rid of the American mink population in part of East Anglia, England. American mink are an invasive species, which means that they’re not originally from the UK. Their taste for small mammals is one of the main reasons that water vole populations have fallen so much in recent years. ● LIFESPAN: 0–12 years. ● HABITAT: Rivers and coastal areas. ● SIZE: Between 50 and 60 centimetres. ● DIET: Small mammals, birds and fish. ● FUN FACT: They leave their droppings in noticeable locations, like rocks, bridges or fallen trees, as a “scent message” for other mink.…

Two million years ago in Southeast Asia, apes called Gigantopithecus blacki roamed the Earth. Researchers call the species “Giganto”, and believe it was three metres tall and weighed up to 300 kilograms – making it the world’s largest known primate (a group of animals including apes, monkeys and humans). For a long time scientists have wondered why they went extinct, but new research has revealed that Gigantos just couldn’t adapt to a changing world. The first step was to work out when Gigantos died out. Researchers looked at fossils, such as teeth and pieces of jawbone, found in caves in southern China. Tests showed that the species died out some time between 295,000 and 215,000 years ago. To find out more about where Gigantos lived, the team studied other samples…

Finding the words to explain how you feel isn’t always easy. This is why young people’s mental health charity Place2Be has made “My Voice Matters” the theme of this year’s Children’s Mental Health Week (5–11 February). What does speaking up mean? Do you have trouble sharing your thoughts – or worry no one will listen if you do? Making your voice heard means understanding that your words matter and your opinions count. Dr Julia Clements is a psychologist (an expert in thoughts and feelings) at Place2Be. She tells The Week Junior it means “expressing your views, thoughts and feelings, not bottling them all up, and being open to hearing the thoughts, feelings and views of others too.” Making yourself heard isn’t about shouting the loudest; in fact you don’t have…

The Nowhere Thief by Alice M. Ross (Nosy Crow) Twelve-year-old Elsbeth has incredible power. She can travel to parallel worlds and bring objects back with her. However, her travels are soon endangered by some strange weather events and a mysterious boy who keeps turning up wherever she goes. Time Travelling with a Tortoise by Ross Welford (HarperCollins Children’s) Readers may recall Al Chaudhury travelling back in time with a hamster for company to save his father’s life. In this sequel to Time Travelling with a Hamster, Al must journey on to save his beloved Grandpa Byron’s incredible memory. This time, the task is more complicated and the adventure more perilous. A Traveller in Time by Alison Uttley. Illustrated by John Broadley (Faber Children’s) Penelope visits her great-aunt’s old farmhouse, where…

Name: Emily The Wonder Team and the Forgotten Footballers By Leah Williamson “Mysterious, adventurous and dramatic. It taught me about the history of girls’ football and what a struggle it has been for them.” YOUR TURN Email your book review to hello@theweekjunior.co.uk. If it’s printed in the magazine you’ll receive a Roving Reporter badge. Roving Reporter Describe the book in three words, what you liked about it and why you’d recommend it to others. Don’t forget to include your name and address.* *If you are the competition winner, we will only use the details you provide to contact you and arrange delivery of your competition prize.…

Around two billion people across the world celebrate the New Year according to the lunar calendar, which is based on the Moon. The date changes every year and this year it falls on 10 February. Each year has the sign of an animal and 2024 is the Year of the Dragon. The dragon is a symbol of power, wealth and wisdom. People born in the year of the dragon are said to be lucky and confident and to have leadership qualities. The “dragon dance” is a New Year tradition to bring good luck and drive away evil spirits. Here’s how you can make your own mini dancing dragon. What you need ● Paint ● Crayons or pens ● A4 sheets of paper or coloured card ● Scissors ● Sticky tape…

Hello and welcome! Our cover “star” this week is Children’s Mental Health Week, with the charity Place2Be. This year’s theme is My Voice Matters, and you can find ways express your thoughts and feelings on page 19. Sometimes it’s not easy to talk about things – it can be easier to draw them. Did you see our How to feature last week? It was how to create an art “swirl” showing the things you most care about. You can still have a go: download a template at tinyurl.com/TWJ-swirl and play around with some ideas. Playing with ideas is a huge part of all creativity, as shown at the Imagine Children’s festival (page 20) which is opening next week. Another theme in this week’s issue is digital wellbeing. On page 24,…

Devised by the National Literacy Trust and the musical Wicked as part of the Wicked Active Learning programme, this writing competition aims to inspire UK schoolchildren to use their voices to change the world. The theme is based on one of the songs from Wicked, called For Good. This year, the challenge for pupils aged nine to 14 is to write about a positive environmental change you want to see. You could win tickets for your class to see Wicked at the Apollo Victoria Theatre in London. The deadline for entries is 11 March. To find out how to enter with your class, ask a teacher to look up “Wicked writers be the change”.…

Teacher’s name: Mr Scanlon School: RGS Worcester, Upper Tything, Worcestershire “Mr Scanlon is the best teacher because he is really supportive if we find things hard. I didn’t used to enjoy maths but now it is my favourite subject because of him. He always has a laugh with us which makes the lessons fun.”James If we pick your teacher as Teacher of the Week, we’ll send your school three free issues of The Week Junior. Send your nominations, along with a picture of your teacher and your school’s full name and address, to hello@theweekjunior.co.uk…