Noah Dougherty, 16, is a student at Cirencester College and hopes to become a journalist. He lives in Stroud.

‘2016 –Worst Year Ever?’ ….. I’m not sure about this headline.

2016 has been crazy. Many have dubbed it ‘the worst year ever’ after legends such as David Bowie, Alan Rickman and Sir Terry Wogan all died. And that was January. We also lost Prince, Johan Cruyff, Carrie Fisher, Debbie Reynolds, George Michael and many more. Britain left the European Union and Donald Trump was elected President of the United States.

So, I started thinking. Did anything good actually happen? As a matter of fact, it did.

In sport, we learned that pride and passion can overcome millions and millions of pounds spent on some of the world’s best players. Leicester City won the Premier League with, according to results based on the 2013-14 season, the lowest average wage of any top-flight team bar two.

Team GB came second in the Olympic Games and we also saw two of our Olympic heroes Andy Murray and Mo Farah receive knighthoods along with major honours for many other Olympic and Paralympic heroes.

Most importantly of all (as this is close to me both personally and geographically,) Forest Green Rovers achieved their highest league finish in the club’s history, falling just short of promotion in an agonising Wembley play-off final.

One of the main things that has kept people from despair in 2016 is some incredible scientific breakthroughs that will have huge effect in the future. Of the 130 million or so babies born this year, one (in terms of science) was more important than the others. A Jordanian boy was created using the DNA of three people. A healthy donor’s genes were ‘added to the mix’ to help prevent the boy from getting a serious genetic disorder.

Also, child mortality is down. Everywhere. If that isn’t good enough news to make 2016 palatable I don’t know what is.

That’s not all though. So many breakthroughs were made in terms of helping cure and preventing illness. Some of these include cancer, Alzheimer’s and ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis). Thanks to the ice bucket challenge, the gene that causes ALS has been found. This means we are closer to an effective treatment.

Although it may to appear so, it hasn’t been too bad a year for the environment. A campaign by 38 degrees was won to make sure some dangerous pesticides remained banned and Portugal ran all the countries energy needs on sustainable sources for four days straight.

So, next time you find yourself about to say, ‘I’m glad 2016’s over’ or ‘that was the worst year in ages’, don’t. I’m sure you’ve all had your personal high points this year, so use them and all of this to say, ‘it wasn’t all bad’.