BBC School Report comes to Castle Rock.
On March 21st a group of gifted and talented Year 9 students took part in Castle Rock’s first BBC School Report news day. This is a nationwide event, involving schools from up and down the country. Students will become journalists for the day, turning their hand at bringing to life the stories of the moment.
It was an intense day but the students had an excellent experience in understanding the pressures, highs and lows and energy of a newsroom. Here are the reports that they produced;
The Budget 2013 – Do people really know what it’s all about?
We ask some teachers and students if they really know what the 2013 budget is about and how it will affect their life.
How much do you know about the 2013 budget?
- Mr Rowbottom - They’re freezing the fuel prices and the economy is at a decline.
- Mrs Pell – I heard a little on the radio and saw the end of the news so I don’t know a lot but what I did hear, I think it’s just made up for rich people to make money.
- A Castle Rock Student – I know a bit from what my Dad said.
How will the new budget make a difference in your life?
- Mr Rowbottom – The fuel’s cheaper so it’s cheaper for me to run my car!
- Mrs Pell – The petrol is cheaper and I have to drive a lot to and from scool, do that’s a bonus.
- A Castle Rock Student – It will affect my Dad’s small business.
Facts
Osborne’s 2013 budget said that the UK is £1,103,600,000,000 in debt which equates to;
- £40,000 per household.
- A HS2 train line not only from Birmingham to London but from Birmingham to Moscow.
Music booms through Castle Rock
On Wednesday, the 21st of March, Castle Rock High School hosted a music concert in the lunch hall where the music GCSE and class groups gave on-stage performances set up and practiced by the music department. The students had 5 days’ notice that they would be performing on such a scale.
Also, aside from the fact that the groups were performing in the lunch hall where nearly every student in the school would at some point see them, the groups were right in front of an audience area where a large crowd of people gathered for the duration of the concert. The group were really put under a lot of stress and coped quite well.
In fact, when interviewed and asked the question ‘Do you think there were many noticeable problems?’, the main singer for the concert said ‘I’m actually going to say no’, and then went on to explain that while she expected a few of the pieces to fall apart there were no pauses and that there weren’t any large problems.
Again, the same singer mentioned that the groups weren’t ideal but there wasn’t much choice. Some of the songs weren’t exactly what the students were wishing for either but it turned out not to be a big problem; between an old classic, a school composition and a piece of modern pop, everyone had something they liked.
Overall the students had a great time performing and some said that they ‘would do it again if they could’, though perhaps with a bit more time between being told they would perform and actually going on stage. The students had a few problems with time as they had only a few hours’ time to work on their pieces, but there were smiles all round by the end, as everyone enjoyed the experience of being onstage in front of the people around them.
In the end a lot of hard work went into the performance with some students taking time out of their lunch breaks to practice. The time and efforts were pulled off without much trouble and one or two students were even pulled out of the crowd by the headteacher for congratulations!
By Liam, Castle Rock Student.
World Book Day and a bunch of Wallys.
On 7th March 2013, it was World Book Day. Students celebrated by dressing up as their favourite book character. Some of these include Robin, Tracy Beaker, Hetty Feather, Harry Potter and Poppy Longstockings.
“It was a very odd day but I enjoyed it,” quoted one student. Another said “I enjoyed it but I still get called Tigger.”
Many of the teachers dressed up as ‘Where’s Wally?’, and students had to count how many there were. Also, they wore tags with character’s names on. The students had to match up the character’s names from each book. In some of the lessons, students wrote stories and did world book day based lessons. Children made posters that went up in our dinner hall for our special school dinner. This consisted of Rowling’s Roast Beef & Yorkshire Pudding, Lewis Carroll’s Cabbage & Carrots, Morpurgo’s Mash & Roast Potatoes, Beatrix Potter’s Veggie Cheese Pasty, Roald Dahl’s Chocolate Pudding & Chocolate Sauce. Overall, it was a successful day.
By Beth, Castle Rock Student.
A Trip to the Past
A group of students from Castle Rock High School visited France to learn about World War One.
On the 15th of March 2013, in the early hours, the students met at the school to get on the coaches. Once all were boarded, they set off to France for 24 hours. The students kept themselves occupied by listening to music, playing on PSP’s, Nintendo DS’ and lots of other things. The teachers had planned to watch a film however they could not get any sound on the coach!
Firstly, students went to the Somme museum in Albert, they went through tunnels which soldiers would have lived, hid and even died in. It was full of things that had been found in the trenches, like binoculars, compasses, photos and much more. These tunnels were over 100 years old; they found it a great experience.
After this a tour guide came on the coach and showed us various craters which had been created when trenches had been exploded. We had to walk up to an extremely large crater. Many soldiers lost their lives here. It was so big you could not fit it in one picture.
In order to see this crater we had to climb up an extraordinarily steep hill, this was covered in snow, students would step and then they would fall knee deep in the snow, they had to be pulled out by friends. This made the students very cold. This gave them an insight into life into the trenches.
They then visited a place where war actually took place. Students were able to walk in an underground cave which had been built by the soldiers; the trenches had been rebuilt with rock but had the appearance of a real trench. The owner of the museum was from Holland, he was friendly and he told the students everything they needed to know – even warned them about the smell. The tour guide they had for a few hours was French/Australian. She knew a lot about the Somme and the war.
By Holly and Phoebe, Castle Rock Students.
Happy Birthday Twitter!
Twitter turns seven today, with over 200 million users tweeting an average of two tweets a day! Twitter is used all over the globe by all different people, of all different ages.
On Wednesday George Osborne (Chancellor) joined Twitter, he has already got 33, 400 followers. He is apparently having a twitter war with Ed Balls who is winning at the moment. Balls has 77,500 followers and has sent out over 3,000 tweets.
Twitter is one of the biggest social network sites along with Facebook. It beats other social networking sites such as: Myspace, Bebo and Friends Reunited. Millions of users follow celebrity’s lives including, David Cameron and Baraka Obama. Twitters birthday has been celebrated in the white house today with Barak Obama sending a few tweets.
Seven years ago today the founder of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, sent out the first ever tweet from San Francisco, California. His tweet was sent on March 21st 2006 saying “inviting co-workers”. This first tweet got retweeted by over 100 people. He later tweeted “just setting up my twttr” as seven years back it was known as Twttr. There is now half a million new accounts added each week.
Hash tags were created not long after Twitter. It was first proposed by a user which appeared in August 2007. Ever since then hash tags are used in nearly every tweet and they are a huge craze. Retweeting was created 3 years after Twitter came about. It was launched in August 2009 and is used regularly now. The biggest retweet known was made by Baraka Obama tweeting “Four more years” after he won the US president elections on November 26th 2012. This was retweeted more than 811, 000 times!
Tweets are made throughout the world today by many devices. It has recently gone crazy on smartphones and tablet devices. Probably the most bizarre place for a tweet to happen was when James Cameron tweeted from the ocean’s deepest point, the Mariana Trench in the western part of the Pacific.
We interviewed two students and one teacher at Castle Rock High School asking them about their lives involving twitter. Here are their responses:
Student One:
How long have you had Twitter? – “3 years.”
How many tweets do you send out in a day? – “10 tweets about.”
How many celebrities do you follow? – “About 100.”
Would you be lost without Twitter? – “Yes because it is really interesting and I am always on it.”
Student Two:
How long have you had Twitter? – “1 year.”
How many tweets do you send out in a day? – “2 tweets.”
How many celebrities do you follow? – “About 10.”
Would you be lost without Twitter? – “No because it is boring. “
Miss Anderson:
How long have you had Twitter? – “2 years ago but I have only been using it for about 6 months”
How many tweets do you send out in a day? – “about 2 tweets.”
How many celebrities do you follow? – “30 celebrities.”
Have you had any celebrities reply to your tweets?. – “Yes, Ricky Gervais replied to me.”
Would you be lost without Twitter? – “Yes because it is the way me and my sister communicate.”
As you can see Twitter is used by millions of people by all different age groups. Although some people are not entirely in love with Twitter, most of the population are. Twitter is a global success and will keep growing in many years to come. #bestreportersever!
By Megan and Mollie, Castle Rock Students.
French pen-pal low down!
We interviewed Madame Lopeman, a French teacher at Castle Rock High school, to find out about a French pen pal connection with the students in France and England.
How was the link set up between the schools? – “The link was set up that I went to France, to visit a French school and met the head teacher and a French teacher and we decided yes, we definitely want to have a link between our school in England and the school in France.”
How long has it been set up for? – “It has been set up for 4 years, because 4 years ago I went to see the Headteacher. Then we did a year of just writing letters and then this is our 3rd year where we write letters to each other and they come visit us.”
Why did you set the link up? – “We set it up so we could have an international link with the other school so that you could see a real French school and what they are like, and they could see what English people look like and also help with communication and writing for a reason so you’re not just writing a letter.”
What been planned for when they come down? – “They’re coming for a day and a half in May, and the first day they’re going to spend the day with their pen pals, and they’re going to do activities together in French and in English, so they can get to know each other, because there’s nothing worse than just sitting down and talking because you don’t know what to talk about. Then after school we are going to have a little tea party where all the English people bring in teacakes, sandwiches etc.so we can have a time after school then the last day, Friday morning, they’re here for half a day and they’re going to go into some lessons to see exactly what it’s like.”
What have the English people been doing? – “It’s just one class in year 9 because it’s one class in France, so they have been writing to each other with a theme. The first week it was introducing them, then they have been writing about bonfire night, and then we send it to France so they can read it and ask questions.”
By Amy and Erica