BBC School Report
Year 8 students at Marine Academy Plymouth have been finding out the latest news in their college and at the National Aquarium.
Here are the top stories...
Reach for the stars with the new ‘Moon Pool’
A representative, Paul Cox, came to visit Serena and Tiegan to explain exactly what a ‘Moon pool’ is and why it is such a special addition to the aquarium. Paul said ‘A moon pool is basically like the pods you see divers taking down in to great depths to see the sea life better.’ He went on to say that ‘the pool allows us to see sharks from the top rather than from the side as we have been used to seeing them’. Students were eager to find out the cost of all of this and cheekily asked Paul how much the project was, he replied ‘it is hard to put an exact figure on it, but I can tell you it is very expensive’. Serena quizzed Mr Cox on the other life that would be in the pool and found out that there would be lots of coral and plants to make the sharks feel as at home as possible.
Paul let us into some inside information and exclusively revealed that the pool will be open in the Easter holidays and won’t cost anything extra.
Weird and wonderful hobbies
After searching high and low students found that there were a lot of interesting hobbies in our very own college. The survey, conducted by Cody and Jaclyn, revealed that MAP students are fit, fun and keen to help others – we have students doing kickboxing, horse riding, model making and doing bicycle rides for charity. The best scoop came from our very own Rebecca and Lauren who caught up with Argyle star River. They asked him questions such as how he managed to get signed for Argyle and found that it was ‘a talent scout’ who had seen him playing.
Academy
Marine Academy is undergoing a huge redevelopment over the coming year. Our reporters Ele and Aimee caught up with Peter Gregory, the Academy’s Corporate Director of Business and Finance, who is overseeing a vast amount of the building work that is to commence this summer. Peter told our reporters that ‘only a small section of the school will remain and there will be a new build of many departments’. The idea is that it will be a modern and striking building that makes the most of the beautiful views the Academy enjoys. Subject areas will be far easier to access than they currently are, and members of the public will be able to access our own hair salon, theatre and canteen. Ele asked what Mr Gregory’s thoughts of the current building were, and he replied ‘it is a little tired and in need of some work’, indicating that this is a necessary step for Marine Academy to take. Ele and Aimee also spoke to Mrs Henderson, our Assistant Principal, about the changes she had seen over the last few years. Mrs Henderson replied that ‘one thing has remained the same, and that is that we have the best students in Plymouth’. We couldn’t agree more!
Visit from the BBC
By Harry Frost and Joe Greep in Year 8.
Belinda Dixon is a reporter from the very successful BBC. She came into our school to talk to us about our school report; she was very helpful and got us involved in lots of different activities. These activities taught us how to use a lot of important skills, these skills included; report writing, how to work under pressure, what news is, and the important parts of a news article.
With Belinda we had to make a report about a crash that had happened, each group had to do this and every group’s report was different. It helped us pick out what is important in a report, and what isn’t. We also had to find an interesting and a boring story in a newspaper. My group’s interesting story was about a hen that predicts the weather and our boring story was about politics and money.
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