Filming with the BBC

On Monday group of Gateway Base students were taken down to Osprey Quay Campus to meet up with Mr Spracklen and a BBC film crew!

Children who regularly bring and use their own device to assist with their learning experience linked up with Osprey Quay children. Mr Spracklen set up a Google Hangout with Adam at Google HQ in London. They were encouraged to ask questions about all Google applications as well as tell how they used them in school. 

Demonstrations of Accelerated Reader (AR) and Mathletics were also carried out by the children for the film crew and producer from the BBC so they could see just how competent and able the students were on their devices and how the programmes are used daily within IPACA to enhance their education. 

Upon arrival at OQ we had to take the obligatory "selfie".........

Gateway Learning Base stay and Learn

Today we had another exciting stay and learn session in Gateway Learning Base.

It was great to have our parents learning about adverbial phrases with us.

Circle investigations in Gateway Learning Base

Today In Maths we have been investigating circles. We had to measure the radius and and diameter of our circles.

We then had to find out how to work out the circumference. It was hard to measure around the outside of a circle so we had to use a special formula on our calculators. 

Dahlicious Roald Dahl Activities

As it was the anniversary of Roald Dahl's birth on Friday, West Base 2 took part in a live broadcast of activities to celebrate. The session focused on The Twits. Roald Dahl's biographer Donald Sturrock answered questions such as:

• What inspired Mr Twit's beard?
• Where did Roald Dahl get his ideas?
• How did Roald Dahl behave at school?
• Why was his favourite colour yellow?

The cast of 'Roald Dahl and the Imagination Seekers' performed and there was a workshop from Quentin Blake on how to draw Mr Twit. Have a look at some of our drawings.

That's fantastic Zach!

Safari Holidays: Persuasive writing in West Base 2

This week we have learnt about the features of persuasive writing. We are focusing on advertisements. 

Boys and Girls of West Base 2:

 Do you ever see advertisements when you are at home? Do you see them on television? Do you see them in magazines? Look at the advertisements and see if you can identify any persuasive features!

Next week we will create our own safari advertisements! The children will be trying to persuade Osprey Quay staff and pupils to visit our African animal habitats. 

Rugby World Cup, Schools Tournament

Last week we took a group of 12 budding rugby players from the Gateway Base to Weymouth and Portland Rugby Club for an Inter-Schools Tournament.

To mark the start of the 2015 Rugby World Cup, teams were encourage to dress in the colours of a nation  (we were given France) and perform any pre-match rituals; needless to say we were treated to a fantastic version of The Haka, but that didn't intimidate Team IPACA one bit! Winning our first game and then drawing our second against St Georges (Australia) . Sadly, we missed out on winning our Pool by 2 point.

In the pouring rain, we went on to play a friendly game against Conifers (All Blacks) which we comfortably won!

The students performed fantastically well and thoroughly enjoyed the afternoon.

Year 6 Maths Challenge

Today a group of 6 children went to Budmouth for a maths challenge. The team competed against 11 other local schools. In their team they moved around the maths departments with teachers and were challenged with maths problems.

From maths relay, and code breaking to physical maths (area/mass etc). There were tough questions and certainly kept our staff on their toes!

Well done to all our fabulous representatives.

Thank you for the music in West Base 2

The children in Year 4 had their first recorder lesson yesterday with Mrs Mullender from Dorset Music Service. They will have lessons for 10 weeks. They need to have their recorder in school for Monday every week so that we can practise before our lesson on Wednesday. They learnt their first note yesterday!

Enjoy the practise at home too!

Gateway Learning Base - Takeaway Homework

Today Gateway Base pupils were given their takeaway homework for the rest of the term.

We are looking forward to seeing some great results.

Tomorrow we will be giving out spellings and maths homework.

Mathletics Certificates! West Base 2

Here are some of the certificates our children earned over the summer!

   
                                                       More certificates coming soon!

Gateway Learning Base stay and learn.

It was lovely to have some parents stay and learn with us this morning for our SPaG session.

We were delighted with the feedback from our visitors here are some comments:

"Really calm environment"

"Enjoyed seeing my son in his learning environment"

"Had fun joining in"

"I liked the learning tools used"

A reminder that stay and learn sessions run in Gateway Base every Wednesday morning from 8:40-9:20

We look forward to seeing you again next week. 

Let's debate it

Gateway Base has a new literary focus this week. It's all about debating.

One of our groups had some tough questions to battle. One of the burning questions were 'Marmite, love it or hate it'

It was great listening to each side of the debate and hearing people try and convince us to make a choice. 

Parachutes in Gateway Learning Base

Today in science some of us tested the excellent parachutes we made as part of our homework.

It was fun seeing how well the parachutes worked and thinking about the friction applied to the parachutes as they floated through the air.

Gateway Learning Base - Our trip to Maritime House

This afternoon, as part of our topic work a small group of children got the chance to visit our new school building.

It was really interesting learning about the safety aspects involved on a building site and seeing all the different roles we have been focusing on in a 'real life' environment.

We had to listen to a safety briefing and wear lots of special safety equipment.

It was exciting walking around our learning bases and seeing them all take shape. We learnt about the different techniques used on the site to create the different spaces in our base.

We will bring your more updates on our visits over the next few weeks as other pupils get the chance to visit the site.