News from Lockerbie Academy - Thursday 12 February 2009

Scottish Schools Gymnastics Regional Heats

Lockerbie Academy took part in the Scottish Schools Regional Heats on Saturday 31st at the David Keswick Centre. Girls competed in the Level 1 vault and floor competitions.

Schools from over the region took part over the course of the day. The Lockerbie Academy team of Esme Green, Taylor Stewart and Mairi McCall took second place whilst in the individual competition Mairi McCall took third place. Mrs Armstrong was delighted with the girls’ performances and attitudes during both training and the competition. Well done!

Lockerbie Recruit Sails Through Training - 24 Nov 2008

A 21-year-old Royal Navy recruit from Lockerbie is on course for a life at sea after completing his basic training at HMS Raleigh in Cornwall.

Trainee Engineering Technician Darren Illingworth joined the Royal Navy in September and has now completed nine weeks of intensive training to give him the basic skills he will rely upon throughout his Service career. The course includes a series of mental and physical challenges designed to promote team working and culminates in the passing-out-parade when the successful recruits march out before their families and friends.

A former pupil of Lockerbie Academy, Darren previously worked as an electrician. He said: "I joined the Royal Navy for a new career and to see the world. The last nine weeks have been mentally and physically challenging but well worth it in the end."

Darren's next port of call will be the Royal Navy Submarine School, which is also based at HMS Raleigh. Here he will undergo his specialist training to learn how to operate beneath the waves. HMS Raleigh contributes to the operational capability of the Fleet by providing first class training to all ratings joining the Service along with professional courses in a variety of specialist areas including military training, seamanship, logistics and submarine operations. HMS Raleigh also offers on-going training for existing Service personnel to hone their skills making them ready for the challenges of modern operations.

Details of career opportunities within the Royal Navy are available online at www.royalnavy.mod.uk or by calling the Recruitment Line on 08456 07 55 55.

Faulkes Telescope

On 4th February 9 S1 pupils had the fantastic opportunity of using a professional telescope called the Faulkes telescope. We were using the telescope to get pictures for our S1 Science projects.

The Faulkes Telescopes are two fully robotic, research standard, 2 metre class telescopes operated over the internet. One of the telescopes, the one we booked is located in Hawaii and the other is in Australia. This means both the night sky in both the northern and southern hemispheres can be observed from the classroom during the school day. The twin telescopes are located in really good areas for astronomical observing close to some of the world’s most powerful professional telescopes. Web cams show the telescope moving and the images are downloaded almost immediately.

After we had booked our slot we had to research what we wanted to see in the night sky. We used free software to get a sky map of the area visible to the telescope and we all looked on the internet to find what was available during our time slot. We decided not to move the telescope too far as this would limit the number of pictures that we could get so we carefully plotted a route, without too much disagreement. So after lots of research completed during lunch and talking through what we wanted to view we finally decided to track the following items.

First Rebekah Hargreaves was to photograph the galaxy IC4182. Hayley Scott moved the telescope to M63, the sunflower galaxy. Everyone agreed that M51 called the whirlpool galaxy should be studied and this picture was taken by Tom Henderson. If we had time Kathryn Smith was to photograph M101 the pinwheel galaxy and Aylish Prince was to take M102 the spindle galaxy. The M number stands for Messier and is a catalogue number for cataloguing things in the Universe. For each photograph we had to get the telescope in position by entering the name in the computer and then choosing the filters and exposure times. We decided to use the Red Green and Blue filters. Jodie Mason, Megan Finlay and Adam Wilson timed how long each section of the tracking took and this will be useful for planning future missions. Gemma Henderson search for photographs of the Faulkes telescope and we were all surprised just how big it was. When we were first told about the telescope we thought it was just an ordinary one like some of us have at home. Unfortunately we only had two reasonable pictures, the ones taken by Tom and Hayley. The others were very blurry. When we asked about this the Faulkes team told us that this was due to cloud cover.

This is the fourth time Lockerbie Academy has used the Faulkes telescope and we all think it is great. We have found out so much about space and some of us are quite hooked now. We now have lots more research that we can do to find out more about what we have taken. We really hope that we are able to have another go on the telescope as it was very inspiring and Mrs Hargreaves felt that we had all worked so well she is even thinking about setting up an Astronomy Club, especially as 2009 is Astronomy Year.

We would like to thanks Mrs Hargreaves for her help in setting this up, and also the Faulkes Team in Cardiff for their guidance.

Fantasy Football – Managers of the Month

For the third session the School Fantasy Football has encouraged great interest with both pupils and staff/parents. Over 56 players have entered this year and the Managers of the Month received their certificates this week. They were as follows:

Grant Bryson
Duncan McNab
Richard Graham
Scott McWhan
Ryan Kean
Eilidh McNab
Roisin Trant
James Campbell
Jay Bryson
Jack Copeland
Jonathan Platt
Stephanie Sloan
Craig Kelly
Andrew Barrie
Fergus Barrie
Kieran McCrudden

Junior Drama Club

Junior Drama Club runs on Tuesdays from 3.45 – 4.45pm in the Drama Studio. This club is open to S1-S3 pupils. Are you interested in acting or helping backstage? If so, come and join in the fun. We will be performing a range of plays from ‘Jekyll & Hyde’ to a comic play called ‘Tam O’Shanter’s Big Night Oot’.

If you are going to join the Drama Club, you need to be able to attend all of our rehearsals. Please let your parents know that you will be staying late at school on Tuesday nights. Late bus passes will be provided. See you Tuesday, in the Drama Studio….