NEWSLETTER
www.ascension-island.gov.ac/government/school
Saturday, 06 February 2016
Dear Parents and Carers,
Assembly
A very special Thank you to Miss Claire Boyle
and Claire Gray who prepared a very special
assembly with our Nursery and Reception
children for their proud parents.
Oh No…it is the evil pea!!
Our supertato superheroes!!
Chrispy from the Met Office visits Two
Boats School
The Met Office is the world leader in weather
forecasting and climate change research. The
weather impacts everyone on a daily basis from
work, to livelihood and even health with people
making decisions based upon the weather every
day.
Last Friday I had the pleasure of being invited into
Two Boats School to discuss what we do at the
Met Office in general and also here in Ascension.
From collecting weather observations, through
the forecast process and delivering the story to
our customers, including yourself. Lets set the
scene.The talk started with a simple analogy. Lets
imagine you can predict the future, because at
the end of the day, ultimately thats what we do.
First you need to consider what you’ve done
today - we need to make an observation. Okay,
so now we have an idea of what you have done,
lets now try and work out what you’ll do tomorrow
- the forecast. Like many of us, we get up with a
plan of attack and there maybe some slight
changes to our plans but we, for the best part,
stay on schedule. Right, so now lets think about
two days time, in fact lets think about seven days
time. This becomes more of a challenge. We
know that we’ll get up and probably have
breakfast at sometime in the morning but the
more detail we want as the day unfolds the more
difficult it is for us to pin point the story. Now the
important part here, and this is the word one of
the schoolgirls - Grace - used, “probably”. “We’ll
probably have breakfast at 8am”. So even she
had realised that the devil lies in the detail.
This is similar to forecasting the weather. As we
head further in time, the forecasts can diverge
and thats all dependent upon observations that
are made right at the beginning. There are things
“The evil pea 1” hiding from parents and
that we can plan for, but there are also things that
primary peers.
we can’t and this is where forecasting can
become difficult. So the further in advance we go
Evil pea tried to get all the vegetables and
the more the details become blurred and we
provide more of a trend the weather will take. As
tried to mash supertato, but Supertato
technology has increased over the last few
trapped the Evil pea in the wobbly jelly and
decades, our ability in understanding the weather
returned him back to the freezer!!
and our computing power to
Learning together, Success forever
TBS NEWSLETTER
model it has advanced. Our current five day
forecasts are now as reliable as our one day
forecasts were back in the 1980’s. As it stands,
we are in the process of updating to a new
supercomputer being installed at Exeter
headquarters due for completion in 2017. This will
enable us to increase computing power to provide
more detailed and accurate forecasts more
regularly.
Appointments will be made for each individual
student by Form Tutors and a grade report
will be handed out and discussed during this
event.
Our School Christmas Play
is at 6:30 pm on Wednesday 2nd December
Birthday song and special stickers!!
In Ascension we are here to provide support and
advice to the military - critical for aviation and
flight safety. We also produce the local public
weather forecasts that you see on TV and hear
on the radio, along with the marine and shipping
forecasts. Furthermore our work includes
scientific climate research from collecting and
analysing rainfall, to air quality sampling including
monitoring Carbon Dioxide in a joint venture with
our colleagues at NOAA.
Happy Birthday to Leyton, Radka, Joel, Riley
and Zayla from all of us at Two Boats
School!!
Puzzle
When is 16 X 16 to equal 16777216?
Fact of the week
First Time in History Whole Wembley Sings
La Marseillaise, a crowd of more than 70,000
people united against the Paris attack
Source: BBC sport
Wishing you all the best for the coming week,
Dates for your Diaries
Information evening
(With form tutors from 5pm)
Patricia Babin
Monday 30th November
Headteacher
5pm Year 7 and 11
Monday 7th December 5pm Year 8, 9 and 10
2