It was lovely to see some of you either in person or via TEAMS. Sorry if we missed you or if you had technical issues.

Today is similar to yesterday and continue to work on your geography unit, make notes and create a poster at the end of your unit.

English: Really work out whether you are writing to persuade or discuss (see information on our main pages this week linked to English).

After our TEAMS meeting, you should have a clearer idea how to move to the next stage with this. Once you have asked your question and explained what you will be discussing/persuading the audience about, the next stage is to write about each part of your speech and include quotations from the information you found online/in documents/leaflets, etc. It's your chance to explore what you have researched, following your plan.

Here is an example:

The Wiltshire Air Ambulance is a helicopter which can reach anywhere in Wiltshire in 11 minutes. It’s based in Devizes by the Wiltshire Police Headquarters, London Road. It started on 15^th March 1990 as a joint helicopter with the Wiltshire police. As time went by, the Wiltshire police and Wiltshire Air Ambulance drifted apart. Their partnership officially ended in December 2014. The Wiltshire Air Ambulance’s website state that ‘Sharing resources with the Wiltshire Police kept the cost down.’ The Wiltshire Air Ambulance (also known as the WAA) carries 3 highly trained crew on board. With these crew members they have saved almost 15,000 people. It is available 19 hours a day; day and night.

The WAA does not receive any government funding and relies entirely on public funding. With £6,850 a day (£2.5m a year) to raise that’s not easy. Also, the WAA saves hundreds of lives every year. According to The Swindon Link, “703 incidents were saved in 2013.” If it wasn’t here these lives would be tested to their limits.  Imagine this, hundreds of children not here, hundreds of adults not here, hundreds of elderly not here because the ambulance had failed them. ‘In 2014, 481 rescue missions were made. The WAA attended 177 road traffic collisions, 167 medical emergencies, 86 sporting injuries, 78 incidents involving children, 43 falls and 12 industrial incidents.’ So now, if you hear about an accident on the news, don’t just think of a road ambulance, think of the air ambulance.  It has already attended 34 missions this year (dated on the 4.2.15).

Firstly, even today in 2015, the Wiltshire Air Ambulance still doesn’t receive any government funding. This means the Wiltshire Air Ambulance relies entirely on the public and their donations. I personally think the WAA should receive government funding because it saves hundreds of lives. My family donates £10 a month towards it and we also enter their lottery. The WAA is supported by you to keep it flying.  How would you feel if you knew that hundreds of people died because the government didn’t give any money? How would you feel if you knew that an ambulance had failed someone because they couldn’t get there in time? How would you feel if a family member or a friend possibly died because there wasn’t an Air Ambulance around? How would you feel inside? 

Lots of people get saved by the WAA and this is just two stories of the many people saved. This is Harry’s story.

5 year old Harry was on a day journey to Bo-Wood Park with his family. He was really excited about going on the high ropes. He climbed up the gigantic wooden ladder onto the platform. This was it. He was on. He quivered on the tall ropes. He unfortunately lost his grip on the thick ropes. Down he fell, onto the grass. However in less than 11 minutes the WAA arrived. He was safely transferred to Bath hospital. He was happy there and received excellent treatment. He now shares that memory of how the WAA saved him.

Another story is a very emotional one, and one that happened on the 18th May 2014.

Geoff Sellers was on a morning stroll along the canal, everything was reasonable. Suddenly he had a heart attack and hit his head on the side canal. Luckily, he was spotted by an off duty Police Officer. He called for the Wiltshire Air Ambulance which arrived in less than 11 minutes. If he was left there longer, he properly would have died. He was transferred to the Bristol Royal Heart Infirmary (also known as the BRHI). However, he sadly died two weeks later although his family still remember him well.

Extra support and writing frames: Click onto tomorrow (Friday's link) for a writing frame, excellent examples to support you with your work.

Maths: Session 3 of Position and Direction. Upload work to Dojo Portfolio-please mark work beforehand! This can be downloaded from here or you can write on it from Dojo and once marked, post into your Dojo portfolio account.

Reading: Read for 20 minutes and record in your reading record