Alistair Barnett, one of our school governors, wrote the following.
"I have been teaching the Year 10 History GCSE students this year as parental contribution and we have been studying World War One so I very much wanted to take the group to see the battlefields in Belgium and northern France. I opened up the invitation to the rest of year 10 and myself and my wife Hazel then embarked on a whistle-stop two day tour of the sites with 11 students.
The trip was a great success, even if exhausting! We started with a tour of Passchendale Memorial Museum, the highlight of which was some excellent reconstruction of trenches and underground dug outs. From there we visited nearby Tyne Cot cemetery, the largest Commonwealth War Cementery in the world, with over 12,000 individual graves, all beautifully tended and bedecked with flowers. A visit to excavated German trenches nearby gave us a feel for the frontline - in fact, we visited the very part that the young Hitler served as a messenger boy in the German rank and file. In the evening we found time to eat in a typical local restaurant in the middle of Ypres and were able to attend the daily ceremonial playing of the Last Post at the Menin Gate in commemoration of the fallen.
We later travelled on to the Somme where we visited some of the most famous memorial sites from the tragic first day of the battle. We were given a fascinating private tour of excavations of Thiepval Woods, where the front line British trenches are still being re-dug and excavated, bringing to light all sorts of personal belongings of those involved. A preserved battlefield site at Beaumont Hamel, followed by a visit to the iconic memorial of those who died at the Somme at Thiepval completed the historical dimension of the trip, leaving just enough time for some shopping in Calais before returning home.
Hazel and I really enjoyed the opportunity to take the group who were all impeccably well behaved and a pleasure to look after! They seemed to have had a great time and I hope too, that the sites gave them something to think about. We live in a fallen world and if nothing else, World war One is a very sober reminder of the reality of human sin and how much we do need a Saviour."
