History Students Walk in the Footsteps of Soldiers in Belgium

Our Year 10-11 returned from a 4-day residential trip to Belgium, where they had a unique opportunity to study key events and experience first-hand what life was like in the trenches.

Thursday’s first stop was to the Flanders Field Museum where students saw a fantastic and in-depth War and Trauma workshop with poignant examples. It was then onto the battlefield tour with a specialist tour guide; Langemark Cemetery, Passchendaele Museum and visit to Tyne Cot Museum.

On Friday, the group departed for the Somme. They explored Beaumont Hamel in Newfoundland Memorial Park, which offered a fantastic experience of the landscape of war. At Wellington Quarry, they headed twenty meters underground to explore the tunnel system constructed for the Battle of Arras in 1917. There was time to enjoy more of Belgium’s cultural heritage in the form of chocolate from Leonidas Chocolate Shop! In the evening, the group participated in the Last Post Ceremony at the Menin Gate, where three students presented a wreath to The Commonwealth War Graves.

The final day focused on the medical evacuation route, with expert tour guide including Bellegarde Ridge, Transport Farm Railway Dugouts Burial Ground (where they laid their second wreath), Vlamertinge, Brandhoek, Lijssenthoek Cemetery & Visitor Centre and the Death Cells of Poperinge.

The trip ended at Talbot House, a British soldiers’ club, where soldiers would go for respite from the front line. The girls received a cup of tea and then explored the house to experience the simple pleasures that soldiers would have enjoyed away from the fighting. Darcey, in Year 11, played the piano for everyone which evoked the comfortable home-from-home that the soldiers would have experienced here.

Olivia, in Year 11, recalled her experience of the trip: ‘I thoroughly enjoyed the battlefields trip: going through the stops of the evacuation route really brought the GCSE Medicine in Britain course to life, and seeing the battlefields themselves was an equally incredible and sobering experience. I found the tunnels at Arras particularly interesting, with them having a rich history across the two World Wars, while the wreath-laying ceremony at the Menin Gate was a profoundly moving event.’

This was a unique trip around some of the most significant historic sites and monuments which will not only support the students’ GCSE studies but will undoubtedly be remembered for years to come.