On Friday 17th September 30 girls from Year 11 set off on a Geography field trip to Slapton Ley Field Study Centre on the scenic South Devon coast between Dartmouth and Salcombe. We disembarked in beautiful sunshine, settled into the accommodation, completed preparatory work for the ‘Rivers Day’ and then hit the beach for baseball, rock skimming, paddling, relaxing and enjoying the beautiful scenery, including Slapton Ley, the largest freshwater lake in the South West.
Saturday was the ‘Rivers Day’ and was tailored to this year’s Controlled Assessment – Field Work Focus exercise, “How successful have the flood management strategies been for a river of your choice”. The girls collected primary data along the River Harbourne, drew sketch maps, conducted flood risk and bi-polar surveys of flood defences and got wet.
“On the first day we visited Harbertonford, the village we are studying for our controlled assessment, and looked at the different types of flood defences. We also had to get in the river and take measurements and some of us got very wet!” - Annie.
After a busy day working in beautiful sunshine the girls were rewarded with an evening beach trip and a 7.30pm finish to enjoy Emily’s birthday cake, and so Mr Meek could watch X Factor!
On the Sunday we were dropped at Start Point Headland and through the course of the day walked 10km along the cliffs and beaches back to the Field Study Centre. We saw at first hand coastal landforms caused by erosion and deposition, measured beach profiles and investigated coastal management and tourism issues. The more adventurous tasted local cockles, mussels and some even hugged a conger eel! At Torcross we paused at the Sherman Tank War Memorial where the girls remembered the 749 servicemen killed in Operation Tiger - the preparations for the Normandy beach invasion.
“It was a very useful trip and it was really useful seeing these things, which we’d learnt about in lessons, first hand. It really helped us all to understand our controlled assessment a lot better and we are all hopefully heading for A*s.” - Cassy
By the Monday morning the whole group were exhausted from fresh air, early morning beach runs, midnight feasts, more X Factor and academic endeavour. The final half day session re-focused the girls on the requirements of controlled assessment and modelled what is required for a top grade. After a fun weekend of working and playing hard we returned to HMSG with happy memories and a number of girls who realised, too late, that they have a hole in their wellies. Thank you to Grace, from all the girls, for her enthusiastic support, despite missing Alton Towers!
