As part of their Geography lessons, students take part in a variety of practical field trips to study topics directly relating to their classroom learning. This boosts their understanding by giving real life context to their learning.

Last term, Year 11 students took part in two field trips with the first taking students to Seaham to study coastal vulnerability and change. There they collected data on how the size of stones changes dramatically from the base of the cliff to the waters edge. They worked in teams and placed a ‘quadrat’ every 3m on the beach, then from each quadrat they selected 10 stones at random and recorded the size; students found that as they got closer to the water, the stones got smaller.

Students also visited Tindale Retail Park and Bishop Auckland town centre to complete a land use survey and a pedestrian and traffic count. The purpose of the visit was to gather evidence to support a hypothesis, “Has the development at Tindale Retail Park caused Bishop Auckland town centre to decline?”

Year 8 students also enjoyed outdoor learning with land studies conducted at Auckland Park and also within our school site to assess how sustainable it is.