By Andy Lawrence
Trips to the First World War battlefields of France and Belgium are a real highlight of our Year 9 course. However, we’ve discovered that just turning up, looking at a couple of cemeteries and then hearing the buglers at the Menin Gate doesn’t guarantee any kind of meaningful impact or allow the students to make connections with the past. Over the last few years we have worked hard to try and put together a trip that resonates, creates links with the past and enables the students to see the men who fought in the places that we visit as individuals rather than just statistics, names on memorials or even victims. This blog post outlines what we do on the first day of our two-day trip...I'd love to hear from colleagues about what they do and how we could improve.