This October saw a first for the Sixth Form geographers at Twycross – a residential field-work weekend on the North Norfolk Coast.
Nine students and three staff set off early on Friday morning – destination Overstrand Field Study Centre. With the journey punctuated by mid-morning and lunchtime ‘re-fuelling’ stops we finally arrived mid-afternoon. After a short guided tour of the site we set out to walk up the Cromer Ridge – evidence that, despite the general opinion, Norfolk is not entirely flat! Saturday morning, and we were up early (and not all bright) to set off for a morning study of the River Glaven. With the sartorial elegance of over-sized waders the group sampled the water and measured its flow, assisted by the supply of apples provided from the centre. After a ‘fish and chip’ break in Cromer the afternoon was spent on the beach at Overstrand. Happily the weather, unusually for this autumn, was dry, although the ‘bracing’ element of the North Sea coastline tested the nature of the Sixth Form clothing.
A challenge of a different nature on Sunday – the centre’s climbing wall. Difficult enough whilst sighted, an altogether different challenge when blindfolded. With much support from one another the group performed enthusiastically to race to the top.
A unanimous verdict that the trip had been both educational and fun – it will undoubtedly become a permanent fixture on the Geography calendar.

Convinced that they were destined for distant parts with a time-zone all of its own, Senior 1 pupils duly prepared for their expedition to darkest mid-Wales equipped with all the essentials for a weekend in the wild: tents, pyjamas, cuddly toys and several tons of confectionary to maintain energy levels through sleepless nights and action-packed days. Base camp was established in record time with the pupils showing excellent skills of teamwork (‘give us a hand!’), co-operation (‘here, hold this!’) and tolerance (‘after you with the mallet!’)  As is usual on these visits to the wild, the opportunity to tell ghost stories through the night and play table-tennis at dawn was not missed. However, yawns were quickly stifled by some tasty breakfast morsels: sausages (burnt), eggs (broken and burnt) and beans (baked and boiled but amazingly not burnt). Notwithstanding the early start and the carbonised cooking, it was off to the Red-Ridge Activity Centre for the rest of the day to climb, cave, cable, kayak and do some archery (even though that doesn’t start with a ‘c’). Staff at the centre were effusive in their comments about the positive and polite attitudes of the pupils and the glow of pride on the children’s faces reflected this through the sunburn.