Battlefields

During this year's annual trip to the Battlefields of France and Belgium, Year 9 enjoyed warm and sunny weather that sometimes did not always make the sites they visited as realistic as if they'd been standing in mud and rain. However, Sanctuary Wood near Ypres and the trenches of Vimy Ridge brought home the horrors of trench warfare and how often the troops were very close to each other, with only a few hundred yards of no man's land separating them. Each year, Sanctuary Wood seems to get smellier!

Two new sites this year that we visited were near Ypres - the Hooge Crater Museum and cemetery, very near the front line during 1917 and the Passchendaele Museum, which featured impressive displays of the fighting that took place around the Ypres area.

Well done to all the girls for being, in the words of Jason the coach driver, 'brilliant ambassadors' for Channing. Thanks also to the colleagues who accompanied me and were understanding when the coach I was on had to go back to the hotel to collect my flask of coffee!

Mrs Devine