Geography Fieldwork
Year 10 Geography students had fieldwork to do with two investigations: the physical investigation - what physical processes are happening along the Norfolk coast? And the human investigation - how important is Sheringham as an economic hub for the North Norfolk coast? We would use the trip to collect data and learn skills that would be used for our GCSE.
We arrived first in Happisburgh, a tiny hamlet 20 minutes away from Cromer, where unfortunately some spectacular coastal erosion is causing houses and the main road to slowly fall into the sea. First we collected data on the beach for our physical investigation. We did, as well as many other things, a wave frequency survey, measured the height from the sand to the top of the groynes as well as throwing an orange into the sea and then monitoring the distance and direction it travelled so we could see and measure the process of longshore drift.
After this we headed to Cromer, a small tourist town, to start our human investigation. The Norfolk weather again proved challenging and the strong wind guided us towards the welcoming arms of Costa.
While the Norfolk weather didn’t make our tasks easy, the trip was definitely memorable and we had lots of fun. After two years heavily interrupted by Covid with many trips being cancelled it was nice to finally get away from school!
VE Celebrations
Students and Staff celebrated the 75th Anniversary of VE day at home. Students made bunting, cakes and ginger beer. Matthew in Year 8 learnt to play the "Last Post" which he performed at his home at 3.00pm for all his neighbours.
Remembrance
As usual Birchwood remembered the fallen this November. On Remembrance Sunday many students were involved in the town’s commemorations as part of the uniformed youth services and on Monday 11
November, we held our two minute silence across the school. The Last Post was sounded by Lukas Ruediger (Year 12) and the silence was observed throughout the site. For Year 7’s, break started later to ensure that the silence was respected by all.
Rome and Naples
Year 8's annual humanities trip to Rome and Naples left students in awe of the fresco's, paintings, and architecture. They visited the Trevi Fountain, the Spanish Steps, the Colosseum to name but a few places. Consumed lots of ice cream and pizza!
Aldeburgh and Southwold
A group of Birchwood’s A Level Geography students recently embarked on a 4-day excursion, two days devoted to the physical side of geography in Aldeburgh and Southwold and the other two days were to focus on the human aspects in the city of Cambridge. This trip is part of the A Level course and was for us to further explore and develop our primary data collection methods. This would then in turn aid us with our independent investigation, which counts as 20% towards our final grade.
Remembrance Rocks
As we commemorate the 100 year anniversary of WW1 the school wanted to remember each of the individual Stortfordian soldiers who died and we set ourselves the target of painting poppies on rocks together with the names of the 208 Stortfordians who are remembered on the town’s war memorial.
The idea was inspired by a combination of the ‘Shrouds of The Somme’ project and also the ‘Stansted Stones’ idea you may have seen on Facebook. We accidentally missed the end of WWI and went into WWII so rather than leaving the project unfinished we have created remembrance rocks for the remainder of the town’s fallen, as commemorated on the town’s war memorial.
Special thanks to Mr Morton for making this possible.