On Wednesday 13th March, the Year 11 Geography cohort took a trip to Epping Forest, in order for them to undertake fieldwork needed for their GCSE.

The aim of the trip was to investigate how Debden Brook changed as we travelled further downstream. The students were given wellington boots and taught about how the investigation was to proceed, before heading out to the river. Whilst some of the students were initially sceptical about the allure of getting into the brook; all were eventually coaxed in: getting them out was the next challenge!

The students were introduced to a different form of fieldwork from their urban trip, utilising a variety of techniques to measure width, depth, velocity, slope angle, sediment size and shape. The most impressive part of the day, certainly from the staff point of view, was seeing the students wash their wellington boots afterwards! This was clearly a foreign concept to some but taken up with enthusiasm and care by all. The trip has provided the students with some excellent data they could use to answer questions in their GCSE exams.