One of the most noticeable things about travelling through Belgium is that you see cemetery upon cemetery by the roadside, each filled with row upon row of graves. Each of the men buried there gave their lives for their country, no doubt suffering appalling conditions. The battlefields trip is an ideal way to try and understand the feelings and experiences of the men who fought in the trenches; by walking through reconstructed trenches, by looking at artefacts from the war and even by using interactive technology to bring history to life.
Year 10 set off from Morrison’s car park at 6:15 am on Thursday 1st May and arrived at Meningate Youth Hostel, Ypres, at around 8 pm. The accommodation and food that we had helped to make the trip an enjoyable experience. On the way there we had visited the Bunker D’Eperlecques and La Coupole; in both places V2 rockets were launched and many slave labourers lost their lives during the Second World War.
Over the next two days, of the many sites we visited, several stood out for me. 
The crater at La Boiselle was particularly striking, the largest preserved on the Western Front, around 100 feet wide and 50 feet deep. Beaumont Hamel is a place where many Canadians from the Newfoundland Division were slaughtered on the opening day of the Somme offensive. The memorial mound with a native Canadian animal atop it, a caribou, was especially moving as it faced Newfoundland, a place many of the young Canadians who fought there never saw again. From on top of the mound you can see the entire battlefield, the Allied positions, the German positions and the exposed ground the troops had to cross to get to the German trenches. We also saw danger tree, the point which was the furthest the Canadians were able to advance to, which was quite moving knowing how many people died trying to just get there. Of the cemeteries that we visited, Tyne Cot seemed to be the largest one, the majority of the bodies coming from the bloody battle of Passchendaele. Visiting it and seeing the huge number of graves and even greater number of people on the memorial to the missing brought home just how many people lost their lives. The highlight of the trip for many was the visit to the reconstructed trenches at Sanctuary Wood. There, in contrast to the other trenches we saw, it was very muddy and wet, hopefully giving us an insight into what it was like for the soldiers living there for days on end. We had lots of fun here, with one or two of us falling into water-filled shell holes, to the amusement of others.
On top of all the fun we had and all the hard work we did, the trip really reminded us of the huge human sacrifice given by millions of soldiers. Nothing else better helped us to remember this than the deeply moving Last Post ceremony held at the Menin Gate on Saturday at 8 pm. The large crowds present reminded us how many people are indebted to the soldiers of the Great War. As the bugle sounded, the stillness and silence of everything else showed what respect these soldiers’ memories commanded and many of us thought deeply about these issues. It’s great that Verulam can visit the battlefields; it helps us think about the sacrifice given in the past and perhaps also what the future holds for us. We should like to thank all the teachers involved in the planning and leading for making it such a great trip for all of us.
Peter Redmayne, 10C
Every headteacher will tell you that homework is the proverbial hot chestnut in most schools. It is either seen as too much, too little, not marked enough or of dubious quality. Boys receive regular homework and most of them do it most of the time but we still do not always see enough impact in terms of self-organisation, independent research skills or meeting deadlines when the students reach the upper school or Sixth form. Surely the whole point of homework is to develop good study skills and independent learning? We have started a schoolwide consultation involving staff, students and parents on our homework policy and current systems. We are looking at best practice elsewhere and we hope to come up with some interesting new ways to improve the quality of the homework experience. Mrs Turner, my deputy, is inviting parents to an evening discussion on Tuesday 13th at 7.30 pm in the Maths Block. Please give her a ring or email by Monday lunchtime.
