As part of the AS Level Geography syllabus students are required to participate in field work. This is an exciting part of the course that develops practical skills in order to gain a better knowledge and understanding of field work techniques and to bring life to areas studied in class.

The Alton Convent group set off on Sunday morning and travelled to Swanage, Dorset, to begin our three day trip. The girls explored a variety of local villages to study how rural areas are managing to rebrand themselves to cope with changing circumstances in work and demographics. It was interesting to visit farms that had diversified and see community initiatives created to attract people back to rural areas. We also spent time studying coastal process, management strategies and conflicts of interest that arise in coastal environments.

On Monday, Mrs Bell (a former teacher at Alton Convent) came into school to talk to Y6 about her visits to St Joseph’s School in Varanasi, India. Like our own school. St Joseph’s was founded by the sisters of Our Lady of Providence. There are many other similarities between the two schools. For instance, they study similar subjects each day including two languages (we learn English and French; at St Joseph’s, they learn English and Hindi). They work very hard indeed, they wear school uniform and they enjoy art, drama and music. Just like us, they love chocolate! Mrs Bell brought us a selection of beautifully drawn cards and lots of photos showing the children dressed in their smart new school uniform and enjoying an open-air assembly.

Year 5 went on a walk to Alton High Street. There were five groups, each one with a teacher and we got into pairs with the people in our group.

Once we got there, we dropped off a group at a time until we were scattered around the High Street in our groups. Each pair got a clip board with tally charts and questionnaires on it. We counted what type of vehicles we saw in five minutes ad were very surprised by how many bikes there were. We also interviews young men and women from Alton College and got some interesting answers from them about the traffic and how it is controlled in the area. We looked at that as well.

We were greeted by smiley staff in bright red T-shirts. We knew this was going to be a great day. We went in through barns of horses, chicks, pigs and a herd of alpacas to name a few and then saw the huge selection of activities in the grounds.
There were set show times that we didn’t want to miss and lots of supervised activities for the very adventurous or those requiring a more gentle experience.
Tovi and Thomas went on the stage to feed the sheep and Daisy the cow ate lots of oranges… and wouldn’t leave the stage without being given yet another orange!
Bug ride zoomed around the park and you really had to hold on to your hats, well actually the steering wheel, we were soaked by pirates shooting water at us!
Crazy golf was a challenge with the hidden bumps and curves and a variety of styles were observed to get a hole in one, from gentle swings of the club to a little helping hand or foot to secure success!
Bumper boats caused a splash and an excuse to bump in to a friend.
‘Land ahoy’ as Reception climbed aboard the big ship which was standing room only!
Lunch in our very own covered picnic area was a real treat and lots of birds followed us.
Spider towers, tractor rides and a great wooden adventure area left the children just wanting more.
We ended the afternoon with ice-lollies and we thanked the staff at the farm for their kind attention. They told us it had been a pleasure to have Alton Convent School visit for the day as all the children were very polite and well behaved. What a great day!

On Thursday 17th April the lower sixth geographers visited Guildford with Salesian College in order to define the boundary of the Central Business District and to determine whether Guildford fitted the standard model of core and frame areas.

The five girls and the boys from Salesian formed groups of twos and threes and each group took a different route. We investigated building height and age of building as well as the cleanliness and appearance of different sites along our route. We counted the numbers of pedestrians and cars in order to establish whether particular spots were busy or quiet. In addition each group were given particular areas to investigate the land use, some were primarily shops and others offices. It was then up to each individual group to describe where they felt the Central Business District of Guildford ended. At the end of the day, back at Salesian we each presented our findings and discussed what we had all found.

Day One

After solving the problem of fitting 11 bags into the minibus, we traveled for 3½ hours to Wales. Our first stop was Rhondda Valley Heritage Park. The old colliery, which first opened in 1870, has now been converted into an industrial museum. We started, after meeting our very Welsh guide, Howard, by tracking two families lives and how the coalmine had effected them. This gave an insight to life in the coalmines and a glimpse at their history. We were then taken down, or so we thought, into the coal mining tunnels. We learnt how the coal seams were blown apart, in order to be mined out, with a life like re-enactment, and the system they used to extract coal from each seam. We then simulated a ride back up to the surface, only to find ourselves at the surface the whole time; we hadn't been below ground at all!

Prep School Environment Prefect, Tilly, started the term by launching an initiative to encourage prep school pupils to recycle their Christmas cards. After explaining the scheme in assembly, a number of posters have appeared around the prep school as reminders of this excellent scheme, and Tilly has already passed on a number of prep school cards to be recycled.