Today was a dry day - hurray!

We had a 2 hour coach journey to our first destination, it rained along the way but the weather was fine and mild when we arrived.

Lochnagar crater was so vast it was a little beyond comprehension. The British had tunnelled under enemy lines and planted 27 tons of explosives. At 7.28am on 1st July 1916 it was detonated. The explosion ‘shook the ground like jelly’, flung earth and rock almost a mile into the air and created a crater 21m deep and 100m wide. The students walked around the crater reading all of the information boards and discovering the harrowing stories of exactly what happened following the explosion when the British advanced on the enemy lines.

The staff were all incredibly impressed and proud of the mature, thoughtful and reflective questions that the students asked about exactly what had gone on during that fateful day.

We then drove a short distance to the Thiepval Monument. A memorial to the missing of the Somme. 72,337 servicemen died in the Battle of the Somme with no known graves. The sheer scale of the monument that was required to fit all of the names on was almost impossible to comprehend. 8 massive plinths each covered with thousands of names.

The names of many of the fallen from Lochnagar crater were there - and the students made a point of successfully finding some of them. Again, totally reflective of the incredible way that the students have approached all elements of this wonderful trip.

Our final stop of the day was at Newfoundland Park. This is another Canadian War memorial (we all commented on how wonderfully organised and managed all of the Canadian sites were). It was particularly fascinating as the whole site of a major battle is preserved - both Allied & German trenches plus the no man’s land between can all be seen in such a small area giving a real understanding of just how close fought some of the battles were and just how small the gains were for such tragic loss of life.

Yet another terrific day immersing ourselves in the history of the war and developing a much keener understanding of just what WW1 means.

In the evening we had a team quiz with lots of different rounds that the teachers had devised based on all of our experiences over the past couple of days.

- Ms Walker