A level geography students travelled to the beautiful setting of Southwold in Suffolk with Mr Jenkins and Mrs Rodell-Jones, for 3 days to complete invaluable planning and data collection for their coursework, worth 20% of their grade.

The town offers the perfect location for geography fieldwork with its range of human and physical issues as well as working on a manageable scale due to it being a small seaside town. Such as the 70% second home ownership leading to a decline in the local population which then leads to lack of funding for public services, unaffordable house prices for families and a “ghost town” type feel. Despite this, tourism continues to be a booming industry with its famous Adnams brewery and distillery which owns considerable assets in the town and the town has largely been able to avoid the inevitable deterioration of many historic UK coastal resorts leading to excellent environmental quality. As well as this, students had the opportunity to explore physical themes if they wished, such as coastal management and its effectiveness including a local resident that took coastal protection into his own hands that lead to many local social and environmental conflicts. Not only this but students could study classic geography themes like longshore drift and measure beach profiles that are associated with the coastal processes at work by the North Sea.

The students were a real credit to the school and had a fantastic time as well as gaining priceless knowledge and data for their coursework. It was a real bonding experience for teachers and students alike and many have said that they will be going back.