In order for the GCSE geography students to consolidate their knowledge of coastal landforms and collect primary data for fieldwork, the Geography department organised Year 11 fieldtrips to North Norfolk on Thursday 21 and Monday 25 September. Our first stop offered a boat trip with ‘Bean’s Boats’ from Morston Quay out to Blakeney point- a spit, which is a depositional landform. Spits are formed due to the transportation process of longshore drift which behind them create salt marshes and mud flats. This boat trip was especially interesting because we were only able to visit the spit at high tide; if we had come 6 hours later when the tide was out there would be no water but just mud and silt! A favourite highlight had to be the seal colony which we saw bathing in the sunshine right on the tip of Blakeney point. After our experience out on the water and a lunch break, we made our second stop at Hunstanton where we observed the sea defences which included the sea wall and groynes. We gathered our data by practising systematic sampling. This involved us taking a handful of pebbles from the north side of each groyne to measure the levels of attrition (the repeated action of rocks hitting each other and eventually wearing them down making them rounder and smoother along the beach). We also measured the height and length of each section of the groynes. This was to see if the groynes had trapped sand to help build up the beach for tourism and for beach protection. We observed the iconic striped cliffs made of carstone, red chalk and white chalk. We also learnt about the wave-cut platform which is a landform of erosion found at the bottom of the cliff which further developed our knowledge of coastal processes in action.

Overall, it was a most interesting trip and one that definitely helped to support and develop our knowledge of coastal landforms, processes and defences.

Maggie Bijster 11LM

On Tuesday 26 September (and all week really!) we celebrated European Day of Languages. Staff and pupils took part in a variety of activities including the following:

• Mr Shivas led a series of assemblies for all year groups about his experiences of languages and all the things they have enabled him to do in life.
• Throughout the week, staff wore badges with greetings in a variety of languages and pupils competed to find as many as they could. Many students found all or almost all of the greetings, including an impressive number of entries from 7A! The final winners were Lily Rose 11F, Marith 11LR and Edie 7A.
• Pupils experienced languages in some of their other lessons too, such as using German numbers in Maths lessons.
• All of Year 10 took part in a postcard competition where their task was to design a postcard to promote languages on one side and to show off their knowledge of languages on the other side. Judged on both artwork and language, our top 5 (in no particular order) were: Grace 10A, Ola 10W, Courtney 10A, Lizzie 10W, Amelie 10F. Well done!
• We once again held the Year 7 Great European Bake Off – some of the fantastic entries are pictured here. Thank you to Year 7 for your huge efforts. The delicious cakes were sold off by 6^th Form linguists in aid of Macmillan Cancer Care and raised £135. Deciding on a winner was really tough – we looked at the quality of the cake, as well as the design and how well they fitted in with the European theme. We finally decided on the top 3. In first place was the ‘Europe’ cake by Hannah and Amy in 7W, followed by Sophie in 7W with her ‘Norway’ cake in 2^nd place. In third place was Daisy in 7W with her ‘Guten Tag!’ cake with three layers of sponge in the colours of the German flag. Mentions for other brilliant cakes should go to Kamile, Issie, Isla, Scarlet and Ellie in 7W, Chloe in 7F, Winnie in 7L and Felicity, Eleanor and Edie in 7A. Well done!

Mrs L Samworth

Subject Leader - MFL