There are some experiences that no textbook can replicate. Last term, our Year 9 and 10 students returned from a Battlefields trip that took them to some of the most significant and sobering sites connected to the First World War, and what they brought back with them went far beyond notes and photographs.

The itinerary centred on two of the war’s most defining campaigns; the Battle of the Somme and the Battle of Passchendaele. Students walked through cemeteries, stood in museums that gave voice to individual stories within an almost incomprehensible scale of loss, and visited the memorials that serve as a permanent record of those who never came home.

The highlight for many was the wreath-laying ceremony at the Menin Gate in Ypres, a ritual that has taken place every evening since 1928 except during the years of German occupation. To stand there, as part of that tradition, is to feel the weight of history in a way that is genuinely difficult to put into words, a memory which will stay with our students for a lifetime.

Trips like this are central to what we believe education should be. They ask students to slow down, look carefully and feel something; to move from historical facts into real human understanding. We are proud of how our students represented the school throughout the trip; thoughtful, respectful and genuinely engaged.