Year 8 take in the wonders of Windermere

REPORT BY MR METCALFE, HEAD OF HUMANITIES

It’s that time of year again where the Geography department take Year 8 to Bowness on Windermere to carry out enquiry fieldwork.  

Following successful completion of the Tourism topic in class, the students travelled to Bowness over two dates to study the impacts of tourism in a honeypot site.  A honeypot site is an area of tourist interest that attracts visitors from all around the world, and this can bring with it both opportunity and challenge.

The students decided upon hypotheses before the fieldwork day, designing enquiry questions and suitable methods of investigation to try and prove or disprove their assumptions.  The main hypotheses that were tested were:

1)    Most people in the area of Bowness on Windermere would be tourists and that they would travel from both national and international regions

2)    The land use of Bowness on Windermere is designed for tourism

The students on both visit days were exceptional in their work ethic.  Students listened carefully to Mr Watters as he explored further study with them such as glaciation and economic activity.  They then had the opportunity to carry out their methods and record their results. 

Since returning to school, classes have been writing up their fieldwork study and looking at the conclusions and evaluations of the study, suggesting how to improve the study to ensure the results are both more accurate and reliable.

Both days were truly successful and once the investigation work was complete, we took a boat cruise around Lake Windermere where we were able to absorb the magnificent scenery of The Lake District and listen to a commentary all about the local area.  Many of the tourists on the boat were very complimentary about the Priory Standard displayed by our students.  Well done.

A special thanks to Mr Eccles, Mrs Kursitis, Mrs Qadri (not least for providing us with the best homemade samosas I have ever tasted!!), Mrs Saunders, Mrs Eastham and … of course, Mr Watters on his last ever Lake District fieldwork.  

Which leads me into a great opportunity to thank Mr Watters for all the hard work and dedication to Geography trips over the many years and for furnishing me with not only a professional insight into how to run successful and enjoyable visits, but for his knowledge and wisdom of all the places we have visited.  A truly magnificent educator.