STUDENT REPORTS & ARTICLES
The Battlefields Trip 2016 Pg 5
Women in the Railway Industry Pg 6-7
Volunteering - what’s in it for you? Pg 10
My Involvement with the EU Referendum Pg 11
The Great Year 8 Debate
- an Insiders View Pg 12-13
Roaming Roman Ruins Pg 14
Chemistry - Salters’ Festivals Pg 15
Chemistry - National Science &
Engineering Competition Pg16
Lessons from Auschwitz Pg 22-23
STAFF & STUDENT REPORTS
Biology Olympiad & Biology Challenge Pg 15
Physics - CERN 2015 Pg 17
FEATURES
Mrs Wagner Q&A Pg 8-9
Art - Creative Career Path Showcase Pg 20-21
Poets Laureate Pg 24-25
Creative Writing Club Pg 25
Who Was... Michelangelo? Pg 30
Diamond Awards Pg 31
NEWS
PE Pg 18-19
Old Grammarian Alumnae Pg 26-27
PA Pg 29
4
Contents
Autumn
2016
STUDENT REPORT
The Battlefields Trip 2016
by Amber Siddique 10D and Charlotte Watson 10D
The Battlefields Trip in June 2016 had a very busy schedule. We visited
a great many museums and cemeteries, as well battlefields and trenches,
which had been left untouched since 1918. In addition, we saw memorials
dedicated to the fallen and missing soldiers of the First World War. We
visited the Indian War Memorial in Belgium which commemorates the
lives of 4,700 Indian soldiers who lost their lives in WW1 and have no
known graves. We also visited the Newfoundland Memorial site in France
dedicated to the commemoration of the whole of the Newfoundland
battalion that were killed on 1st July 1916, the first day of the Battle
of Somme. The memorial park encompasses 74 acres of original Somme
battlefield, and is the largest area of untouched Somme battlefield
that has been kept preserved. We also visited the Thiepval Memorial
in France dedicated to the missing British servicemen of the Battle of
the Somme. These men have no known graves; instead the memorial is
engraved with the names of 72,000 missing men. This was particularly
touching as it was the 100th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme.
As well as memorials, we visited several cemeteries in France and
Belgium which were both informative and shocking. The first cemetery we
visited was the Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery. During the years between
1915 and 1920, this was used as an evacuation hospital in the Ypres
Salient. The cemetery contains 10,784 burials, amongst which there is
one woman called Nelly Spindler. Nelly was a Staff Nurse but died at
the young age of 26 whilst treating front line soldiers with chest wounds.
The hospital treated soldiers from both sides and many nationalities, so
we saw French, British, German, Chinese and American graves as well
as some others. When looking around, some of us saw Jewish graves
which had the Star of David on them instead of the Christian Cross. These
particular graves might have had stones put upon them as a sign of
respect as this was a Jewish tradition. We visited the Last Post cemetery
at the Menin Gate, Notre Dame de Lorette French Cemetery, Tyne Cot
Cemetery and Langemark German Cemetery. The Germans were forced
to put all their graves into very few cemeteries because the French and
Belgian authorities at the end of the war did not want an obvious physical
reminder of the German occupation. In Langemark there are many mass
graves; the gravestones often have three or four men in each grave.
Some of us, as we walked by the graves, read out the names as these
names had not been spoken for so long to show our respect to them or we
placed poppies on their grave.
The Battlefields trip was truly eye-opening to the events of WW1 and
how they continue to affect us today. We thoroughly enjoyed the trip and
recommend it to anyone in or soon to be in Year 9 as it really changes
the way you think about and view WW1, not only comprehending the
large numbers of deaths but also the individuals who each had a family
and story of their own.
