Form 8 French Trip - Cross-Curricular Spectacular!

Date: Tuesday 29 September 2009

The school year began with great excitement for Form 8 as they had just two weeks to prepare for their four-day cross-curricular field trip to France. After two French-free months, there was some hesitation as they practised ‘Bonjour Monsieur, je voudrais deux tranches de jambon / un poulet rôti / trois baguettes. C’est combien? Merci et au revoir.’ Without exception, they all achieved the aim of buying their picnic lunches at the market in Boulogne, and they thoroughly enjoyed eating them too!

A variety of activities followed. There were walks to and along beaches to observe the effects of Long Shore Drift (Mr Marshall’s pet topic for the trip!) and the interviewing of French passers-by in St. Valery-Sur-Somme (an opportunity for Mr Marshall to wax lyrical about the estuary of the River Somme). We visited the First World War battlefield site of Beaumont-Hamel where we walked through trenches and tried to imagine the horrors of the first day of the Somme on 1^st July 1916 when so very many young men on both sides lost their lives. It was fitting that we went on to visit the huge memorial at Thiepval, commemorating the missing of the Somme battles. Lily Collard was moved to see the name of her great-great-uncle, Collard L.S., on the memorial. As always, we laid a wreath in memory of the two St Edmund’s old boys listed amongst the 75,000 names there.

Our sombre mood on the Somme gave way to excitement as we drove on to Paris and it was with a sense of relief at the end of a long journey as well as genuine wonder that the coash was filled with ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ at the first sighting of the Eiffel Tower. First stop was the Louvre where we saw amongst other great treasures the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo. We then made tracks to a very interesting restaurant, l’Auberge Père Louis, which was frequented by many famous artistes in the past, including Charlie Chaplin. The service was excellent (imagine – Parisian waiters actually smiling!) as was the food of which very little was uneaten. If anyone wishes to go there, it is just opposite Les Folies Bergères, but rest assured, we didn’t take the children there!

After a good night’s rest in a hotel, we set off for our sightseeing trip early next morning, beginning with the Eiffel Tower. Not everyone can tolerate heights (or even lifts), and two pupils were quite reluctant to head upwards but luckily Mrs. K is a fellow sufferer and with a lot of gentle persuasion, together with a comforting hand to hold, all three puffed up nearly 700 stairs to the second level – a significant achievement under the circumstances! There was little time to rest though as the rest of Paris beckoned. Our superb driver, Manuel, went way beyond the call of duty in giving us his own guided tour of the city complete with endless snippets of information. He even found us the best possible spot for our picnic lunches in a lovely park with seating for us all. Our last stop, Montmartre, was also much enjoyed for its views, its street entertainers and the artists in the Place du Tertre, one of whom drew caricatures of several of the pupils, to their great delight.

Sadly, it was all too soon for us to make the return journey and to return a bunch of very tired but very happy children to their parents. Hopefully, their enthusiasm for visiting France has been sufficiently fired up for them to want to return again and again. The teachers on the trip certainly never tire of this very worthwhile trip!