On the early morning of Sunday 19th May, the Geography A-Level students made their way to the impressive Reading train station to begin the trip to Bristol. Once we had reached Reading, there was a hectic and busy train journey ahead of us, before finally arriving in Bristol.
With all our mini suitcases and bags, we began our 20 minute walk to the hotel which provided some fresh air and sun after the chaotic journey. The 20 minute walk soon turned into an hour trek, as we had no choice but to change our route time and time again due to the Bristol half marathon. However, we eventually made it to the hotel where we dropped off our luggage, quickly freshened up and headed back out to the Bristol harbour side.
The first place we visited was M Shed, which was a museum about Bristol’s history located in one of the old warehouses. This allowed us to learn about Bristol’s past connections, slavery and migration, understanding how that has shaped Bristol in the present day. We then sat down by the harbour side, taking in the sun glistening off the river, and completed a field sketch. Finishing this, we carried out three final data collections before the end of the day (a derive, re-photography, local vs global) allowing us to have a little explore of Bristol. After a quick discussion of our findings, we headed back to the hotel to prepare for the following day.
On Monday morning, we walked to St Paul’s which was interesting to visit in real life as we had previously studied St Paul’s earlier in the year. As we made our way round St Paul’s, we completed another 3 data collections (Place Check, Environmental Quality Survey, Mental Mapping: Fear of Crime) which also taught us how to collect our data on our phones to prepare us for our NEAs, using Survey123. We then headed to Cabot Circus, where we had a lunch stop whilst admiring this spectacular new shopping centre. Here we finished another 2 data collections: I Spy a Stakeholder and Retail Value Survey. We compared our Retail Value Survey of Cabot Circus to The Galleries’ Retail Value Survey, which was an older shopping centre down the road. Unsurprisingly Cabot Circus’ value was much higher, showing the effects of regeneration in the area. After a fun, but tiring day we went back to the hotel for our final night in Bristol.
The next morning, before we left, we each had individual chats with our two geography teachers about potential ideas for our NEAs. We discussed the possible locations we were considering and data collections we could carry out, after practicing so many over the trip. Once we had finished our successful conversations, we made our final walk to the train station where we jumped on the train back to Reading.
Ellie W, Year 12
