In the middle of Storm Franklyn and the aftermath of Storm Eunice young people from Jo Richardson Community School arrived at the centre, here to enrich their GCSE Geography course. The weather wasn’t going to stop them, and kitted up with the finest Trewern waterproofs and wellies, they’ve had a fantastic week of experiences that will hopefully last a lifetime (or at least until their exams!). They were here to enhance their fieldwork skills, especially decision making, but also to expose them to new environments and give them real life examples of content covered in class. We had a day in Talgarth looking at the Mill, which was rebuilt in 2010 as part of the Village SOS program, and its impact on the town, which we later compared with Capel-y-ffin at the other end of the rural continuum. We also had a day on the river Dulas, which forms the border between England and Wales looking at how it changes as it travels from its source towards its confluence with the Wye. A little light number crunching back at the centre allowed for a few activities alongside the hard work, so in the evenings the young people were able to use our low ropes course and climbing wall to blow away the cobwebs. It’s been a great few days, which we hope have been really memorable and valuable to give these students extra confidence going into their exams and will complement the fieldwork they will do over the coming months with the rest of the class.
We were really impressed with how conscientiously the students worked and how thorough they were in collecting data, especially arguing over how to rate environmental quality! Thanks to everybody involved in making this an excellent week, staff and students included. All the best for the future.
