Worcester’s Wonderful Waterways

The team travelled with two classes from Beech Green Primary School on a Geography field-trip that explored rivers, canals and – of course – trains.

Prior to travel days, the students had an in-school workshop that covered all the important safety messages ahead of travelling by rail; students engaged marvellously in the workshop, which was evident from how their knowledge went from an average accuracy of 33% at the beginning of the workshop, to 95% by the end!

On the travel days, students arrived prepped, knowledgeable, and travel-ready, and there was joy in the air as they boarded the train from Gloucester to Worcester Foregate Street. When they arrived in Worcester, the team led them to The Historical Pod where they had a well-deserved snack and break, before starting their Wonderful Waterways Workshop.

The Platform team led students from the Pod to the riverside but, before they did, a water-safety briefing was given. Bravo to Year 3 students for quickly guessing that the acronym SAFE stood for Stay Away From the Edge!

A number of activities were delivered on the walk along the River Severn, including a task that introduced the different parts of a river, using technical terminology such as source, mouth, tributary, and confluence.

Students were introduced to the problem of flooding (and used the Flood Gate to identify what year the worst recorded flooding was), before heading to Diglis Basin Locks. This was the perfect spot to introduce the canal and identify the differences and similarities between rivers and canals.

After returning to The Pod for some lunch, the students used their knowledge from the morning discovery tasks to complete a series of consolidation activities, including working together to join up satellite images to show the course of the River Severn from source to mouth.

Before setting off for the return train, students had a story-time featuring the team’s favourite badger – Arlo – and all students were given their own copy of the book to keep; a lovely treat given that it was World Book Day that week.

There was a huge amount of fun on the return journey (and some sleepy children too) and the day ended with the students arriving back at Gloucester station and saying goodbye from there.

A huge thank you to GWR for providing free-travel for rail education, and to Worcester Civic Society and The Crowngate Shopping Centre for giving free use of The Historical Pod, meaning the whole day could be delivered at no cost to the school.

Ben Dawson, a teacher from Beech Green Primary, said, “The day was planned completely for us around our own specific requirements, following on from topic work in class, in which the children had the opportunity to revisit their learning and see things in ‘real world’ contexts. I was especially impressed with the thoroughness of the planning for the day’s tasks, and how directly relevant and engaging all the tasks and activities were.”