Ellie Hind (Lower Sixth)

On Tuesday, the Lower Sixth A Level Geography students spent the morning walking through Bedford as part of the Changing Places element of the course.

We compared 12 different locations throughout Bedford to see how various parts of the town have been rejuvenated in previous years whilst other parts have remained the same. We will compare these results with those of our fieldtrip to Scarborough earlier in the year to enable us to compare and contrast the locations, in terms of their cultural, demographic and economic geography. It was also important to discover what it is that makes a place unique and gives it its own sense of place.

After seeing how diverse Bedford is in culture, buildings, environment and much more, we visited the Higgins museum to look at the Somewhere in England exhibition, giving us a much needed insight into how Bedford came to be the town it is. We found out about famous Bedfordians and we also looked at how people from all over the world have come to Bedford over the years influencing the community and shaping it into the diverse place we know today.

By looking back into the history of Bedford and by looking at how areas in Bedford contrast and differ today we have been able to develop our skills as a group of geographers, which we hope will allow us to look deeper into Bedford as a changing place in order to compare it to our coastal town of Scarborough. We are all looking forward to this new aspect of the course and learning all about the community around us.