English Study Tours

Study Subject : English

Location : Belgium and Northern France

Prices From : £169

Duration : 4 days, 3 nights

Tour Description : Our interdisciplinary tour is designed to compliment English, History and Art courses on the early twentieth century and offers the chance for pupils to experience the reality of war and the impact of the conflict on an entire generation. Pupils can follow the war experiences of individual poets and artists by visiting the battlefields where they were inspired and learning about the trenches where they lived and worked. Pupils will visit museums, galleries, memorials and war graves, and experience the moving ceremony of the Last Post at the Menin Gate. There is also the option to include an exciting visit to the Bellewaerde Theme park (entry cost not included). If you have any specific schemes of study that you would like to follow, we will be happy to arrange your tour around that, aiming to encourage your pupils to improve their skills in an interdisciplinary environment. Your accommodation will be in a comfortable budget class hotel conveniently placed for outings within both France and Belgium.

What's Included :

• Door to door executive coach travel

• Short Channel Crossing

• Full use of the coach (subject to drivers' hours)

• 3 nights bed & breakfast accommodation

• Tailor made programme of visits (entrance costs not included)

• Poetry Anthology to compliment your tour

• Comprehensive travel insurance

• 1:10 free place ratio for staff

Sample Itinerary :
Day 1: Depart from your school by coach. You could break your journey with a visit to the Imperial War Museum on the way to Dover to visit the galleries that contain important works by British artists. After your short channel crossing to France you will travel to your hotel, arriving in the evening.
Day 2: After breakfast, make a visit to the battlefields of the Ieper Salient and the Passchendaele area. The Sanctuary Wood Museum preserves an original section of the 1918 trenches (entry cost not included). The cemetery at Tyne Cot and the German cemetery at Langemark reveal the human cost of war and the importance of memorial art. In the afternoon pupils can visit the award winning "In Flanders Field" Museum. The museum provides the opportunity to experience aspects of the war in the guise of a soldier on the Front, a nurse or an inhabitant of the area. It also contains some works of art and references to the poets. In the evening you will visit the Menin Gate and see the ceremony of the Last Post, which is held here every night at 8 o'clock. An evening meal can be arranged for you in Ieper (cost not included).
Day 3: Concentrating on the battles of the Somme the tour includes visits to museums, memorials and the sites where many poets saw action and some died. The day starts outside Serre, between cemetery 1 and 2, is the site of the 'dug out' that inspired Wilfred Owen's poem "The Sentry". Also a visit to the Danger Tree can be used to contrast the extant relics of natural destruction with the devastation paintings of Nash. A small detour can follow a walk described by the poet Edmund Blunden. A visit to the Memorial to the Missing at Thiepval and to the memorial marking the site where tanks were first used in battle can also be made. A visit could also be made to the only surviving crater at La Boiselle, which was created by the Lochnagar mine. This visit can be used to refer to modern works relating to WW1, such as "Birdsong". You will then visit Mametz, an area that inspired the poetry and prose of Sassoon and Robert Graves, and that also contains the grave of William Hodgson. The final visit is to the Historial of the Great War at Péronne. This museum contains over 50 etchings by Otto Dix in the "Der Krieg" cycle, as well as exhibitions, galleries and audiovisual displays about the Somme battles. From Péronne you could return to your hotel via Ors (near Cambrai) to see the site of Wilfred Owen's grave.
Day 4: Depart from your hotel after breakfast and visit Vimy Ridge to see the remarkable sculptures at the memorial to the Canadian soldiers and the restored trenches. You may wish to include a visit to a hypermarket prior to your arrival at Calais for the return channel crossing in the afternoon. Return to school in the evening.

Excursions : You can visit the trenches in Sanctuary Wood or visit the In Flanders Field museum. The Historial of the Great War at Peronne is a modern museum covering life at the front and behind the lines.

For more information on this tour, "Poetry and War: the Soldier Poets of WW1", or for a free quote submit an online enquiry below. Fields marked with a * are required.

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