Year 11 Geography Field Trip
On the 23rd of January, Year 11 geography students, wrapped in about 50 layers of clothing, embarked on their second field trip. This was to gather data to analyse in our GCSE paper which discusses Geography around the UK. We explored the small, rural village of Berinsfield, a quaint, nucleated, commuter settlement situated just 13.1km away from the urban hub of Oxford.
We left Kendrick just after registration, and hopped on coaches which took us to Berinsfield. Once at the village, our coach-driver took us on a whistle-stop tour (with our Geography teachers doing amazing voiceovers) of the village, circling the sites we would gather data from. We had a particularly interesting insight, Berinsfield being the area Mrs Dunlop grew up in- we were even able to see her primary school!
We visited 6 sites, 3 from the West side of the village and 3 from the East, with a site from each side corresponding to the other. Berinsfield was an ideal place to complete our fieldwork, because the Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) highlighted a disparity in the deprivation between the east and west sides, the west being supposedly more deprived than the east - we wanted to investigate the accuracy of this secondary data, so we used multiple geographical techniques such as completing Environmental Quality Surveys and epitome word clouds. This allowed us to collect primary data, which we could compare the IMD and recent 2021 census data to.
Starting with the West of the village, we collected our primary data. For the villagers, it must have been quite a sight to see 72 secondary school students marching around their quiet village on a Monday morning! We ensured, however, to remain respectful and ethical.
We found it intriguing to see the variations 
not only between the sides, but also individual streets as well. This later proved useful for our evaluation and analysis of the village, and we concluded that we disagreed with the secondary data, having seen the village in person.
Finally, we would like to especially thank the geography teachers (Mrs Dunlop, Mrs Wheeler, and Mrs Sammons) for organising such an enriching, and memorable day. Special thanks to Mrs Wheeler, who advised us of the weather forecast in advance, so we didn’t freeze to death!!
By Ananya and Yun Yun