Geography Trip
Parents of some students at Newlands Girls’ School are irritated about a recent trip to Disneyland Paris.
In February 34 pupils from Year 9 and 10 at Newlands went on a geography trip to Paris and Disneyland. Although the students went to architectural monuments such as the Eiffel tower, Notre Dame and The Sacre Coeur they also spent some time in the theme park Disneyland.
It was this part of the trip that led to conflict between parents and children about whether the trip was actually educational. Pupils spent one day of a three day trip in Disneyland Paris. Many were wondering how Disneyland was linked to geography and education
There are beneficial sides to the trip. The students will have gained knowledge about where some major French monuments and attractions are. Also they will have gained a better understanding of why things attract tourists and about travelling too. Eve who went on the trip talked to us about how she felt it helped her “It was very educational we did lots of work in the park and that benefits us because our next topic in geography is Disneyland” she commented.
We spoke to Mrs Turner about how she felt the trip benefited pupils who attended. “Absolutely, it focused on tourism, looking at the sphere of influence for Disneyland. It was cross curricular, involving geography, history, art and languages” she said.
Yet other people have very different opinions to this and would say that there is no link between geography and Disneyland Paris. A student’s parent commented “I can’t see the link between Geography and a school trip to Disneyland Paris”
It wasn’t just parents that felt that the trip was just to get a couple of days away from school but some of the teachers from different departments didn’t understand how it was educational. Ms Humphrey an English teacher said, “When I first heard about the trip I thought it was a jolly trip and didn’t understand whether it had much educational value”