Group 2 - Salisbusy & St Edmunds Girls' and Sports College

Today, we travelled from London to Salisbury. We reached St. Edmunds Girls’ and Sports College and we were warmly welcomed. After a brief introduction about the school and having a little refreshments, we were brought around on a tour of the school by the senior prefects of the school (Year 11s, they’re the same age as us!)

We learnt that St. Edmunds is not the only school in the area of Salisbury and that there are 2 other schools that are located right next to St. Edmunds! On the right is a co-ed school and on the left is a boys’ school. The school also has an average enrolment of about 800 students (Cedar has 1300) and the students studying in the school are from the age of 12 to 16 (Year 7 to Year 12), and is slightly different from the system that we have here in Singapore.

Their curriculum is also similar to ours and the only differences are that they also take Religious Studies as one of their humanities subjects that they will be tested on during their GCSEs. Also, instead of taking Mother Tongue like us, they learn either German, French or Spanish (they can take more than one foreign language too). Their canteen is also different. Instead of having many vendors to sell food, they have one vendor to sell a variety of food. They also have a Pasta Bar that sells pasta too!

Following the visit to the school, we proceeded to Stonehenge, a stone monument that was built around 5000 years ago. The monument changed from between 3000 BC to 1600 BC and is aligned with the rising and setting of the sun at the solstices. Stonehenge has allowed historians to learn how people of the past transported rocks from one place to another and also has significant historical value attached to it. Some of the stones used in the structures weighed over a hundred tons!

Later in the afternoon, we visited Old Sarum, the original site for the Salisbury Cathedral. The massive Iron Age hill fort of Old Sarum was reused by the Romans, Saxons and Normans befre it grew into one of the most flourishing settlements in England.

Compared to the buildings and monuments that we have in Singapore, the sites that we visited today contained structures that are much older than the ones that we have in Singapore due to the fact that our nation was founded in 1819, and even then, although it existed before 1819, most of the island was covered in flora and most of the structures on it were made of wood and straw (or other easily destroyed materials), making it hard to preserve, unlike those found in Salisbuy. Most of the buildings were made of stones and sometimes metal, making it easy to preserve for the use of the future generations.

The buildings that we visited also hold much historical value and also enables the people to learn from them in terms of learning how to build more stable and sustainable buildings as if the people of the past could build such outstanding and impressive buildings that were long lasting, we should also be able to do it now, especially with the technology and vast array of resources that we have at our disposal.

-Maria, Jingwen, Zhuoen, Shereene & Margie