An Olympian Visit for Burgess Hill Girls
A year of Integrated Studies about the Olympic Games culminated in an exciting day trip to London for the Year 7 pupils of Burgess Hill School for Girls.
Mr Tapping, Director of Academic Development, organised a busy itinerary based on the Regeneration of East London, focusing on the new developments for the 2012 London Olympic Games.
The Year 7 girls travelled to London Bridge on the early commuter train from Burgess Hill. The first building the party viewed, on leaving the station, was the amazing sight of The Shard. This incredibly high building soared a neck straining 300metres skyward, defying any photographs of the top from ground level.
The journey continued on the Jubilee Line to Canary Wharf and then on the Docklands Light Railway to Pudding Mill Lane. From here the objective was to view the Olympic Stadium, the Aquatic Centre and The Orbit. The Olympic Stadium was an impressive size. It seats up to 80,000 spectators and is the third largest stadium in England. The dipping roof of Zaha Hadid’s Aquatic Centre was easy to identify, as was the red steel structure of The Orbit. This completed our tour of the Olympic Park South and we boarded the DLR for a view of the buildings in the North.
The Olympic Park (North) contains the Velodrome, the Basketball Arena, the Hockey Centre, Media Centre and the Olympic village. There was a lot of activity going on in the Village site which will contains 2,800 apartments, 4,300 houses and 1,800 places for the new school.
In the afternoon, the trip included a visit to the North Greenwich Peninsula and the O2 Arena. One pupil from class 7C summed up the day by saying, “The Olympic Experience was an excellent opportunity to learn interesting facts on London and the Olympics.”
The trip will bring the Olympic Games to life for all the students who visited the Park.
Written by Miranda Stevenson, Year 7