The baton passes to the next generation as students learn first-hand the tragedy of war

It is one thing to read about trench warfare in textbooks, but when 17-year-old Matthew Bland stood at the memorials and saw the names of those who died, he said it really hit home.

“You also take into account the reality of it all – there were soldiers who were around my age,” said the St Benedict’s Catholic High School pupil. “This was easily one of the best trips I’ve ever been on because it was so meaningful. To witness such a crucial part of history was really interesting.”

The budding history student was joined by his 16-year-old friend Tom Shaw who said that the trip was a real eye-opener.

He said: “Seeing places like Tyne Cot military cemetery and Menin Gate and taking in the whole panoramic surroundings really gave the trip a sombre feel but, also, a sense of importance.”

Tyne Cot is the largest cemetery for Commonwealth forces in the world. It is located near located outside the Belgian town of Passchendaele where one of the bloodiest battles of the war took place.

The Battle of Passchendaele in 1917 killed hundreds of thousands of men on both sides of the conflict, many of them young. The boys said that the memorials and graves of thousands of men brought the horrors of the war to life.

The two students were awarded the opportunity of a lifetime as they took part in a four-day tour organised by Centenary Battlefields Tours (CBT), along with over 150 students from Cumbria and Lancashire. The students’ placement came about after the school was awarded two places by the CBT programme in June and put out a schoolwide competition to all the students. This consisted of a written application in which the students had to write why they should be selected for the role, how they would use the experience to influence both their school and community and why such an experience is important.

Tom and Matthew were both selected after careful consideration of all the applications as they were considered “exemplary role models for the school” and are both incredibly passionate about wanting to represent their school, their community and history.

Tom said: “The trip was a real eye opener. Seeing the site and witnessing the whole experience is so different to hearing about it or reading about it in a textbook.”

When asked if they could pinpoint what was the most specific memory of the whole trip, both boys agreed it was the poignant Last Post ceremony at the Menin Gate: members of the local fire cadets played the Last Post while students from schools all over the country laid wreaths. Menin Gate Memorial to the Missing marks the deaths of almost 55,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers who were killed in the Ypres Salient of World War One.

Miss Sarah Coan, subject leader of history, said: “This was a fantastic opportunity for our students to contextualise issues they examined in their history lesson – there is no substitute for visiting a historical site and establishing a personal connection.

“The memory of this will last a lifetime. The visit was an opportunity to understand the scale of the First World War on an international and local scale, including recognition of the contribution of people from Cumberland including Abraham Acton, Whitehaven’s only recipient of the VC, from whom Matthew is descended.

“Tom and Matthew have always been excellent ambassadors for the history department and they will now have an important role to disseminate their experiences to the rest of our school through our Remembrance assemblies so that all students can continue a lifetime of learning concerning significant events from our past.”

The CBT programme, which is run by UCL Institute of Education and Equity, is designed to provide the opportunity for a minimum of two students and one teacher from every state funded secondary school in England to visit battlefields on the Western Front between 2014 and 2019.

The battlefield tours are a key part of the Government’s plans to commemorate the centenary of the First World War.