18 March 2024
Mr Roy Peachey, historian, teacher of English, author and all-round polymath, took a small group of Lower Sixth students to visit Birmingham and Aston universities as they consider higher education applications and career options. Anjali describes the dash up to Birmingham, demonstrating how much can be achieved by a group on a mission in just one day.
Anjali P, Lower Sixth
Last week, five of us in Lower Sixth were fortunate to go on a history trip to two universities with Mr Peachey, an experience that was hugely beneficial and interesting.
We started our day very early – resulting in many naps on the train as we took the three-hour journey up to Birmingham, where we were met by Woldingham alumna, Oriana. It was amazing to talk to someone who had been in our position only a few years ago as she gave us a tour of the University of Birmingham. Oriana was a very passionate tour guide and definitely gave us a lot to think about universities. She is clearly loving her time studying music at Birmingham.
After our interesting tour, we had a quick packed lunch on the train up to Aston University where we met Dr Brian Sudlow, who gave us an insight into the history of Aston before delivering a brilliant crash course in digital history as an introduction to a course rooted in applying history for the public - something very useful as we are considering studying history at university. We ended our day sitting in on an amazing university lecture given by our very own Mr Peachey about how he works to reshape history as a novelist of children’s literature, which allowed us to experience a real university level history seminar.
Although we almost met with disaster when our train was cancelled, we managed to sprint to catch a different train and were all thoroughly worn out after a wonderful day. Thank you to Mr Peachey for organising such a fantastic trip, which we all loved.