By Mrs Bezzer (English Teacher)

The start of the new year may have been unceremoniously heralded by unrelenting grey skies and Arctic temperatures, but in our Year 8 English classes things have been hotting up as we’ve embarked on one of my favourite units of work to teach: travel writing! So far in 2026, our Year 8 students have found themselves stranded on desert islands as they’ve explored non-fiction travel writing forms such as diary entries and memoirs and engaged in heated debates regarding the best and most essential survival items for a Robinson Crusoe style life.

As we've moved away from the desert island (the ‘messages in a bottle’ were evidently successful in securing our rescue!), our thoughts have turned to holiday destinations as we have started looking at the travel writing form of the holiday brochure. The students will ultimately plan and create their own holiday brochure, persuading readers to choose from an array of exciting and desirable locations whilst following the conventions of this non-fiction writing form. To aid the planning process, I took my group for a tour of various potential holiday hotspots - all from the comfort of the LRC, with the help of the VR headsets!

The students had the opportunity to engage with and explore a number of different images from around the world - there were cityscapes and concrete jungles alongside tranquil beaches and firework festivals, and they enjoyed discussing what they had noticed and enjoyed about the range of locations. As a teacher, it was so exciting to be able to bring learning to life in a new and different way through the medium of the VR headsets. It was a joy to see everyone ‘locked in’ and have something to take away from the session and the impact in the classroom cannot be denied. Every student has been able to build on this VR experience and their holiday brochures are looking creative and persuasive as their ideas have moved from the virtual realm to the ‘real world’.