St.Peter’s C of E Aided School in Exeter has been working in partnership with All Saints Community Day Secondary School in Mtunthama, Malawi for the past three years and together the two schools have developed a number of joint curriculum projects in Art, Geography and International Studies. Last year students from both schools compared data from their coastal fieldwork at Dawlish Warren and Nkhotakota, on Lake Malawi and hope to develop further joint projects of this type.

As part of the UNESCO Associated Schools programme, the Jurassic Coast Team supported the school linking programme which helped young people learn about the World Heritage Sites on their doorstep. Malawian students from All Saints had a chance to visit Lake Malawi World Heritage Site. Their mission was to investigate the impact of human activity on the unique ecosystem of Lake Malawi and compare their findings with a similar study undertaken by students from St.Peter’s C of E Aided School, in Exeter, who recently visited the Jurassic Coast courtesy of a small grant from the Jurassic Coast Trust.

For many of the Malawian students this was their first visit to the lake. They carried out questionnaires of local people who live on the edge of the park, in small fishing communities and interviewed National Park officials before undertaking environmental quality surveys of the area. They concluded that there is a great deal of pressure on this World Heritage Site from a growing population and over-fishing, as well as the pressure to develop further tourism opportunities along the lake shore.

St. Peter’s decided to use the grant money with their Able & Talented Year 8 & 10 Geography students on a project about the MSC Napoli, that had recently been grounded near Branscombe.  They took the title ‘How has the MSC Napoli affected the life of East Devon’ as a starting point. 

The students first went to Branscombe beach and saw the wreck for themselves and heard from Dr Khatwa about the implications for the World Heritage Site.  Small groups of students then interviewed business owners in Branscombe and the Year 6 pupils at Branscombe Primary School.  Later on some students went to Beer and spoke to Mrs Farrell from the Beer Marine Heritage Centre as well as interviewing locals & tourists, whilst another group went to Sidmouth repeating the questionnaires.

The students became very involved in this project and many were upset for the Branscombe residents.  The teachers were pleased with the sensible and thoughtful approach of the students as opinions did become heated on the wreck.

St Peter's are very pleased that the results of the students’ work can now be seen here and they hope you will enjoy reading it – will you reach the same conclusions as they did?