Friday Headlines
the weekly newsletter from EHS
Year 10 Investigates Inequality in Birmingham
11 October 2024
On Friday, 4 October, Year 10 GCSE Geography students embarked on their first fieldwork trip, spending the day gathering data from two areas of Birmingham - Balsall Heath and Dickens Heath, in an effort to explore the question, “Does inequality exist in Birmingham?”
Grace B (Year 10) has kindly shared a detailed account of the trip with us:
Our day began with an early morning coach ride to Balsall Heath, where we starting off by looking at the shops on the High-street, so that we could get an estimated Retail Value Score. This score indicates the political, economic activity and viability of a specific area for retail businesses, exploring and assessing factors including population density, competition, consumer spending power, and social demographics.
Next, in groups we observed housing along certain streets, carrying out three different surveys:
Environmental Quality Survey: This shows how areas are maintained and how much money is put into these places.
Building Decay Survey: This allows us to observe how well-kept houses are.
Vandalism Survey: This helps us to understand how locals, residents, public and the council treat an area.
These surveys truly helped us gain a better understanding of both areas, in the context of their residents, and how much money is put into these places, shedding light on how differently some areas of Birmingham may be treated.
After our investigations in Balsall Heath, we headed to Dickens Heath to replicate the same methods of data finding and surveys. After a long morning of gathering key information for our GCSE Fieldwork specification, some of us piled into a Costa for a nice cup of Hot Chocolate, where we shared our findings with our peers, discussing our thoughts and what we had learned.
On our way back to the coach, some of us stopped to test the children’s play area just beside the Dickens Heath High Street (certainly a crucial part of the Geographical research!).
After we had arrived back at school for lunch, we spent the afternoon analysing our results, and looking into why the areas were the way they were. This involved looking into local health data, employment data, crime data, house prices, and indices of deprivation, all of which helped broaden our understanding of both Balsall Heath and Dickens Heath.
This research has helped us in our understanding of how there is inequality in Birmingham, and will certainly be very useful when it comes to learning about this topic in our GCSE lessons.
Thank you to Miss Leason, Mrs Egan and Mrs Crimp for taking us on this trip.
