As heatwave conditions spread across the UK the Year 12 Geographers could not resist the temptation to head down to the South Coast. Our first stop was the stunning Studland beach. Here four kilometres of super soft sandy beach is managed by the National Trust. No time to get out our buckets and spades though as our intrepid students marched off to examine the formation of the coastal dunes. Amazingly the coastline here has been growing out to sea over the last 600 years. This is all thanks to a unique combination of wind first blowing lots of sand onshore and then some pretty special plants growing on top of it and trapping it into a series of ridges. This forms a particularly rare habitat of dune heathland that is designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest. The challenge here is for the National Trust to protect it from the 25,000 tourists that visit it on a busy day.

It was such a beautiful day that we then decided to head off to the wonderful Lulworth Cove. Over a hundred a fifty million years in the making, here we can witness an extraordinary contortion of geological evolution twisted against the aggressive might of pounding waves to form one of the most iconic coastlines in the UK. You enter the perfectly circular cove through the narrow jagged jaws of the ancient Portland Limestone. This then opens up to the backdrop of towering chalk cliffs. It is amazing to think these rocks were all formed under the sea millions of years ago and are now elevated high above it. The group deepened their understanding of our remarkable coastline and even had some time to sneak in some fantastic Dorset ice-creams.