A Review Of The ESL trip To Whitby Museum, By Year 11 Pupil, Emma (from Germany).

Our ESL (English Second Language) teacher took my year and the ESL class from year 10 to Whitby Museum. We all met in front of the Main House of Fyling Hall School at 9am. The weather was fabulous, it was a cool morning but there only were a few clouds in the light blue morning sky.

When we arrived in Whitby we got off the bus and I saw my favourite take away shop which sells the most delicious Korean food and even though I had already eaten a huge amount of warm toast with cheese and butter I started to get hungry again.

Sadly the shop wasn’t open because it was too early in the morning, therefore we just went past it and made our way to the famous 199 steps of Whitby Abbey. However, we didn’t climb the steps to the Abbey as all of us in the ESL group were very tired, which is sad because we all missed the amazing view over the small town with its red roofs and the sapphire blue sea which mirrors the sky and the small fluffy clouds which looked like cotton candy.

The ruin of the abbey looked friendly in the morning sun I think it had to look beautiful and noble.

We left the steps and crossed over the River Esk through the old town. I was surprised by how awake the small old town was because it was early in the morning. When we reached Pannett Park we were met by many squirrels which were running around energetically and my friend and I got very close to one of them and took some very cute pictures. After that we photographed some of the flowers. The flowers in the garden were gorgeous and had an incredible scent.

After five minutes the museum opened and we went in. Our task was to answer questions about different artefacts in the museum, historical information about the town, maritime history and key figures in the town’s history. We had been learning about the local area in our English lessons and this was particularly important for the pupils who have just arrived at the school and do not know much about the town.

Exploring Whitby Museum

The first thing that caught my attention was a beautifully drawn picture of a pole cat. This inspired me to also draw a pole cat and put it into an art book to be hung up in the art gallery. The second thing that caught my attention was the hand of glory. A hand that when lighted helps thieves to steal without being caught.

While in the museum we discovered many extremely interesting facts about the town’s history. The oldest artefacts in the museum were arrow points crafted out of flint from around 500BC and we also saw information about the Synod of Whitby from 664AD. This is where many important Christian administrators gathered to argue and decide about the date of Easter. I noticed many statues of Captain Cook around the town and we found out that he sailed around the world from Whitby and discovered new lands and continents.

The timeline shown in the museum that interested me the most was the maritime history. There were many amazing and fascinating stories about whale fishing and lots of sculptures of boats, some carved out of wood or even bones. Whitby used to be known for whale fishing. On one hand it was an extremely dangerous job that could cost you your life but it could also make you famous and line your pockets with gold.

However, the most astonishing thing in the museum were the elegant pieces of jewellery made out of dark black jet which was very famous during the Victorian era. The fossils are extremely common in Whitby because where the sea is today used to be land with huge trees and jet is wood that existed a long time ago and over millions of years turned into stone. I finished my question paper and we all met to discuss our answers.

The trip was amazing and I really enjoyed it. I really hope that we will be able to do one in the future. The museum was fascinating, I never thought that the town would have had so much history and I hope we can visit it again soon.