Youngsters took a step back in time when they visited the battlefields of Belgium and northern France.

The schedule saw 59 Borden Grammar School boys visit the Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery and the In Flanders Fields Museum, Ypres.

They also attended the daily service of remembrance at the nearby Menin Gate, where three students laid a wreath on behalf of the school.

In the 100th anniversary year of the outbreak of the First World War, there was more interest than ever among the youngsters in tracing ancestors who were lost on the Western Front.

As a result, six of them found records of family members, and several were able to find the names recorded on the memorials.

In addition, the party paid its annual visit to the grave of former pupil John Wells Welfare, who died on the Ypres Salient in 1917.

On the Somme, the students and staff visited sites where the famous assault on German lines was launched on July 1, 1916, with 60,000 casualties resulting in one day.

Later, they visited the Canadian Newfoundland Memorial and the monument to the British and Commonwealth troops at Thiepval.