Remembrance Day
Teaching Children about War & Commemoration
Welcome to All in Our Western Family
Our aim is to channel children's curiosity to allow them to understand our present freedoms and indeed democracy are as a result of conflicts in the past and a need to defend these against others who would prefer a different type of society. Unfortunately, as many of our children are aware, conflicts and all the harm they cause remain an affliction in modern times!
At this time I would also like to mention Ann Bramley who volunteered for many years at Western. Unfortunately Ann passed away a little over a year ago. Ann was a selfless person who took enormous efforts to commemorate Remembrance Day in our school. As a volunteer, she would help create and display work by the children as it was an event very dear to her. As all our staff and Ann agreed, it was important for our modern children to have an understanding and respect for this annual act of commemoration. At Western we miss her and appreciate all she did for the school and its children and staff.
James Craven, History Subject Leader
Nursery's Remembrance Topic
Reception's Remembrance Topic
Year 1's Remembrance Topic
A Poem Created by Year 1
Red poppies bobbing and blowing in the wind,
Between the green grass.
Making us remember the soldiers who died,
Between the green grass.
I'll stand at my front door
With memories of my grandad and brave ones before,
Between the green grass.
Poppies growing in the rain and sun
We will remember them
Between the green grass.
Year 2's Remembrance Topic
This week we have been looking at the different roles people had during The Great War and World War 2. We learnt that some people worked in the Army, Navy or RAF and had to be away from their families in other countries like France. This prompted lots of discussion about our own families and the children were keen to share stories and artefacts from home.
We also explored what rationing would be like by comparing recipes from today and during WW2. During the war, families used different ingredients to bulk out recipes when food was often very scarce. We followed instructions to make carrot cookies which divided the children's opinions on the taste!
Carrot 'cookies' world war 2
eating very cautiously
Year 3's Remembrance Topic
Children in year 3 researching, cooking and consuming
Consuming
Year 4's Remembrance Topic
A Year 4 child's acrostic poem
Year 5's Remembrance Topic
This week Year 5 have been learning all about the causes of WW1 in Literacy and History as part of Remembrance Week. They explored some war poetry and thought about the effects of the poet’s choice of powerful language on us as readers. We also created a poppy display to signify our remembrance of those who died during conflicts. In Literacy, we researched key information about WW1 and created fact files to help us organise everything we had learnt, including information about what it was like for soldiers to live in trenches, which weapons soldiers used during the fighting and what they wore in the trenches.
Year 6's Remembrance Topic
Art from Year 6 linked to conflict
Armistice Day Assembly
Parental Feedback
It is so lovely to hear all of your lovely comments about the Remembrance work children have been doing in class and to hear about all of the additional things you are doing at home to enhance and develop your children's understanding of such an important event.
"The recent work on Remembrance has really engaged and interested them both - we seem to have talked about nothing else at the dinner table all week! This weekend we have been inside a WW2 coastal lookout bunker, watched the ceremony from The Cenotaph, observed the 2 min silence and visited our local war memorial, all fuelled by their enthusiasm in the topic. They also told me to "search for 'bunny and poppies' - that's what the teacher does" so that we could watch the video that they have watched in class! I'm glad they did - it was beautiful."
For those parents and carers who would like to watch the CBeebies Poppies clip please click on the link below: