- County name: Kent
- Group/School name: Bethersden Primary School
- Age group: 5 - 11
- Group type: Primary School
As part of Bethersden Primary School’s work to commemorate the start of the centenary of the First World War staff were keen for pupils to have an understanding of the importance of war memorials and what they represent. They therefore contacted War Memorials Trust to book a visit to the school. The Trust’s Learning Volunteers had just finished training and so were able to carry out a visit to the school in the summer term 2014.
With two Learning Volunteers carrying out the visit the whole school had the opportunity to take part and it was a busy day. To start the visit a whole school assembly explained to all pupils what Remembrance Day was and what war memorials are for. Following this the Year 6 pupils had a lesson about the ongoing importance of war memorials. This lesson looks in particular at the problem of vandalism to war memorials and some of the ways in which we can try to deter this. Pupils were particularly interested to learn about SmartWater and how this can help protect war memorials that are at risk. The pupils in this class had lots of questions for the volunteers and their interest in the subject was impressive. Looking at this issue can be a helpful way of getting young people to understand the ongoing relevance of war memorials – by seeing the impact of vandalism on the current community they can understand that the memorial is still as important to many people as it was 100 years ago.
The rest of the morning was spent with Year 3, who enjoyed a lively lesson looking in more detail at the history of war memorials; who and what they commemorate, how many there are in the UK and why they have been created by communities. They also looked at a range of different war memorial designs and discussed which ones they thought worked well at helping us remember wars and the people involved in them. They were particularly interested to find out that war memorials do not only help us remember people who died during wars, but can also commemorate those who served and survived, civilians and animals who were affected by conflict. Once again the enthusiasm of these younger pupils was great to see and it was particularly lovely when one pupil approached us after the lesson to say what he had enjoyed about it.
The afternoon was spent working with the pupils in Years 4 and 5. First of all they visited their local war memorial, a short walk from the school in the village churchyard. This helped them apply some of the information they had learned in the morning’s assembly – using War Memorials Trust’s Looking at a war memorial resource sheet they identified what type of war memorial it was, what it was made from and what they could learn by looking at the inscriptions on it.
The memorial is a granite cross set into the wall of the churchyard outside St Mary's Church in the village. It commemorates local people who died during the First and Second World Wars; their names are in lead lettering on a stone at the base of the cross. The memorial was built in 1920 by a local builder and unveiled on 22nd December 1922. In 2011 the memorial received a grant from War Memorials Trust which helped to repoint some of the joints and restore the lettering, which over time had weathered and was becoming difficult to read.
At the end of the visit to the memorial pupils made a note of some of the names on it and when they returned to school spent the remainder of the lesson learning how to research these online and find out about the actual people the memorial commemorates. This part of the day perhaps engaged pupils more than anything else; finding out some of the personal stories behind the memorials really helped pupils to understand the memorial’s significance because they felt they had ‘got to know’ some of the people remembered on it.
The visit to Bethersden School was, we hope, valuable for introducing pupils to the First World War centenary and its significance. The activities described above are outlined in more detail in our lesson plans and visits to other schools can be booked by contacting us.
