- County name: Greater London
- Group/School name: Bruce Grove Primary School
- Age group: 5 - 11
- Group type:
War Memorials Trust’s Learning Officer visited Bruce Grove Primary School, in London, in September 2014 to work with pupils in Key Stage 2.
The school’s Year 5 and 6 pupils were due to visit various war memorials in London later in the term around Remembrance Day, so their lessons focused on some of these memorials including the Cenotaph (www.warmemorialsonline.org.uk/node/122342), the Edith Cavell memorial (www.warmemorialsonline.org.uk/node/112067) and the Royal Artillery memorial at Hyde Park Corner (www.warmemorialsonline.org.uk/node/122319). WMT always tries to tailor our visits to any specific requirements like this that a school may have. Pupils were told the background history of these memorials and given some suggestions of things to look out for when they went to see them, such as the inscription on the Cenotaph and the names of VC and GC winners inscribed on the Memorial Gates. They were also told what these memorials help us remember and how many war memorials the UK has in total.
The pupils were also aware of the fact that 2014 was the start of the World War I Centenary and many had participated in the ‘Lights Out’ events that summer, and so they were able to understand the significance of the memorials they were going to visit.
Following this, the rest of the day was spent working with four classes of pupils in Years 3 and 4. These lessons were also preparation for a visit to Tottenham cemetery and war memorial (www.warmemorialsonline.org.uk/node/77145), so focused on these as well as on the general background history of why we have war memorials so that pupils understood the context of their visit. As with the older pupils earlier, each class was given some things to look out for during their visit and we told them the story of one of the casualties commemorated there to show them the sort of information they were able to find out. This was the cemetery’s youngest casualty, John Neville, who died in 1917 at the age of 16 after serving in the Royal Garrison Artillery. Photos of the Tottenham World War I memorial and the Civilians memorial in the cemetery can be seen above.
We were delighted to be able to support Bruce Grove pupils in preparing for their exciting visits to see local war memorials, and hope that the day was helpful for them and that they enjoyed their subsequent war memorial work.