- County name: London
- Group/School name: Grangewood Independent School
- Age group: 5 - 11
- Group type: Years 1-2
Following visits in 2014 and 2015, War Memorials Trust were delighted to be invited back to Grangewood Independent School to work with their year 1 and 2 class as part of their topic on Remembrance and also deliver an assembly to the whole school. The visit by our Learning Officer preceded the year 1 and 2 class’s visit to their local war memorial in Central Park in East Ham where they intended to take part in an act of remembrance.
The visit began with an assembly with the whole school. Remembrance Day was used as the context for the assembly and pupils were asked to identify who and what is remembered on Remembrance Day. This led on to the idea that many people would be attending commemorative services at war memorials over the coming weekend and enabled a discussion around what war memorials are. To support this discussion, a selection of different types of war memorials from the local area were shown.
The time spent with the year 1 and 2 class was split into two sessions. The first session reviewed what war memorials are and allowed pupils to share all the words they associated with war memorials. The number of war memorials in the UK, why and when many were created was also covered. Pupils were also given detailed information about the Cenotaph in Central Park, East Ham (www.warmemorialsonline.org.uk/memorial/111374/) ahead of their visit. Information incorporated details about the design including who designed it, what it is made from, when it was erected and the number of names recorded.
During the second session, pupils were involved in a carousel of activities. Each pupil used what they had learnt earlier in the morning to annotate an image of their local memorial, create a Remembrance poster, design their own memorial and write a poem to read out at the memorial. Pupils created some really thoughtful poems which highlighted how carefully they had reflected on the sacrifices made by the fallen and the reasons we have Remembrance Day.
“I will remember the soldiers
I will help them
We will leave poppies for them.”
“Good good soldiers
You risked your life for us
We will remember you every 11th of November.”
Following the visit we received feedback from the school which said “the experience was very good”, “the children learnt a lot about Remembrance… and monuments in their local environment” and “everyone including the adults learnt from the teaching.” It was wonderful to work with pupils who took such an interest in their local memorial and remembering the people named on it.
