- County name: Stirling
- Group/School name: Larbert Village Primary School
- Age group: 5 - 11
- Group type: Primary 1-7
While visiting Scotland at the end of October, our Learning Officer was able to spend a day with pupils at Larbert Village Primary. This was an opportunity for all pupils from Primary 1 to Primary 7 to find out more about what war memorials are and make them aware of the some of the different memorials in the local area. Some pupils were also involved in more focused war memorial sessions which looked at the different types of war memorials and their design elements.
The day began with our Learning Officer delivering two assemblies. The first assembly was for pupils in Primary 1-3. The assembly began by exploring what special days pupils were aware of before focusing in on Remembrance Day. This led on to pupils sharing their ideas about what a war memorial is and these ideas were developed by showing pupils photographs of different war memorials in Stirling and Falkirk. The second assembly was for pupils in Primary 4-7. Again pupils were able to share their ideas of what a war memorial is before being shown photographs of a variety of memorial types to highlight that war memorials can be any object which commemorates those who served, died or where otherwise affected by war. Pupils found out how many memorials there are in the UK and then created a timeline to establish when memorials were created as well as highlighting that the First World War took place 100 years ago.
The rest of the day was spent with three classes who were a mix of Primary 4 and 5 pupils. The focus of the session was to understand the different memorial types and features and the reasons why communities may have chosen to use or incorporate these into their war memorial. Pupils were then given a brief from which they had to design a war memorial. The brief was to imagine that it was early 1919 and that they had been asked to come up with a design to put forward to the committee who were going to be creating a war memorial in Larbert to commemorate those who had not returned from the Great War. All the pupils really engaged with the task and carefully selected different design elements to include within their war memorial to symbolise remembrance, victory, mourning, love, loss and also show patriotism. One pupil chose to include a fountain as part of her design because she felt it would create a calming atmosphere where people could remember their loved ones. Pupils included inscriptions as part of their designs to show which war was being commemorated and who was being remembered. Some pupils took inspiration from inscriptions on other memorials whereas others created their own. The pupils should be very proud of their designs as they showed great understanding and respect for the memory of those local men who served in the First World War.
Our Learning Officer found it a real privilege to work with so many pupils who all took such an interest in our war memorial heritage. We hope that what the pupils learnt during the visit helps them to consider the importance of war memorials as World War I and II move further beyond living memory.