As the 20th century faded out, the message of Remembrance
was becoming much less accessible for younger generations. Ten or 20 years before, a trip to Grandpa’s house would not have been complete without a few stories about what happened in the war. But as the generation gap slowly grew larger, our country’s wartime sacrifices were at risk of being consigned to the history books.
As the nation’s guardian of Remembrance, the Legion has a duty to ensure that the message is carried from generation to generation. It’s been nearly a decade since it ran its successful campaign to have Remembrance added to the National Curriculum, but the victory would be in vain unless teachers were willing to add the subject to their individual lesson plans.
“It’s not that teachers were ever unwilling to teach Remembrance,” explains the Legion’s Education Consultant, Paula Kitching. “They
just need the right support.
“In primary schools, very few teachers are history specialists, and even in secondary schools, where you do have dedicated history teachers,
we can’t always expect them to teach everything all of the time.”
The Legion has been providing teachers with the necessary support for nearly 14 years. In 1996, the first schools pack – a six-page booklet filled with teaching materials – was produced, offering a helpful hand to anyone who wanted to introduce the concept of Remembrance to their classes. That pack reached 5,000 schools. Today, 43,000 copies of the pack, which is now 24 pages in length, are sent out every year with a follow-up CD-Rom mailed out in time for November lessons.
Teachers love the pack because it covers so much ground, says the Legion’s Schools Adviser Helen Hill: “Adding a CD-Rom means each year we add new film new clips, new sections, and more and more material. If you print the CD-Rom content out into text, you’d have a book of about 4,000 pages in length, that’s how much is on there.”
Feedback from those teaching the material is always welcome too, as it helps the Legion team make the pack more relevant for the modern classroom.
“We received a lot of responses from teachers who have a large number of Polish students, so we’ve now added a special section about the contribution of Polish people to the war effort. It’s something that fits in with the National Curriculum, but also makes it relevant for particular pupils.”
Hands-on learning
Thanks to the schools pack, Remembrance is now widely accessible to pupils, but stimulating them so they can appreciate the subject takes some creative thinking – for both teachers and the Legion’s education team.
To achieve this, the Legion has expanded its education services beyond the annual schools pack. A series of activity-based conferences, set up in collaboration with organisations such as the National Army Museum and Commonwealth War Graves Commission, now take place up and down the country. These are being offered to schools free of charge, and give pupils the chance to get ‘hands on’ with the subject by meeting veterans of past conflicts, and handling real armed forces uniforms and kit.
“We’re trying to target schools that wouldn’t normally get the chance
to go on school trips,” Helen explains.
“We aim to get them interested by working very intensively with them on enjoyable Remembrance activities.”
In addition, Poppy Travel, the Legion’s battlefield tour and pilgrimage provider, now runs a complete series of schools’ programmes, designed for children of all ages. The trips range from WWI battlefield
visits in France to walking tours around UK sites.
What these tours offer that classroom lessons can’t is the chance for young people to get fully involved with the subject. “It doesn’t matter whether they’re in central London or the middle of a battlefield, there will be a moment on every trip when the children take part in their own act of Remembrance, where they choose the readings, they write the message on the wreath that they lay, and they have a two-minute silence and exhortation. After that, Remembrance is not just something they watch on TV in November, or hear about in school, it’s something that they can be part of,” explains Paula.
When it comes to the tours themselves, it’s important that the guides make the history accessible to children. The same is true for teaching Remembrance in the classroom. Simply teaching them ‘what happened when’ is unlikely to sink in.
“When you’re standing in the middle of the field among the trenches for the first time, you don’t want to hear a big long lecture, you want to be engaged in things you are interested in, so we bring ideas through the eyes of the people who fought,” says Paula.
Focusing on personal stories is more likely to capture their attention. This is an area in which Paula, who specialises in Holocaust and genocide studies, has plenty of experience.
“The key is to take seemingly complex subjects and break them down. Not to simplify them – that would be patronising – but to make them approachable and accessible to young people.
“So often the approach that historians take is to look at the big event and then focus it down. Instead, I go the other way, so rather than looking at the military engagement, such as the Battle of the Somme, I would start by looking at who was there fighting, and how the military affected their lives. It doesn’t take away the factual information
– that’s essential – but it makes it easier as pupils can identify with individual experiences.”
The method of focusing on the individual to help teach history is one that author Mick Manning is familiar with. He and his wife, Brita Granström have created a series of successful educational children’s books, and their most recent,
Tail-End Charlie, is a first-hand account of a RAF Tail Gunner during WWII. The illustrated short-story covers all aspects of his wartime adventures, from evenings spent in the NAAFI to sustaining a near-fatal injury while out on a mission.
What makes the story especially unique is that Charlie, the book’s hero, is actually based on Mick’s dad, who was a Tail Gunner during the war.
All the adventures are true stories that Mick was told as he was growing up.
“I tried to write the book in dad’s own words, just as I remember them,” he explains. “Language is very important, especially in books that involve a non-fiction element like this one does, because if it’s too dry then children can switch off.
“I was about 10 years old when I first heard these stories, and because of the rich language that he used, I can still remember them nearly 40 years later.”
He hopes that documenting his story for future generations will help keep the Remembrance message alive. “When I talk to kids now, because they’re one or two generations removed, they’re seeing it from a slightly different perspective. They’ve had lessons about World War II in school, so they are already loaded up with information about things like rationing and the Home Front, but what we do is we talk a bit more about the shock of conflict and war, which is something that, perhaps, the teachers can’t do.
“My dad told me those stories to make sure I understood how terrible war is, and that it wasn’t a glorious, heroic thing to be caught up in.”
Tail-End Charlie was an instant success with youngsters, and the hardback edition sold out within a few months. Mick is already working on a sequel, and this time the inspiration is his mum, a former WAAF who worked at Bletchley Park during WWII.
“Brita and I both feel it’s very important that we tell something of the woman’s side of war, because their story is often neglected, and they did so much. I’d also like to tell my uncle’s story because he was at Dunkirk, and his story is completely different because he was so shocked about what he saw. He very rarely talked about it. But stories like his shouldn’t be forgotten either.”
With more materials being produced all the time to help promote the teaching of Remembrance, the Legion is confident that the torch will be carried on for many more generations to come. “We’re adding to our pack every year,” says Helen. “We’re also adding more about post-1945 conflicts as the years go on. Remembrance is still relevant today, and our work helps remind people of that.”
More Info
To find out more about the Legion’s schools programmes, or for a copy of the schools pack, call Legionline on 08457 725 725. You can also download the schools pack at
www.legion-magazine.co.ukYou can also find out about what Poppy Travel For Schools has planned for the coming year by telephoning 0845 602 2482 or by visiting
www.poppytravel.org.uk
Mick Manning’s book,
Tail-End Charlie, is published by Frances Lincoln Ltd (ISBN 9-7818-4507-651-1).
