On Tuesday Year 6 held an evacuee day to learn about the experiences children had during the war when they had to leave their homes in the cities and move to the countryside to live with a strange foster family.
The day started normally until the air raid siren wailed and the children took cover under their desks wearing their gas masks. It was decided it was too dangerous for them to remain so they would have to be evacuated. After a long journey they reached a school hall where the billeting officer arranged for various local people to take them in. Some were chosen because they were big and strong boys to work on a farm; some girls were chosen because they would be good at domestic chores; siblings were taken by those who wanted to earn more money from hosting evacuees and others were chosen because the person was told they have to take in evacuees.
For the rest of the day, we explored primary and secondary sources to learn how and why children were evacuated. They read person recollections and wrote postcards to their teacher to tell them about either the positive or negative experience they had experienced. In the afternoon, we learnt about what items an evacuee would take in their suitcase and designed our own paper aeroplanes to see whose would fly the furthest.
It was a fantastic day. The children dressed up and got into character as a 1940’s school child. They have learnt a lot about this fascinating period of British history.
Mr Hardy and Mrs Kothary
