Term 1 – A Child’s War
Our unit of study began with an
“Evacuation Experience”. All
dressed in 1940s clothed we were
evacuated from town to country!
We walked together to the station
in Ashford and travelled to an
unknown destination…
…Hamstreet as it turned out!
We really enjoyed the opportunity to meet and hear from men who had been evacuated
as children during WWII. It really helped to bring a sense of reality and meaning to our
learning. We learnt about the experiences of children living in cities and those who were
evacuated during WWII. We also discovered more about the experiences of children living
in Nazi occupied areas. We found reading about the life of Anne Frank a shocking
reminder about how different things were just across the channel. We really enjoyed
reading Goodnight Mr Tom by Michelle Magorian and other books written about the
experiences of children at this time.
We loved extending our learning further by exploring certain aspects in more detail
through our homework. We baked, sketched, modelled, designed, wrote, planned and
visited and understood WWII all the better for it! Our parents, grandparents and families
really helped us to
It was only fitting that we should celebrate our learning with
an end of term Street Party. We were able to invite the WWII
evacuees and our parents to join us for tea and a good old –
fashioned, knees-up. We shared our books with our visitors.
We baked some of our favourite wartime recipes using
rationing as a guide. We entertained with our favourite war
era songs. Our street party was a roaring success!
We were honoured to be invited by the Ashford Branch of the
Royal British Legion to join them at the Memorial Gardens for
the Armistice Day service. This gave us another opportunity to
reflect upon all we had learnt.