Nearly eighty years after thousands of children and young vulnerable adults were evacuated from cities across the country during WW2, our Year 6 children had a go themselves. To celebrate the end of our ‘Wartime Britain’ topic the children (and adults) dressed themselves in period clothing and lived the life of an evacuee for the day.
After being collected from the gate by a member of the British Army General, a U.S. Naval officer and our very own Land Girls they waved a teary goodbye to their parents before being subjected to a roll call and squeezing into a cramped school hall; much like the evacuees of 1939 would have been when they departed the trains.
The children spend the day, writing postcards to their loved ones at home, building model spitfires, making and baking bread and butter pudding using a rationed recipe and completing for the hotly sought after marble championship trophy. A highlight for most of the children were the repeated staged blackout; where the children had to make out the lights and close the blinds before diving for cover under desks when the air raid siren went off. Luckily, all were false alarms and we didn’t have any casualties. At the end of the day we were joined by some parents who came to collect their children from the brief evacuation before spending some time enjoying their children’s learning with them; as well as their bread and butter pudding and well rehearsed air raid drills.
