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.

On Sunday 11th November, ten Y6 pupils represented Penpol School in the Hayle remembrance service. This two part service started at St Elwyns Church where two children read poems as part of the service. These poems were once that they had written themselves in class the week previous.

The service then proceeded to parse down to the Hayle War Memorial. It was here the children listened to the names of people from Hayle, who had given their lives during WW1 and WW2 and listened to the last post. After the minutes silence the children laid a wreath on behalf of the Penpol School Community and planted crosses in front of the memorial.

The importance of Remembrance Sunday is particularly significant  for the children in year 6 who have spend this term studying ‘Wartime Britain’ as a topic. This has involved poppy art, wreath making, writing letters from the trenches and writing remembrance poems.

The service was well respected by all the pupils who attended alongside members of the community where their maturity and manner where positively commented on by numerous members of the public.