Poppy Display and Remembrance Day

BY TISHA 7W

We celebrate Remembrance Day for any soldier in the world who has fought in any war. A two minute silence takes place at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. This day and time is significant because it marks the end of World War 1 when the armistice was signed between allies of WW1 and Germany. This year marks 100 years since this was signed. As a school we felt it was important to come together as a community and mark this occasion, so we had a two minute silence on the Friday 9th November.

However, to mark this historic occasion, the history and textiles department worked together to combine the artistic element of our display and to highlight the significance of past events. All students and staff were given the opportunity to design their own poppy however they chose to. This gave everyone the chance to represent their own poppy for what reasons they thought Remembrance Day was special to them. It helped to highlight different backgrounds and by putting them up together it shows we’re one big community who respect each others values and differences.

The Poppy Club was set up by Ms. Cathcart and Ms. Thompson who ran it for three weeks during lunchtimes. Students were encouraged to drop in to design their poppy and some students took the poppy templates home over the half term so they had more time to be creative and think about their ideas. Once the poppies were created a group of students, with the help of teachers, threaded the poppies with fishing line. The teachers hung them up the day before our Remembrance commemorations. The stunning display was proudly hung over from the level 3 corridors and dangled all the way down into the canteen. Many of the students were in awe when they came into school the next day. Some students began to share their stories with me about their family experiences with different cultures and wars over time.

 

As well as this, an Asian-Indian Major came to our school and had assemblies with year 7, 8 and 9. He spoke about how it was not just British soldiers who fought in the war, but soldiers from other countries in the commonwealth too. Eight million men were recruited or conscripted to the armed forces, but half of these were from outside of the UK. These included people from:

• the Indian sub-continent (India, Pakistan and Bangladesh)
• Africa (South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Kenya, Uganda and Malawi)
• the Caribbean
• Canada
• Australia
• New Zealand

Britain might have lost the war if it wasn’t for the help of all these people from different countries and backgrounds. The students and staff from our school and wider community have many links with many of these countries which is another reason why we all need to understand the importance of Remembrance Day.

We felt really lucky and special to have the talk by Major Gogna. Most of us were shocked to find out that people from lots of other countries fought in World War 1 as this is not something that is usually talked about. Wouldn’t it be fantastic if everyone knew about this at a younger age? The media should also be highlighting how many different countries helped in WW1.

For me, Remembrance day is about remembering all the soldiers and civilians whose actions have given us the opportunity of freedom today.

A very special thank you to Ms. Cathcart and Ms. Thompson for leading on the poppy display project.