Year 6 evacuation day

On 1^st November 2016, Year 6 were taken down to the Girls’ School for an evacuation day to help us with our World War Two history topic.

When we arrived at school there was a steam train video clip on in our dark classroom to help us imagine what it would have been like for a real evacuee in World War Two. Everyone was dressed as evacuees except for the teachers who were dressed as Billeting Officers. They got us into lines and took us down to the Girls’ School.

On arriving, we were taken to the Lower Library. There were neat rows of tables and chairs, which we sat down at. Our teacher put on real footage from the war. It showed pictures of children that made you almost feel like you were in their position. When it had finished we were “billeted off” to different classrooms. I was sent to where the Year Tens were having a Spanish lesson. After the lesson, some of my friends and I were taken to have our photos taken for the school website.

A few minutes later, we found ourselves back in the Lower Library where we were told to write a letter home to our parents. We had to visualize ourselves as evacuees and imagine what they would have felt like. Group by group we were also taken to the Green Room to film a short piece of work about being evacuated. When it was finally time for lunch we were all starving but because of rationing, we could only have a meal of beef stew, bread and jelly. When we had finished lunch we had a short break and then went inside to watch some of ‘Carrie’s War’.

After a few hours, we were taken off to do PT (Physical Training). We did something called drills, which is when we all had to march around the hall in exact unison. We also had to do some of it in gas-masks (which we had made in school the day before) as they would have done back in World War Two.

After PT, we headed back to the library. Just as we were sitting down an alarm rang. Everyone recognized the sound from lessons immediately. It was an air-raid siren. There was a mad rush for our gas-masks and then we all hid under the large tables. Mrs Oakes put bombing sound effects on. Just the sound of them was enough to scare me and I could hardly imagine what it would have been like in real life. Finally, the “all clear” siren came on and everybody was relieved to get out from under the cramped tables.

When we arrived back at school we were all worn-out but happy after our long day experiencing the life of an evacuee!

by Sophia Neophytou