Aylsham World War One local heroes

Luca (left) and Jacob (right) stand next to their completed project displayed in the school foyer.

Luca Wedge-Clarke and Jacob Sinkins attended a government funded Battlefields trip in October and were inspired by the stories of the people behind the pictures and the war graves. As part of the Institute of Education's Cententary 'Legacy 110' scheme the boys have researched and created an interactive display that contains the stories for local soldiers from the Aylsham area.

The interactive display can be seen currently in the corridor outside the History department and in Aylsham Church. It really is worth a look!

After completing the display, Luca and Jacob presented it to two whole school assemblies alongside discussing their experiences of the Battlefield tour that they attended. It recieved a warm welcome from their peers and stands as encouragement for students to take the time to research their own rich family histories.

Not only was this project displayed to students but it was also a central part of the school remembrance day. In the morning school governors, teachers, local members of the veterans associations and family members arrived at Aylsham High School for the interactive display's official unveiling. It was wonderful to see the boys put across their project and their experiences with so much enthusiasm. They instructed visitors on the use of QR codes that take the reader to a webpage on the life stories of soldiers such as F.J Barrett who is included within this project.




Year 8 Homework Project: World War One Scrap Books

This half-term Year 8 are studying World War One. During lesson time we'll be considering the questions below as part of our unit of work

• Why did men volunteer?
• How successful was trench warfare?
• What was life like in the trenches?
• How was new technology used?
• How was life in Britain affected by the War?

You will be creating a scrapbook based on at least two different areas of our study:

1. Volunteering
2. Life on the battlefields
3. Experiences at the Somme or Ypres
4. Life on the Homefront

Each scrapbook must contain:
- Diary entries of at least one person describing and explaining the topic area

- Appropriate historical sources such as photographs, posters, letters and postcards

The purpose is to create at least one, if not more, fictional characters who are able to explain the topic areas using evidence available to the historian.

 The most exciting scrapbooks will contain first-person diary entries that explain the topic areas by specifically pointing to collected evidence. For example, if a character saw a particular poster that made him want to join his local battalion then why not add that poster to the scrapbook?

You can use the information we gather in class as well to help support the work but must also use homework time to research further and create these the scrapbook. 

To help students organise themselves the History Department has its own Pinterest page with three different boards packed with primary and secondary sources that you could use (Volunteering, Trench Life, Homefront)

Lessons have been planned to help students study these areas. However, be aware that the bulk of the task is to be completed out of lessons.

If you are particularly interested in looking at this from a local angle see our new display outside the history classrooms about some men from Aylsham who served and died in World War One.

Extra help?
Lunchtimes in room 27
Twitter @History_AHS

Year 8 trip to Ypres

Recently Year 8 went on their annual trip to Ypres to visit the World War One war graves.

We left school at midnight on the 10th May heading down to Dove to catch the 4:30am ferry over to France and then from there we drove to Ypres arriving at our first site about 8am.

First Stop
Essex Farm Cemetery

Essex farm is a relatively small cemetery which has the grave of Private Strudwick as one of its memorials. Strudwick was only 15 when he died serving in the war.

Second stop
Langemarck Cemetery

Langemarck is the Germa cemetery in Ypres. It features a huge number of graves, many of which are unmarked, and has a noticeably darker feel to it than the British cemeteries which are lighter and more airy in feel.

Third stop
Hill 62 and Sanctuary Wood

Sanctuary Wood is an area of British Trench which you can walk around along with an attached museum full of lots of weird and wonderful artefacts from the war which are fascinating to look at.

Fourth stop
Ypres Centre, Menin Gate, The Cloth Hall Museum and the Chocolate shop

Ypres is a beautiful city. Whilst there we got the time to do several things. First we looked at Menin gate which is a memorial to thousands of missing soldiers from the area. For our interests two of the men named above came from Aylsham FJ Barrett and R Body. We also got to visit the huge Cloth Hall museum which is full of so many interesting things as well as having the opportunity to visit the chocolate shop opposite to stock up on the Belgian chocolates.

Final stop
Tyne Cot Cemetery

We ended our trip to Ypres at Tyne Cot cemetery which is a massive along with a huge memorial to missing soldiers.

We then headed had to France to return our journey back to England.

Recommeded Historical Reads: The Holocaust

Time for another Historical reads post

Today is national holocaust memorial day so I have some books I want to share with you

First up are a few graphic novels I've recently got my hands on

Yossel by Joe Kubert

This Graphic Novel tells the story of the Warsaw Ghetto and is literally the most chilling holocaust book I have read to date.

A Family Secret and The Search by Eric Heuvel

These are very short but the history in them is spot on and therefore brilliant in my opinion. They tell you the background to the holocaust in a well informed way and look at two interlinked stories about the holocaust.

Maus by Art Spiegelman

This tells the story of the author's father who survived the holocaust where all the Jews are mice and the Nazis cats. It is a huge graphic novel and probably the best one I have read so far.

Next onto some YA books which I think are brilliant

Boy in the striped Pajamas by John Boyne

I'm assuming everyone has read this by now but if not do check it out

Annexed by Sharon Dogar

If you loved the diary of Anee Frank you will love this. It is fiction but follows her story closely and tells it from the point of view of Peter, the boy who hid with Anne's family in the Annex. It is really well done and does real justice to the story.

Rose under Fire by Elizabeth Wein

This book is the story of a American pilot who ends up in a Nazi camp. I'm including it simply because it wasn't just Jewish people who suffered under Nazi rule and it is an amazing read.

Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys

I'm going to finish with this book because it is an example of another lesser know genocide and I think it is important to recognise that atrocities like the holocaust are not unique. It tells the story of the murder of thousands of Lithuanians under stalinist rule and is stunning.

Year 7 Anti-Bullying Day with Friendly Faces

The last day of last half term was Year 7 anti-bullying day. The Friendly Faces team and I have wanted to do something with a year group for ages and so we got together with Mr Sexton head of PSHE and came up with a plan.

Our aim of the day was to make year 7 more aware of bullying and the various forms it takes and how to tackle it if they happened to come across it. We designed a variety of workshop alongside Mr Sexton to help us do this

Period 1 and 2 Friendly Faces ran a carousel of workshops designed to make year 7 think about what bullying was.

The first workshop was where students mapped out where bullying was most likely to take place or perceived to take place within school. This was led by Mr Sexton and supported by the Friendly Face team. Feedback from this helps the team focus their lunchtime patrols more effectively and also made year 7 aware of where help is available from Friendly Faces and the perfect team.

The second workshop lead by the Friendly Faces (including Tom above) was a drama workshop where students considered how to deal with bullying and the forms it can take.

The final workshop led by our Friendly Face Captains, Head boy and Head girl considered what bullying was and how to stop it. The discussions around bullying were fantastic and thoughtful.

Period 3 a session was led by the School's digital captain (and friendly face) Megan alongside Mr Askew to consider what cyber bullying was and how to stop it.

After a lunch break all of year 7 got together in the hall for a final session led by Mr Sexton and supported by the Friendly Face team. The first task involved year 7 students drawing bullies in a small group which were pinned onto boards.

Once this was done students were asked to write anti-bullying tips and positive messages learnt during the day to help beat bullies and stick them over the bullies they had drawn to cover them up.

This was followed up by every student in the session creating a part of what will become an anti-bullying string of bunting to be put up somewhere within school. The aim is to keep adding to it year on year so that by the end of five years we have an anti-bullying display piece which declares our intention to keep Aylsham High bullying free which has been contributed to by every member of the student body.

The final part of the session was the unveiling of a music video. While the rest of the student body was off working on the day The Eagles were working with Mrs Sexton to write and perform an anti-bullying song supported by two of our more musical friendly faces. The were stunning and it was a nice reminder and summary of why we had spent the day looking at anti-bullying.

A huge thanks to Mr and Mrs Sexton, Mr Askew and the hugely talented James Hubbard (for photographing the day - all the good quality pictures on this blog are his)

Royal Norfolk Regimental Museum. Gifted and Talented project

On Saturday students from Aylsham High School were invited to the grand reopening of the new Royal Norfolk Regimental Museum. They were asked to attend because over the last academic year they have been working with the museum service on an interactive timeline which is now on display as part of the collection.

 

Over a year ago a small team of gifted and talented historians were put together to work on a project for Norfolk Museum Service. They were students who had gained high grades the previous year whilst studying for their GCSE in History over one year and headed up by our History Captain Jonathan Sutton.

The team went for an initial meeting at Norwich castle to meet the curators of the Royal Norfolk Regimental Museum which had just been closed to the public on Shirehall Plain and see the space within the castle that was going to be transformed into the new Royal Norfolk Regimental Museum. The team were asked to be involved to researching and writing extracts that would be used as part of an interactive timeline about the history of the regiment aimed at primary school students.  Over the next few months the team spent time researching and writing extracts and were then invited back to Norwich Castle for the next stage. The next stage involved students being taught how to use a piece of online software to add their work to a database so the software development team could create the timeline.

 

It was then decided that it would be nice to add a picture of a cartoon character to each of the parts of the timeline called Reggie, a soldier from the regiment dressed in the uniform the regiment would have worn at the time in question. The team asked Miss Stickland, who is famous for drawing her own cartoons on her whiteboard, to help out with this task. She produced a range of colour cartoons depicting Reggie in all the different uniforms of the regiment and these were entered into the timeline alongside the students work.

 

Four students were selected to represent the team at the grand reopening of the Royal Norfolk Regimental Museum. We were welcomed with drinks and once all the esteemed guests arrived the Head of Norfolk Museum Service gave a speech about the project. The ribbon was then cut by Norfolk County Council Chairman Hilary Cox and we were allowed to see the new displays for the first time and mingle with the other guests who included the Norwich Mayor, several leading councillors and current and former servicemen of the Royal Norfolk Regiment. This was followed by food and drink inside the castle keep and we were later entertained by the Royal Norfolk Regimental band who played several songs in the keep.

 

It was a fantastic evening and a brilliant opportunity for our most talented young historians to work first hand on a project with museum staff and see all that is involved in presenting a hugely important part of our history  to the public. We are honoured to have been involved and extremely proud of the work produced and would encourage everyone to pop into the castle and see the exhibition for yourselves.

 

Pupils invited to the event (and pictured)

History Captain 2012/13 Jonathan Sutton
History Captain 2013/14 Jake Morris
Catrina Wooldridge
Rebecca Hibberd

 

Other pupils involved

Elizabeth Cooper
Tom Wilkes
Georgina Rowe
Amelia Tims
Martha Crass
Isabel Rich
Dominic Sutcliffe
Alex Cabre

 

History Books I rate: World War One

As we are about to start studying World war One in year 8 I thought I'd do you a new booklist

 YA Titles

I loved Stay where you are and leave. It is written by the same author as the boy in the striped Pajamas. It has a bit of mystery going on and deals with post traumatic stress disorder and the affect shell shock had on the men who served at the front. I really loved it.

 Dusk is a love story set in and around World War One and I really enjoyed it. From my own history geek point of view I loved the medical side that is brought out when you see how nurses worked during World War One to support the troops. It is the first in a trilogy the rest of which is yet to be published but it promises to be awesome.

In the Shadows of Blackbirds is a really unusual read. It is set in post war America and looks at the world in the aftermath of war dealing with the Spanish influenza epidemic. Why I've picked this book out is because it is perfect for girls who love paranormal romance as it has a lot of odd spiritualist stuff going on, and whilst for me it was about about the historical context, I think that would really hook them in.

For me no list of YA titles about World War One would be complete without Private Peaceful having a mention. For me it is a perfect read about World War One for getting into the heads of those at the front line and should be read by all teens