WPS Community Remembers...

We believe that it’s important to give children the opportunity to reflect on the impact of war so that our future generation seeks to find peaceful solutions to conflict. The enormity of war is a difficult concept to communicate to children so we make sure every year that our Remembrance service is child centred, so much so that even Reception children will sit quietly engaged throughout.

Rather than a token two minutes’ silence, Years 5 & 6 create a service performing short drama extracts taken from fictional experiences of war, we use child appropriate film clips and relay experiences of war from their own families. Year 5&6 children also took part in drama workshops around the fictional novel, ‘Private Peaceful’ by Michael Morpurgo, set in World War I. Having a good understanding of the emotions of everyday people just like them contributes to the children’s desire to perform with so much respect.

To help the whole school connect with our past, we ask families to share stories of their own families in war so that their great grandchildren may publicly thank them within the service. The WPS families’ stories of service and sacrifice are quite extraordinary and it opens a pathway of communication at home about the past between child, parent and grandparents.

Being grateful for peace in our country, whilst others are at war, is something that our Remembrance service reminds us to do every year. We are very proud of our children and the gratitude that they showed.