Schoolkids - Battlefields Tours

[serreroad]

I think I am safe in saying that the huge number of school parties attending Ypres and The Somme is down to WW1 being on the National Curriculum for the last few years.

However, someone told me last week that the Curriculum was moving on to WW2. Is this right? If so is it a blanket move, optional or perhaps regional? If it is true it could make a huge diffence to the numbers attending the main "sights"., especially away from 1/7 and 11/11 ??!

Mike

[Terry Denham]

Certainly not true for 2005.

Even more schools are booking trips.

[Alison Arnold]

I think I am safe in saying that the huge number of school parties attending Ypres and The Somme is down to WW1 being on the National Curriculum for the last few years.

However, someone told me last week that the Curriculum was moving on to WW2. Is this right? If so is it a blanket move, optional or perhaps regional? If it is true it could make a huge diffence to the numbers attending the main "sights"., especially away from 1/7 and 11/11 ??!

Mike

Which part of the curriculum? At GSCE level they study WW1 and WW2 and I don't think there is a shift away at the moment.

My daughter is studying GSCE History at the moment (year 10) and also did a minimal study of WW1 and WW2 in year 9.

In primary school then WW2 is on the curriculum as early as year 3 (7/8 year olds) although this is mainly based aroud evacuees.

Hope not anyway!!

Best wishes

Ali

[serreroad]

Dunno which part of the curriculum. I can't even remember who told me (!!), but it was someone I was talking to on the Somme earlier this month who sounded like he knew what he was talking about.

I am afraid my only coverage of both wars for history O level (many years ago!) consisted of "before" and "after" maps......

[Mark Hone]

This seems to have been based on a report in the media a few weeks ago-one of the caretakers at school made a similar comment to me recently. As far as I know there is no such thing. At Secondary Level most GCSE students will study elements of both World War I and II if they do Modern World History (now the most popular GCSE option). Lower down the Secondary School the National Curriculum is now less prescriptive than it used to be. However many schools will cover one or both wars in outline as part of a 'Twentieth Century' course in Year 9 , i.e the year before opting for GCSE, as these are a feature of most of the popular textbooks. War Literature, which in practice means Wilfred Owen and co, is a popular feature of English Literature courses, including a compulsory module at A-Level in one of the exam board syllabi. This inevitably includes some historical background.

My hunch would be at the moment that students study the Great War in more depth, but there may be a shift going on due to the influence of media coverage of 60th anniversary commemorations etc. Quite what will happen when the government changes the whole exam and qualification system (again) in the next ten years , heaven alone knows. Also as the Great War finally passes out of living memory, there may be a change in attitude and it might be seen to be less 'relevant' by the numbskulls er, powers that be.

A more serious threat to school Battlefield Tours is the insidious effect of the blame culture. Two of the three main teaching unions are now advising members not to run school trips at all.

[serreroad]

Cheers Mark. I suspect you are spot on if the report appeared in the media.

Mike

[ianw]

Interesting points made by Mark. My daughter visited Ypres in October with her school. I pitied the teachers who had really nasty weather and one channel crossing with sick children; a hotel without power and hot water on the Ypres morning of the trip and one student who fell over at Sanctuary Wood and cut his head. That said a good trip was had and I , for one, have considerable respect for the performance of a mostly young teaching team.

I for one think that Sanctuary Wood and its mud and sheet iron etc is a real health and safety hazard. I am going to suggest that they change this venue next year.

I welcome more WW2 school study but the Great War should certainly not be neglected. The linkage between these conflicts is so profound surely that they have to be taught as a continuum.

[healdav]

I can never understand the obsession with going to Sancturary Wood. If you must, go at dawn and watch the owner redigging the trenches and putting in some shiny new shell holes.

There are plenty of places where the original trenches still exist and are rarely visited - and you don't have to pay to see them.

In addition, I can understand that the British want to see where the British army fought, but there were other battles - Verdun, Battle of Frontiers, Bois le Pretre, St. Mihiel, etc.

Come on over, the battlefields are barely touched in many places.

[Mark Hone]

The problem is that many schools do a standard 'package tour' which just visits the well-established 'tourist circuit' including Sanctuary wood. I have ranted about this on the forum before, as I agree with Healdav that there are plenty of other sites and I have a hunch that at some point in the future it will be used as an argument to 'rationalize' the number of CWGC cemeteries. However you can understand why schools choose an 'off the shelf' package for time and convenience reasons. Some schools do guide their own tours and others have tailored and individually-researched tours by some of the top rate guides and companies that are out there(e.g. our own Tom Morgan).

[Fleur]

The thing with Sanctuary Wood, as much as we all knock it, is that is does give a perspective of what it might have been like for Tommy and Fritz.

I have taken first time visiters there myself and they have mooched around, slightly shocked by the trenches.

It doesn't matter that they are redug.

It doesn't matter that they might not be 'original' in thier context as a place for mourning families to visit after the war, and as a historical landmark of that time, they are what they are!

If taking adults or children to visit the trenches at SW makes them ask questions, look more deeply into the history of the area then that can only be a good thing.

I personaly don't like the place very much, but I will carry on taking newbies there becasue it has sparked so much more interest and has allowed me to say to them' well, if you thought that was interesting, just wait until you get to hill 60' and you get there and they say' but there is nothing here!' and you asay to them 'but it had trenches just the same as the ones you just saw - think about it'.

I think we need to move away from the 'this is a genuine representation of how the men lived' of SW and move towards the truth which is 'this is what the families of the dead WANTED to see in the 20's, 30's and onwards'.

Fleur

[Tom Morgan]

I think the reason why "package" school tours seem so drawn to Sanctuary Wood (and this is also true of other places) is a sort of "confidence" issue.

Teachers are always experienced teachers of their subject, but they aren't necessarily WWI buffs. They want to be sure that their subsequent teaching (when they get back to the classroom) will be able to make the most of the students' experience of visiting certain places. They develop a system of covering aspects of the war in the classroom, calling on the experience of site visits to illustrate their teaching. When they have a system which works for them, it's very, very difficult to get them to agree to change anything. It can be frustrating sometimes.

Teachers often book a tour and insist on having the same guide as last time (and they often ask for the same driver, too, if possible) and this is because they want this year's students to see the same places and hear the same commentaries as last year's students did. Of course, we take this as a compliment, and try to make the experience even better. One way to do this is to introduce new places which have become available but schools often want everything to be exactly the same, and it's very difficult to persuade them to try somewhere else.

When circumstances force a change, people are often glad of the new opportunities. They just don't always have the confidence to go for them in the first place.

There are some teacher-Pals (Mark Hone, David Blanchard and Steve Howarth are some that I know but they're not the only ones) who have wide knowledge of and interest in the Great War themselves. This gives them the confidence to pick up on good teaching -points from a wide variety of lesser-known sites because they know about those places because they have researched them, because there's a specific local interest, or because they just know a lot about those times and events.

In the end, I think, everyone does what their own knowledge and confidence allows them to do best.

I agree with Fleur - Sanctuary Wood is, in many ways, a museum about what museums used to be like in the 20s and 30s!

Tom

[SOMMESOLDIER]

Hi There,

I think Tom has hit the nail on the head. It's all about Knowledge so if there is no expert with the party, you go to all the tried and tested places !

Cheers

Tim.

[Guest]

A colleague's son went on a school trip to the salient recently - all the standard stuff, Sanctuary Wood, last post ceremony, etc.

The location is obviously popular due to its accesibility and not having to cover hundreds of miles across Northern France which, face it, is incredibly boring countryside in the main - at least Arras to Rheims is.

The other thing with the boy in question is that he is doing history, but isn't a WWI enthusiast in particular. Yet he enjoyed the trip and came back with a collection of memories which will stick with him.

And as far as his mother is concerned, no matter how packed with authenticity, if he hadn't enjoyed it she would have considered it a flop and said so to other parents. And it was her "hard earned" which paid for it.

[FredJCarss]

I like to see the kids take an interest in the Great War. The great majority I have seen on my travels are well behaved and over awed by the scale of loss - I hope it continues.

History in schools is changeing, my wife is a primary teacher and had as a history project in the Scottish 5 to 14 (Scottish N.C.) - Wait for it!!!!

THE SIXTIES.

My God I was there, I was that man, It was fun (what I remember ).

So history is made every day but lets keep the landmarks of modern civilisation.

Never drop THE GREAT WAR.

Fred

[Guest]

Well, there is a discussion going on about the curriculum and I think it is likely to go back more towards a general overview of more than just the 20th century.

But on Friday in my local WH Smith, I scanned through a current GCSE history revision book. From what I could see, what you need is a pretty superficial knowledge of the 20th centrury and precious little else.

[Mark Hone]

Angie-That's because Modern World History (i.e. The Twentieth Century) is now the most popular of the three syllabi available for GCSE. They don't test you on what you studied lower down the school in the exam (maybe they should!), The Schools History Project takes a more pick and mix approach with modules on e.g The History of Medicine and the American West. Unfortunately you can't win with designing a History course. There is a constant argument about breadth versus depth. Either you end up trying to teach a broad sweep of history which opens up charges of superficiality and 'just a load of facts and dates' or you concentrate on a few detailed topics (like the Schools History Project) and get accused of missing vital periods out and failing to give pupils a sense of chronology. As a result History teaching in British schools tends to be a not entirely satisfactory mixture of both approaches. The new GCSE course that they are currently developing is going to link history with media and tourism to try and make it 'more relevant'. We shall see...

P.S. Hope the revision guide you were looking at wasn't one of those dreadful 'Co-ordination Group Publication' efforts that W.H. Smith started selling in large numbers a few years ago. I think the Science ones might be OK but the GCSE History ones I saw were full of factual errors.

[Guest]

Mark, it was published by Letts.

I only spent about five minutes scanning it out of idle curiosity.

[ianw]

Quite agree with Mark re. the problems of teaching history. I can only say that my 13 year old daughter did some super work on the Great War and latterly WW2. The content/syllabus was much better than work that I did on the same subjects in the mid 60's at my grammar school. I know this for certain as I recently found my exercise books that prove this point !

[docchippy]

We all seem to agree that there is definite merit in moving kids where possible beyond the usual trip routes. Could any members recommend a new route. I intend to take 40 kids to a doble site tour, flanders and somme - 5 days...what would you suggest for adolescent novices. We intend to locate a few relatives of the children and visit their graves if poss

Doc

[hirdar01]

I would be interested to know which years groups go to the battlefields. At my school, I have always run tours to support GCSE. I think Y9 visits are more popular with schools in the south of England, where you can jaunt across to Vimy for the day. (I teach in Leeds). The age range for European school parties to the area seems to be much more mixed.

An important consideration, when going off the beaten track is toilets etc. I think some of the main reasons teachers stick with all the main sites is that these sites are now much more geared up for school paties and have (better!) facilities or they are located near to a town. Some cafe owners located near less well trodden sites can sometimes find a school party of 46 very daunting to cope with, despite prior booking and confirmation. At least at Hooge, Le Tommy or Avril's the kids are warmly welcomed (unless you are a battlefield tourist stuck behind a party of 46!)

Tony

[Mark Hone]

Regarding the age of school parties. Year 9 or GCSE parties seem to comprise the vast majority of groups that I have encountered. We are very unusual in taking boys of all age groups in the school, from Year 8 to Upper Sixth, with the majority going on more than one tour. That is one reason why we do a different tour each time! I agree that there are difficulties in going off the beaten track. Pre-preparation and building up local contacts are crucial, not only for practical problems like finding adequate cafes and toilets on site, but also for compiling the now-obligatory risk assessments. However, not many teachers have the luxury of carrying out detailed recces of all the sites beforehand while on holiday with a tolerant (and interested) spouse, as I do. Some of the very experienced professional tour guides, several of whom contribute to this forum, are happy to help build a tailor-made tour for a school which will include visits to less-familiar locations. The most successful parts of our tours have always been where we visit e.g. the graves/memorials of relatives of boys on the tour or former pupils of the school. It brings a vital personal dimension to what can otherwise sometimes be 'a sea of headstones' if you are not careful.

[healdav]

I do take groups around the St. Mihiel salient area (for details, get in touch off-list).

At the moment I have to fit it in with going to the office, but when I retire next year. Whoopee!! I intend to try and do guiding as a hobby/ job.

My PhD tour lasts about 10 hours around various sites (of course it can be cut down). The toilet! café problem is easily solved. There aren't any at all. I have had the odd complaint so I say, 'Do you think they had tiled toilets in the trenches or a café every five kilometres?'

To get their attention I have extracted the death certificates (d of b, place, etc) of quite a number of French soldiers from the one French cemetery we see, and I send the children off the find the graves and put a poppy on it. It impresses them.

By the way, I once took a group of girls from a local lycée here who were studying the British war poets for their Baccalaureat English. They couldn't believe their eyes when they stood in the trenches.

I agree, incidentally about WW1 getting a bigger part in the GCSE than it did in the 60s. I did virtually nothing. However, the WW1 part has been put in because its touchy feely instead of a lot of the political/social history which is 'not fun'.

[healdav]

I should add that I once took a group of university students from Texas around the salient and they simply could not cope with the no tilet thing. Apparently none of them had heard of bushes. They couldn't believe it when I duisappeared behind one.

There was a virtual riot when we got to the US cemetery where there is, naturally, a full visitors centre with bathrooms (American style).