Lesson planning ideas for teaching Remembrance Day

Are you an EYFS, key stage 1 or key stage 2 teacher thinking about how you approach the teaching of Remembrance Day this year? Our history subject lead, Benjie Groom, poses some questions and offers some guidance for you to consider as you plan.

Your pupils' prior knowledge

Consider your preconceptions about how much prior knowledge pupils will have about Remembrance Day.

This will allow you to tackle any possible misconceptions they might have. To inform your planning you might ask questions such as:

• Who or what are we meant to be thinking about on Remembrance Day? (this can lead to a discussion about how the meaning of the day has changed over time)
• Are there any important symbols or objects that are associated with Remembrance Day?
• Are there any important activities or traditions that are associated with Remembrance Day?

Making memorials a focus

Nearly every community will have access to a public memorial, making it a perfect way to incorporate your local area into your teaching of Remembrance Day. You might:

• Teach about how war memorials are a fairly recent development. There were no memorials to regular soldiers until the Boer Wars in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
• Compare local and national memorials (such as the Cenotaph) and discuss their differences and similarities.
• Visit your local memorial and use it as a starting point for discussions about the names they will see on it and the stories you might be able to research about these people.
• Teach about the African and Caribbean War Memorial or the various memorials to South Asian soldiers such as Leicester’s Sikh War Memorial or London’s Gurkha War Memorial. Discussion of these could include references to their relatively recent erection and the reasons behind the need for their existence.

International Remembrance Days

All around the world countries mark differing days to remember those who have died in conflict. You might:

• Identify countries that were part of the British Empire during the First World War and research how the conflict is marked there (Anzac Day is an excellent example to use here).
• Look at the conflicts and events that have become synonymous with days of remembrance in other countries, especially when linked to the Second World War.

Remembrance Day and significance

Consider using Remembrance Day to teach your pupils about the historical concept of significance.

This can be a particularly tricky one to get right in primary history, but is nonetheless a core aspect of the national curriculum. Remembrance Day shows us that the conflicts that are remembered are deemed significant, but why? Success in this area tends to occur when:

• Teachers are clear about the ascribed nature of historical significance, and explain that this is a property given to people, events and developments by later generations.
• Different facets of historical significance are examined that go beyond the usual focus on the number of casualties or loss of life.

Dealing with challenging themes

Teaching themes of war and death in the early years can be problematic, and care must be taken to ensure that what is taught is age-appropriate.

Think about some of the following as methods of engaging with the question of how we remember people who are no longer with us:

• Encourage pupils to talk about the special people or groups of people in their lives and what makes them special.
• You could consider a practical activity to help with this: making cards, writing songs or composing messages for these special people. This will naturally lead to discussions of what they have produced and why.
• Relate your practical activities to the symbolism around Remembrance Day. For example, you might compare the symbols they use on a card to a special person with the symbol of the poppy.
• Lay the groundwork for Remembrance Day itself by giving pupils the time and space to produce individual or collective outputs such as models, memory sculptures or pictures that pupils will have as a touchstone for remembrance on the day itself.
• Pupils could reflect on memories that they hold onto (of people, places or events) and mark these physically in one of the ways suggested, helping them to link personal memory and remembrance to the wider importance and symbolism of Remembrance Day itself.

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