It’s Mrs Milner here again reporting live from the English Huts. It’s Remembrance Day as I write this and it’s pitch black outside on a windy Wednesday evening. I’m on prep duty tonight so I thought I’d tell you all about my day.

In this afternoon’s Year 10 lesson with Amber, Aimee, Sonny, Cameron, William and Caroline, we looked at WWI war poetry. Although we are currently working on Language Paper 1, I feel it is important to remember those who have fought for our freedoms so we studied the well-known WWI poem ‘In Flanders Field’, which Kian read out in today’s Remembrance Day service, held in the stackyard this morning. The poem was written by a Canadian physician named Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae. He was inspired to write it on May 3, 1915, after presiding over the funeral of a friend and fellow soldier, who died in the Second Battle of Ypres.

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Amber started the lesson by reading the poem out to the class and we then discussed what poppies mean to us and why the poppy is used as a symbol of remembrance. We noticed how the poet contrasts nature with war in the first stanza and Amber thought that McCrae might have done this to show how the natural world keeps turning, even when men are fighting on the battlegrounds of No Man’s Land.

After this lesson, my Year 8 class with Ebony, Katie, William and Noah discussed life in the trenches and planned some descriptive writing about being a young soldier away from home. We read some diary entries from real WWI soldiers and talked about the horrors of war, including shell shock. Everyone wanted to read their ideas out but the bell went so we will carry on tomorrow.

Speaking of bells, the bell to get to prep has just gone so I’ll leave it there. It is even windier than before so I’d better wrap up warm. Take care and see you next time.

Natasha Milner, Teacher of English