Year 6 visit Steam Museum
Nursery and Prep School
On Friday 6th October, Year 6 ventured off to the Steam Museum in Swindon for a Second World War workshop day entitled: ‘We’ll Meet Again!’
The girls dressed up as authentic evacuees and took identity cards to prove they weren’t spies! Excited and enthused, Year 6 began their first activity, completing a quiz and admiring a life-size steam train. They also learnt about gas masks,how they worked and how younger children who were evacuated wore masks based on a cartoon character Mikey Mouse!
Our pupils explored stories about how women would stop working when they were marries, and how during the war that changed. Women might have been WRENS (Women’s Royal Naval
Service), part of the Land Army, who worked on farms and fixed fences, or
factory workers who made ammunition and bombs for the war. Some even cracked
codes at Bletchley Park!
“ “We went on a train that was more than one hundred years old. I could really imagine what it would have been like to work in those conditions.” ”Selma, Year 6
Following a rationed lunch, the girls experienced a session in an air raid shelter, hearing the siren screeching, and several other workshops focused on the role of the railway in wartime as well as evacuation and family life.
It was an action-packed day! The Steam tour guides said that our girls were one of the best-behaved groups they had ever had and that the girls were a credit to our school and their parents.
“ I really enjoyed the role play. I got to dress up as a Second World War train operator, which was interesting.”Wren