Remembrance Service

On Monday morning, the 11th November, over 350 pupils from across all the year groups attended a remembrance service on the school grounds.

The service included readings of ‘Flanders Fields’, ‘The Soldier’, ‘For the Fallen’ and ‘Kohima Epitaph’, all beautifully read by our pupils. A number of our pupils who are part of the cadets or the scout movement attended in their uniforms, and they laid wreaths during the service at a special memorial created by Mr Derbyshire. The school choir gave a beautiful and moving rendition of ‘Abide with Me’ and Mr Tarry played the Last Post before the pupils impeccably observed a minute’s silence ended by the playing of the Reveille.

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In the week leading up to Remembrance Day, all the pupils were given assemblies by Mr Pugh which were focused on the great sacrifice made by British soldiers during the First World War. The assemblies focused on the two places where more British soldiers lost their lives more than anywhere else in history, the Ypres Salient and the Somme.

The pupils heard about the incredible bravery and suffering of the men who fought in the most dreadful of conditions near the town of Ypres in Flanders. They learned about why this area became the centre of some of the fiercest fighting in the War, including the Battle of Passchendaele in 1917 where in just 99 days the British suffered over 250,000 casualties in some of the worst conditions in the history of warfare. The pupils were shown images of the many memorials, including the Menin Gate and Tyne Cot Cemetery, which mark the huge sacrifices so many British men made in this small area of Belgium.

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It was explained to the pupils that the casualties in the 1916 Battle of Somme were even more horrific with 420,000 British casualties in this one battle, including a staggering 57,000 on the first day alone. The events of the day involving soldiers from Lancashire, were also shown. Images of the Thiepval Memorial which has the names of over 73,000 soldiers who died on the Somme and have no known grave. Two of our year 11 pupils, Paige A and Charlie W, who recently visited the Ypres and the Somme on the History Battlefields Trip.

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