Meadows Primary School
Northfield
Birmingham

16th November 2006


Five members of A.I.M attended Meadows Primary School on the 16th November to give a talk to year six students which included a summary of World War Two and an explanation of Living History. As we arrived we smiled as we drove past the children’s playground in our Dodge and hundreds of curious kids lined the fences to see what was happening.

The morning started with cups of coffee at the school caretaker’s house (thanks Derek), looking at photos of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment and sharing stories with the members – Derek also works for the Royal Warwickshire Museum. This helped to relax us all and put us in the right frame of mind to talk on the subject we all find so fascinating.

We entered into the school hall and placed our array of kit onto the tables and stage and were greeted by 60 smiling faces all eager to know why the army was in their school. Once they were seated, Sgt Wright (Portraying Royal Warwickshire Regiment) started our talk by introducing the group and why we do what we do, and then proceeded to tell the kids that in order to see the kit we had on display, they would have to answer a few questions. The way in which they were to answer was to stand and salute, the kids thought this was great fun. For every question answered correctly we asked the children to the front of the assembly and gave them handouts for the other kids to look at. After handing out the photocopies they returned to the front and collected a newspaper, which they then held up for all to see. The newspapers referred to the topic we were talking about, for example the Dunkirk evacuation. By the end of the event we had a long line of children holding newspapers showing the headlines from all six years.

Sgt Wright spoke for five minutes at a time on each of the six years of war – in between the main talk Corporal Berry (Portraying 509th US Paratrooper), Corporal Harris (portraying 3rd Us Infantry) and Private Langston (portraying USMC) gave specialised talks about the types of units that took part in the conflict – each additional talk lasted about 5 minutes.

After talking for about 45 minutes we asked the children to take a look at the kit we had brought with us, they could hardly contain themselves and stormed the five of us in seconds. This was really encouraging as the kids were really excited and asked many questions. Although they never actually got to touch any weaponry they seemed to show most interest in this element of the items on display. Many a smile was brought to our faces by the questions asked of us it was both heartening to hear and very encouraging that the kids were so keen to learn.

The children were then taken in groups outside to view the Dodge weapons carrier – again this received much interest.

Upon all of the 60 seeing the vehicle the teachers asked the children to be seated for a further questions and answers session based not on the equipment, but mainly on elements of the war. Before we had time to finish all of the questions the lesson had finished and to many moans and groans the kids were told they had to go to dinner.

Two children returned and asked us if they could help carry the equipment to the cars as a thank you to us for doing the lesson with them, although we declined we felt very happy at the request as this showed us the kids really were quite impressed.

Overall the event was a huge success. We are now awaiting a report from the school and the photos to accompany it. Once we have this I will post it as well.

Staff Sgt Wright
A.I.M