Education Today Education Today Magazine
‘The war to end all wars’ is the subject of a new free project being launched this week by creative curriculum writers, Cornerstones Education. Fallen Fields has been designed to help school children study World War One in its centenary year.
Primary schools across the country – whether they already work with Cornerstones or not – are being offered the free teaching and learning resource via the educational supplier’s website.
Teachers will be able to use the project to help children learn about the causes and effects of the conflict sparked by Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s assassination on June 28th 1914.
Cornerstones curriculum director Melanie Moore said: “The First World War was called the ‘war to end all wars’ and its massive historical significance is being commemorated all over this country this year in its 100th anniversary. Children will be seeing a great deal about it on television and in their communities.
“We want to help schools plan and prepare learning experiences which will enable pupils to investigate every aspect of the First World War in a sensitive and thoughtful way.”
The limited-edition project aimed at ten and eleven-year olds (Upper Key Stage 2) will help teachers plan a wide range of cross-curricular learning opportunities.
Fallen Fields includes facts and figures about the First World War, as well as many suggestions for activities such as trips to war memorials and museums, online research to find old newsreel footage and photographs and interviews with family members to ask if they have stories passed down about the 1914-1918 conflict.
It encourages pupils to work together to create timelines, maps and newspaper articles; to plant poppies and to study war poems, paintings and songs. The project even provides a step-by-step guide to help the children organise their own Remembrance Day commemoration event.
Melanie said: “It is important younger generations develop knowledge and understanding of this hugely significant and complex period in our history and we are offering this dedicated project free to all schools to help them get the most out of this learning experience.”
The Fallen Fields project follows the creative learning format of all Cornerstones imaginative learning projects which means it is designed to help children think for themselves; encouraging them to engage, develop, innovate and express themselves, while at the same time meeting all learning requirements of the new National Curriculum 2014.
The free sample project also includes access to ready-made learning resources prepared by Cornerstones such as presentations, song lyrics and maps as well as images, poems and website links.
Fallen Fields is also suitable for Year 7 pupils at secondary school.
To download Fallen Fields, visit: http://www.cornerstoneseducation.co.uk/Free-resources.aspx. The additional free resources associated with the project – presentations and so on – will be e-mailed to schools direct.
