On Wednesday 5th October, Year 6 extended their learning about World War II and developed our writing skills by visiting several sites of interest around Clacton.
We started out with a visit to Lancaster Gardens where the children ‘collected’ sights and sounds from the area to build a selection of ideas to put into a new piece of writing based on our class book, The Valley of Lost Secrets.
Next, we moved to the seafront where we gathered more sights and sounds to build into our writing. Whilst at the seafront, we learned about the sea defences around Clacton during WWII including the deliberate damage to the pier to prevent enemy soldiers using it as a landing platform, the creation of scaffolding walls in the sea, the placement of huge concrete blocks on the beach to stop an invasion as well as the building of ‘pill boxes’ as defence positions should an invasion take place.
We then moved on to the war memorial. Here we learned about the importance of remembering local men and women who lost their lives during the wars.
Finally, we walked back to Victoria Gardens. Here, we learned about the plane crash in April 1940 where two local residents (Mr and Mrs Gill) were sadly killed when a German plane crashed into their house. They became the first civilian deaths in mainland Britain of WWII. They, along with the crew of the plane, are commemorated on a memorial in Victoria Gardens.
Although we were all tired on our return to school, the trip really added to our understanding of how WWII impacted our local area.
