Week 3

Class Trip to Lancashire Museum

For our school trip this year, we visited Lancashire Museum in Preston to learn all about how World War II impacted children. We were greeted by an ARP official when we arrived - unfortunately, our teacher had not arranged for us to take our gas masks although we did have our rations. 

We were split into 2 groups. One group went to a 1940s classroom whilst the other group learnt about the role of the ARP official. We then swapped. Our 1940s teacher was very strict! We were sat in rows at a wooden bench to learn about plane spotting and how we need coupons to pay for food and clothing. We also thought about the families that we might go to live with as evacuees. It is strange to think that in the 1940s, people had not seen fresh pineapples and would be lucky to get an orange once a year. 

In each of our groups, one of the children joined the ARP as a trainee official. We all learnt how to raise the alarm if somebody broke blackout rules or if German planes were spotted. It must have been very scary to have to go into an air raid shelter.

A raffle was then held to win a very exciting prize - an onion! 

After lunch, we learnt some basic first aid, specifically how to apply bandages and fix them into place with safety pins. We also learnt basic semaphore skills. It would have been very boring in the air raid shelters so lots of different games were invented to pass the time. We had to remember that there would have been very little room to play meaning football was out of the question. The afternoon finished with an action song.

We had a fantastic time and learnt lots about this period of history.