Category Archives: competitions

competitions, film and TV, remembrance, schools

Vote now ! – “Films of Remembrance” primary school competition

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films-competitionLegion Scotland invites you to vote for your choice as the winner in their 2016 competition for Primary school children in Scotland, which invited pupils to make a film about “the impact of conflict and the importance of remembrance”. Voting closes on Sunday 11th December, so don’t delay.. Vote here.

Full details can be found on their website, including the competition prizes and sources of support such as local veterans groups.

Pupil groups were asked to create a two-minute documentary, TV report or short film which explored the impact of conflict and remembrance on the people and communities of Scotland. This provided a lot of scope for exciting learning and the development of skills in Literacy, ICT, Social Studies and more.

 

 

battlefields, commemoration, competitions, military, schools

Legion Scotland primary schools competition – Vote!

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HMS New ZealandLegion Scotland, the veterans organisation, themed its Primary schools competition for 2016 around the Battle of Jutland 1916 (with great things planned for the centenary in May and June). School pupils that participated in the competition investigated the lives of the crews of the warships of the British fleets and thought about the impacts of the battles these sailors faced.

The task for pupils entering the competition was to produce a report in the style of a newspaper story, with an associated image (such as the photo of HMS New Zealand, which took part in the battle. Photo by kind permission of Fairfield Heritage)

The work of twelve schools has now been shortlisted by the judges, and the public can vote for their preference among the entries displayed on the Legion Scotland website.

Vote now!

 

commemoration, competitions, exhibitions, film and TV, military, museums and archives, schools

Gallipoli and Scotland

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On the 4th June 1915 Scottish troops of the 52nd (Lowland) Infantry Division were landed on beaches on the Gallipoli peninsula to join the land campaign against the Turkish defenders. Further landings brought thousands of Scots into action over the coming months, alongside soldiers from France, Australia, New Zealand, and the other parts of Britain, with high levels of loss through injury and disease. In 2015 the contribution by Scottish units to actions in Gallipoli and the impacts back at home are commemorated through a series of events in Stirling, the Scottish Borders, and elsewhere.

Stirling University was the focus of commemorative events around the 4th-6th June 2015. A public lecture by historian Professor Sir Hew Strachan was hosted by Stirling University, and a video recording of his presentation is available online. Local school pupils created an outdoor installation of poppies made from recycled materials. A screening of the cinema drama ‘Tell England’, and a workshop with university academics from Scotland and Turkey, completed events over the weekend.

The University also launched ‘Creating Gallipoli’, a creative writing competition for secondary schools. “The aim of the project is for school students to engage imaginatively with the experience of Gallipoli from a variety of perspectives by writing a poem of up to 40 lines or a short story, in the form of a letter, of up to 750 words. The letter may be addressed to a family member, a friend, a lover, a newspaper etc”. Poems and stories should evoke the human side of the conflict, giving a sense of what it felt like to be a participant at Gallipoli in 1915. Workshop sessions for pupils and teachers will be run in Autumn 2015, to help students engage with the topic and enhance their writing skills. Full details of the competition are available on the web.

Over the next few months there will also be local commemorative events and exhibitions in parts of Scotland where there is a strong community connection to the Gallipoli fighting. For example, at Hawick in the Scottish Borders the local Museums service will stage an exhibition titled ‘Hawick to Gallipoli’, about the stories of young men from the area who served with the King’s Own Scottish Borderers regiment.

 

commemoration, competitions, schools

Primary Schools competition winners

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Legion-ScotlandLegion Scotland has announced the winners of its 2014-15 Primary Schools competition.

In August 2014 Legion Scotland invited primary school children across Scotland to take part in a competition, to become First World War family history detectives. Pupils were asked to research and uncover real life stories of how the outbreak of World War One affected local families and communities. Primary school pupils from P5, P6 and P7 took up the challenge of investigating ‘what impact did the outbreak of war have on children and how do families remember this now?’

The competition asked schools, in pupil groups of ten, to enter 500 words and three photographs for the competition. Schools from all over Scotland took part. Ten schools were shortlisted, and placed online in a public vote which received thousands of votes. From the top three in the public vote, one winning school was picked by a celebrity panel including Scottish Government Veterans Secretary Keith Brown MSP, historian and broadcaster Trevor Royle, and a representative from the Co-operative Funeralcare – the schools competition sponsor.

The top three that went in front the of the judges were:
Annick Primary School in Irvine’s ‘A Friend of Age, a Guide of Youth’; Craighill Primary School in Tain’s ‘World War I Uncovered’; and Glasgow Academy’s ‘The Galbraith Legacy’.

Legion Scotland announced details of the winners on its website, and the story includes a link to the top-placed entry.

Congratulations to the overall winner, Annick Primary School, North Ayrshire. The team won a VIP trip to the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo this summer.

The judging panel was so impressed by the quality of entries that funding was found for a runner-up award, to a pupil team at Craighill Primary in Tain, Highlands, who win tickets and travel for a trip to the Tattoo.

A great effort by all concerned.

 

 

commemoration, competitions, sport

Football, Christmas, and World War One

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We are now approaching the anniversary of the first Christmas of World War One, and there is great interest in the story of the  Christmas truce in December 1914 on sections of the Western Front. Details of what actually happened a hundred years ago are not easy to confirm, but the idea of a temporary truce which reaffirmed the humanity of man in difficult circumstances is very appealing.

A football game between soldiers of the two opposing armies is perhaps the best known part of the story. This week there is a national programme to encourage football clubs, amateur teams, schools and the public to commemorate the truce through staging a football match, taking a photo of the teams, and uploading the image to the Football Remembers website. Professional teams in the UK took part last weekend, and photos of Scottish teams such as Raith Rovers and St.Mirren are already on the site. A Scottish Professional Football League press release gives some background. On Twitter the hashtag #footballremembers brings together many contributions.

Many schools are getting involved. For example, on 10th December at Kilmarnock FC’s ground school and college teams will take part in short games with a charitable and educational purpose.

The British Council‘s education pack “Football Remembers” is a very useful resource for teachers preparing their students for this particular commemorative activity, and also offers material for learning in other areas.

“All Together Now” is another initiative, which aims to mark the anniversary through music and for a charitable benefit. The truce was the inspiration for the song of the same name, released by The Farm in 1990. In 2014 a group of music performers (including Scottish band The Proclaimers) have united as The Peace Collective, to re-record the song. “The new track features a backing choir of schoolboy footballers from the English Premier League and German Bundesliga. All profits from the release will go to the British Red Cross and the Shorncliffe Trust. The Red Cross deployed more than 90,000 personnel to help the wounded and injured during WW1″. A video of the recording is available on YouTube.

Finally, one reason why the truce is attracting popular attention is the Christmas TV advertisement made by supermarket chain Sainsburys with the assistance of the Royal British Legion. This tells a fictionalised story based on the football game, and YouTube also has a short documentary piece about the historical background to this advertisement.

competitions, military, schools

Primary schools competition

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The Legion Scotland competition for Primary school pupils 2014-15 is open for registration until 19th December.

Schools are invited to investigate, capture, record, and illustrate with photographs and stories the memories of the First World War from their local community. The ten winning pupils will be enjoy a VIP trip to the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo in August 2015. Selected work will also be included in a travelling exhibition around Scotland.

Teachers and pupils are asked to:
– Identify and interview people in their local community who have memories or family stories of life during WWI.
– Look at how the outbreak of war impacted on local communities and families.
– Use photography to capture and complement stories gathered as part of the project.
– Submit three pictures and 500 words summarising the ideas and stories behind the photographs.

Full details are on the Legion Scotland competition webpage.

Schools that have already registered have often linked up with their local Legion Scotland branches, to gain the support of veterans who live in the area. Teachers plan ahead for what they might work on with their pupils and many will begin their project in the New Year.

competitions, schools, war memorials

War Memorials competition for Primary schools

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The Royal British Legion Scotland has launched a competition for P6 and P7 pupils, encouraging them to research their local war memorial which commemorates the sacrifice of First World War combatants. This forms part of RBLS work to mark the centenary of the start of the Great War next year.

Pupils are asked to record key information from their chosen memorial in their town or village; to research the stories behind the people and WW1 battles associated with the memorial; and to create a multimedia presentation about their findings.

The winning students will receive a trophy for their school and individual medals, and will travel to London to ‘Kip-on-a-ship’; an overnight stay in warship HMS Belfast on the Thames, one of the outposts of the Imperial War Museum.

Full details of this competition are available from the RBLS website Competition pages. Schools must register their interest, and the final deadline for submitting entries is the 3rd March 2014.

Many Scottish teachers have already started to help their pupils learn about World War One, the contributions made by Scots and the impacts on Scottish society. This competition will complement learning about a key period of Scottish history.

Teachers who are new to supporting pupil learning on this topic may find helpful several guides produced for schools. The Western Front Association offers a resource titled ‘A First World War war memorial study’, and the War Memorials Trust has a dedicated website titled ‘learn about war memorials’.