Age: 11,12
Project Year: 2012-13

Two main wars were studied: WW1 and Afganistan

Two main wars were studied. Thornfield pupils took the lead with studying World War One (WW1). in class they studied some famous people from WW1 (the three kings, Generals, Airmen and three major battles Ypres, Somme and Passchendaele. They investigated life in the trenches and strategies and technology used. Thornfield pupils read War Horse by Michael Morpurgo paying particular attention to the characters. As the pupils studied each new piece of information they uploaded it in their own words onto the appropriate Wiki pages to inform pupils of St Mochta’s. St Mochta’s pupils, in turn asked questions about WW1 and War Horse and this extended their learning about war in the early 1900's and the life of horses in WW1. St Mochta’s studied the Afghanistan War. They uploaded information on Afghanistan, the Taliban and the western countries involved in trying the stabilize the country. They studied the book Breadwinner by Deborah Ellis . They uploaded information onto the Wikis and Thornfield pupils, with the help of their teacher, read the information and discussed the War and strategies used. We discussed what life was like under the Taliban for young girls and women. We compared pictures of the trenches and life in Helmand as well as differences in the artillery, bombs, aircraft and radios for communication instead of pigeon or telephone links. Thornfield pupils learnt about past and modern warfare and both schools compared and contrasted life during the different wars from the perspective of a horse and a young girl.

Videoconferencing

It was tried but there were technical complications in both schools which limited success!