Recent articles about learning activities in Cambridge and the surrounding area.
Following on from our stimulating collaborative day at Bletchley Park and as past of our WW2 topic, Junior School Year 6 pupils were evacuated to Dame Bradbury's in Saffron Walden to spend time with their counterparts at Dame B’s on Tuesday 21 February.
Our Key Stage 1 pupils were also off site last week to visit Stansted airport.
The children in Early Years went on their own hunt and an exciting tour of the Botanical Gardens to see how many different species of common birds they could spot in a morning.
Extreme courage and perseverance were remembered on Holocaust Memorial Day when Year 6, wearing their “suitcases” of special objects round their necks, attended the annual service at St Mary’s Church in Saffron Walden, where vivid memories were brought to life by Ann Chadwick, a Cambridge resident whose family took in a four- year-old German girl at the time of the Kindertransport in 1939.
Having spent some time learning in class about this traumatic period, including reading some extracts from Ann’s book, the children’s attention was held by the sensitive and thoughtful contributions from Ann and the other participants in the service. Ben, Zoe, Bluebell and Kitty were chosen to put their own questions to Ann in person and were pleased to receive a warm and personal reply from her.
It was a serious occasion which allowed the children both to reflect on the horrors of the War and also to be thankful for the life that they are privileged to lead.
Codes, ciphers, secrecy, intrigue, perseverance and collaboration are all words that spring to mind following Year 6’s day at Bletchley Park, in the company of their counterparts from the Junior School in Cambridge.
The pupils were informed and intrigued during their guided tour and, as always, were ready with their searching questions and quick answers. After a quick snack in “Hut One” it was off to the “classroom” and a chance to do some real code breaking of their own but only, of course, after they had all signed the Official Secrets Act!
The task involved firstly deciphering the Morse code and then translating the coded messages, before plotting the positions of the ships and submarines on the map, then finally trying to decide what the evasive action should be in the face of the enemy onslaught.
This was superbly realistic for the children and really brought home to them how vital the decoding of Enigma was to the outcome of the War. As ever there was not quite enough time to see everything, but a quick dip into the “Secrecy and Security” exhibition at the end of the visit cemented the link between the work that was carried out in such secrecy at Bletchley and the overt nature of the internet with which our pupils are so familiar today: and, above all, how easy it is for one small error to have catastrophic and far-reaching consequences. A fitting link with this week’s Safer Internet Day.
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