Posted on: November 14th 2014
The breathtaking image of 888 246 ceramic poppies adorning The Tower of London was a triumph and a labour of love for artist Paul Cummins and 16,000 volunteers who painstakingly laid them for the installation ‘Blood-swept Lands and a Sea of Red’ to mark the centenary since the start of The Great War. Their significance is not over stated in remembering each and every British and Commonwealth soldier that lost their lives during WWI and that is why the enduring image of the poppy is still so widely recognised today.
It was heartening to see so many of our pupils wearing their poppies this week and sharing in the Remembrance assemblies that we held. Key Stage 2 joined over 10,000 schools worldwide and almost a million students in watching a live Remembrance broadcast on Monday afternoon from the Tower. The assembly focused on why we remember and how we remember. It is impressive to see how much the children do know about Remembrance and their sense of empathy for something that happened in their great grandparents’ generation. KS1 pupils learned about the Remembrance service at the Cenotaph and the significance of poppies, on Tuesday, listening in quiet thought to The Last Post, as did our Reception pupils in yesterday’s assembly. The school also observed 2 minutes silence at 11am on Tuesday.
Finally, I had the pleasure of visiting Haileybury earlier this week and whilst walking across their quad, saw that they had planted simple crosses with poppies - 589 to be precise with individual names of all the old Haileyburians who fought and lost their lives during this period. It was a humbling experience.
The most important message that has pervaded this week and indeed the last hundred years is the sense of gratitude that we have to those who lost their lives fighting for the liberty of future generations. Lest we forget
