The Home Front brought to life in Brighton

A new website featuring events and activities run at Whitehawk Primary School in Brighton on life in the Second World War on the home front has just been launched (July 2008). Screen Archive South East, at the University of Brighton, in partnership with Whitehawk Primary School, have created the site as part of the MLA Grant Programme for Their Past Your Future (TPYF2) supported by the Big Lottery Fund.

Over the course of four days in May 2008 children from the school engaged in a number of learning activities aimed at encouraging young people to develop an understanding of the conflict’s significance to their local area. Activities at the school included meeting and interviewing ‘home front veterans’ – local residents who had been at school during the Second World War, touring the school’s World War Two air raid shelter, watching and producing commentaries for a World War Two film from Screen Archive South East, performing drama activities, creating art work and writing articles and poetry.

The site, ‘Whitehawk Primary School on the Home Front’, offers free public access to the many outputs from these events, including over 20 video clips showing the children’s activities.

The events held at Whitehawk Primary School provided a unique opportunity for the pupils to enrich their learning about the Second World War by meeting former pupils who were at the school during the war, by viewing archive film of a local school air raid drill and by understanding the history of the school’s own shelter.

‘Whitehawk Primary School on the Home Front’ is a companion site to ‘Films from the Home Front’ which features archive films illustrating life on the home front in Britain during the Second World War. Both are part of the wider ‘Moving History’ website which presents other films from UK archives on all subjects and aspects of film history across the twentieth century.

This project was enabled through funding from the ‘Their Past Your Future 2’ Grant Programme. which aims to emphasise intergenerational learning around the theme of learning from past conflicts. This funding is distributed and administered by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council.

‘Whitehawk Primary School on the Home Front’ can be visited at: http://www.movinghistory.ac.uk/whitehawkhomefront