'Inspiring Teachers’ session on WWII

We held the first 'after school' teacher session at Gloucestershire Archives on Tuesday 4 March. It was a great success with an inspiring and motivated group of teachers attending from across the county. Our Community Heritage Officers, Jemma Fowkes and John’s Putley ran the session along with Historic England’s Michael Gorely.

Targeted at both primary and secondary schools, the meeting aimed to stimulate the teaching of WWII by providing an array of original sources, followed by a discussion of how to use them in the classroom. We looked at photos of land girls and the Home Guard, telegrams hastily written informing of air attacks, journals, WWII recipes, rationing books, identity cards and air raid shelter plans. Scariest of all were the Luftwaffe aerial photographs identifying bombing targets within the county.

The next session will be held on Wednesday 21 May, 4-5.30pm at the Heritage Hub, Gloucester. The theme will be Gloucester Docks and we will be combining historic documents and discussion as well as having a short talk on the history of the Docks.

For more information, please contact jemma.fowkes@gloucestershire.gov.uk