Monday June 10th 2019
Jessica Clegg, Sir Robert M Clerk, Dalkeith Headteacher Allyson Dobson and Guy Ward
Written by Dalkeith High School History Teacher, Ross McGlade
Dalkeith High School took part in WW100 Scotland’s programme of remembrance and commemoration of the one hundredth anniversary of the end of the First World War.
WW100 Scotland aimed to inform people about Scotland’s contribution to World War One and help them discover the effects of the war on their local communities and its lasting impact on life in Scotland today.
As a school, our contributions to this effort consisted of an interdisciplinary approach to learning we called ‘DHS Remembers.’ This provided our young people with the opportunity to lead their own learning into the significance of the war for themselves and their families, for their community and for Scotland.
We held pupil led remembrance assemblies which focused on the significance of the war for Scotland and why remembrance was still relevant today and accompanying this, pupils laid a wreath at our memorial to fallen former pupils and staff and learned about some of their stories.
Each faculty in the school offered lessons on the war that used their own subject expertise to shed light on a different aspect of the war for Scottish soldiers:
– Science looked at the causes of disease in the trenches and the nature and impact of the use of chemical weapon
– PE and Home Economics used The Great War as a theme for dance choreography and sold poppy cakes to raise funds for Erskine Veterans Care Homes
– Social Subjects focused on how the map of Europe changed between 1918 and 2018 and why the war was a catalyst for this as well as comparing the treatment of soldiers suffering from “shell shock” in 1914-1918 to the experiences of modern day veterans diagnosed with PTSD
– The English department studied war poetry while Humanities looked at conditions in the trenches and the circumstances surrounding the war’s ending.
Pupils and staff also researched their own relatives’ involvement in the conflict and produced family trees and posters detailing their experiences for a wall of remembrance.
In recognition of the school’s efforts, Sir Robert M Clerk Bt OBE, Her Majesty’s Lord Lieutenant of Midlothian visited the school on Wednesday 29th May to meet some of our pupils involved in the commemoration and see what they had achieved for himself.
The visit culminated in Sir Robert presenting our school with a WW100 certificate which will be officially awarded to our pupils at our Junior Awards Ceremony on Tuesday 11th June.
To find out more about WW100 ww100scotland.com
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