Get on Your Boots and Dig Some Roots! - Turners Hill School

Holly Class were studying WW2, evacuation and rationing. As always, at Turners Hill, we like to try and tie our topics to our healthy eating and environmental ethos, so the children were asked to come up with a campaign similar to that of the Dig for Victory campaign but with a modern twist, ours being to grow your own vegetables and buy locally.An opportunity was spotted to include the community in this project. Elderly members were invited into school and interviewed. They told the children about their experiences in the war, focusing on rationing and the produce they grew themselves.The children researched war time recipes, searching out ones that could include produce that we grow in our own gardens. Holly class sent out invitations to all the older members of the community inviting them in for a home cooked war time lunch.The children visited their local village, dressed as evacuees and purchased any other ingredients they needed. The village shops had been warned the children were coming and some had even dressed up themselves. What fantastic community spirit!The children spent the morning cooking and at lunch time at least 30 local residents came for lunch. Not only did the children cook for them but they entertained them with the Jitter Bug and War time songs.The children were able to experience living history, able to hear from the horses mouth how things used to be so different. In literacy they wrote invitations, shopping lists and recipes. They had to use maths to calculate ingredients quantities whilst cooking. In P.E. they learnt the Jitter Bug and in music they sang war time songs. Most importantly in PSHCE the children learnt about healthy eating, about caring for the community, they had to meet and greet their guests and make sure that their needs were met. The children were genuinely excited about this project. The feedback that we got from our diners was all very positive; they are clearly looking forward to our next event! Many of our children have started growing their own veg at home as a result of this project.This project was such a success and we received such fantastic feedback that we intend to try and continue producing a community lunch at least once a year, at the same time as involving them in topics that we undertake.