Hazlegrove Prep handmade poppies help make remembrance relevant to children

Hazlegrove Prep School, with its many forces children, is creating an art installation to which the whole school community will contribute to help the children understand Remembrance and all that is symbolises both for the past and the future.

Explaining to our children why we buy a small red paper flower every year and the enormity of the symbolism of that delicate but enduring flash of colour can be difficult.

Remembrance and the nature of how those who lost their lives, and continue to do so, in conflict across the world has changed over the last few years. The generations who remember rather than experienced the atrocities of WW1 and WW2 have perhaps greater scope to express themselves than those who lived through the wars – that generation of young men who returned but were left unable to speak about what they had seen and had to endure. The poppies at the Tower of London and the ‘There But Not There’ campaign of haunting solitary figures are testimony to this.

At Hazlegrove Prep School, remembrance has a particular poignancy as a school where approximately 80 children from the boarding community come from serving forces families.

Headmaster Mark White says, ‘The act of remembrance is an opportunity to look both backwards to the past but also forward and to acknowledge that this has great relevance to the young children in our care. Bright red Flanders poppies – known for their resilience and tenacious ability to grow in even the most challenging of environments – symbolise the hope of a better future for all.

The school commemorates Remembrance Sunday and this year, the centenary is marked with an art installation created by the entire school community. Children, parents and staff have all made poppies commemorating the end of the First World War. Poppy ‘kits’ were sent home during the half term holiday to enable families to make the poppies together, this shared act of different generations creating something side by side can foster discussion and dialogue about the poppy and all that it symbolises.

Director of Studies David Edwards says, ‘Here at Hazlegrove, we will be commemorating the end of the First World War, 100 years ago, in a variety of ways. Each family contributed to our art installation in the Fitzjames Building, a central hub for the school and which provides the ideal location for reflection and remembrance from the communal creation of a wonderful and fitting memorial.’