Keswick School has a long association with the armed services. They have students in both boarding and day communities who come from a service family background and staff with immediate family members in the armed services.
It is therefore very important that the school marks the annual remembrance occasion with dignity and respect. It gives them the opportunity to reflect on the sacrifices that our armed service men and women have given in conflicts and as UN peace-keepers around the world.
This year the media production club and the writers and illustrators club have worked together to produce a short film recounting Keswick School students who lost their lives in the First World War. The film finishes with the poignant poem. This can seen on their website along with our Book of Remembrance to those who lost their lives in the First World War through the link: http://www.keswick.cumbria.sch.uk/Book-of-Remembrance
One of the school’s Heads of Charity prefects, Phoebe Bell, has also paid tribute by producing a piece of glass work of a field of poppies. This features 100 poppy petals to reflect the centenary occasion this year and will be submitted as part of her A-level Art portfolio.
Every student attends remembrance assemblies in the run up to Remembrance Sunday. This year two student has recounted what it is like to have their parents (in the Military Police and the Gurkha regiment) leave home to go on active duty.
The school will also observe a minutes silence and hear the ‘Last Post’ played by a trumpeter outside the Queen’s Hall.
We will not forget. In the words of Laurence Binyon:
They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old.
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun, and in the morning
We will remember them.
