Elmhurst celebrates Remembrance Day

11th November 2016 | Key Stage 1

To commemorate Remembrance Day 2016, Year 3 looked at the History of the poem ‘In Flanders Fields’ by John McCrae, who apparently wrote the poem on the step of an ambulance looking over the land where so many soldiers had fallen. They performed the poem and read the following history about why we wear poppies to the school:

On 9th November, 1918, Moina Michael sat in the office of the YMCA Overseas War Secretaries Headquarters in New York. On her break she flipped through the pages of the ‘Ladies Home Journal’ and found a reprint of the ‘In Flanders’ Field’ poem. She vowed then to always remember the troops and wrote her own poem in reply on the back of an envelope.

She decided to wear a poppy to remember the men and went out to buy as many silk poppies as she could from a local department store. She sold and gave them away to the delegates of a war conference taking place in the building. They told the rest of the delegates about the idea, which lives on today.

Watch our short video of Year 3's performance: