If you’ve been a long time follower of the HQ blog, you may remember reading last year about our participation in an ‘enlisting station’ for a First World War schools day for Years 10-11 from the local area.  It was an opportunity for them to participate in interactive learning about aspects of the First World War, and our enlistment activity during the lunch break prompted them to consider questions about what role they might have taken if standing in front of enlistment station in 1914 (military service, home service or conscientious objector).

We were involved for a second time this year, much more on the organisational side, but the archive took on the task of designing the wrap up session after lunch, which consisted of a fact based First World War quiz to test students existing knowledge and introduce them to new facts and figures  in a fun environment.   Due to changes in the National Curriculum we targeted the day at Year 9 students, many of whom were visiting the university for the first time.  Many of the students did well in the quiz, which came down to a high pressure head to head between a girls team and boys team from Yewlands Academy, nr Sheffield.  The tiebreaker question was correctly answered by the boys team, who went away with a stylish and highly collectible University of Huddersfield drawstring bag!  Colleagues from the History, English, Music, Health and Human Sciences, Chemistry and Creative Writing departments took part, making the event truly interdisciplinary.  You can read more about the event on the university news page.

The event grew out of the University First World War Commemoration Network and its the second year it has successfully run.  With next year being the centennial anniversary of the Battle of the Somme, we hope to run the event again, making it a truly reflective and informative event for all those students attending.

Yesterday the university ran a very successful Schools Conference looking at aspects of the First World War. Due to our current pre-occupation with ‘the move’ we weren’t able to get involved in running any sessions, but we did participate in organising a lunchtime ‘enlistment’ activity. Young people were given example propaganda and ‘encouraged’ to enlist. When they came down to our station, we gave them an individually researched ‘war story’ to add to their conference pack, and we took a straw poll as to whether if they had had to choose for real, they would have decided to enlist in the armed forces, home services or register as a conscientious objector. It was really interesting to answer some of their questions about the specifics of this choice, and whilst many decisions broadly followed gender lines (a few of our male attendees chose Armed Forces very quickly!) we had a great spread of responses. Of the 52 young people who participated, 28 would have chosen the Armed Forces, 17 Home Services and 7 probably would have registered as Conscientious Objectors. It might be intriguing if the conference does go ahead as anticipated again next year to survey the young people before and after, to get some idea of how the sessions in the conference are affecting their thinking.

We had a great lunchtime session anyway, and hope to participate more next year once the move is complete. We also got chance to get the word out to future potential Heritage Quay users through our new postcard marketing! Hopefully a great day was had by all!