My Clever Kids Evacuee Tag - World War 2 - Replica

Product Information

Using this lesson plan in class will help your class understand the evacuation process that took place in World War 2.

If any of you in these classes are in doubt you should at once make inquiries at your local council office.' Evacuation during the Second World War was the process of moving people away from the dangers of bombing. Inside, you’ll find the printable paper gas mask template ready to print out and use right away. All in one place, you’ve got the template as well as all of the necessary information and guidance you’re going to need. These evacuation posters cover the different aspects of evacuation during WW2. From an evacuee's journey, to what life was like with a host family, you can use these posters to support your teaching of the war and evacuation.

Records available only at The National Archives in Kew

As cities were the main target for bombing during WW2, people were evacuated to rural areas that were considered to be safer.

Sometimes the evacuees were assigned a family to live with. In other cases, the host families came to the village hall and chose the children they would take with them. Evacuation from London and other cities began in September 1939, just a few days before Britain entered the war. Each child was carrying with them a gas mask and wore a label giving the name of the place they were travelling to in case of an emergency or if they were to get lost. Within just three days, more than one million children and half a million adults had been moved, including 600,000 from London. Recruiting volunteers The government had planned to evacuate about 3,500,000 people but in fact only 1,500,000 made use of the official scheme. Almost all had been evacuated to the reception areas by the evening of 3 September, a few hours after the official declaration of war.Firstly, children gathered at their local schools and had a label attached to themselves, their siblings and their suitcases. They were taken to railway stations by their teachers and many volunteers. At this point, they did not know where they were going nor if they would be split from brothers and sisters who had gathered with them. They no doubt felt scared about being away from their families for the first time but excited about going to a place they had only read about in books. Being an evacuee during the Second World War must have been a life-changing moment, filled with nerves, excitement, sadness and curiosity. Children had to leave their families and homes behind (in some cases for years) and try to fit in with a new family, school and way of life. Arrangements for the first day were limited to those areas for which transport plans have been previously worked out. It has already been possible to extend the arrangements to a few other areas.' Evacuation officially began on 1st September 1939: two days before Britain and France declared war on Germany. During the first wave of evacuations, 1.5 million evacuees were sent to rural locations in just 3 days. In total, around 3.5 million people were evacuated during the Second World War.

The government recommended that in addition to their gas mask and identity card, the evacuees had the following items: In 1939 the Government Evacuation Scheme listed places in England and Wales that were designated as evacuation areas, from which young children and vulnerable people were to be removed to safer locations. In most cases this meant removals from the most densely-populated areas, not the whole district. Others districts were classified as neutral areas, and any places not on the evacuation or neutral lists were scheduled as reception areas. The following were designated evacuation areas: County Hospital evacuation too, went off smoothly. Along the blue-windowed corridors of Saint Thomas's Hospital, past the carriage which Florence Nightingale used in the Crimea, teams of medical students wheeled patients (who still require medical treatment but are not seriously ill) in their beds to two centres, where they were transferred to stretchers. To get an in-depth lesson plan full of helpful materials to support your WW2 lessons, you can use this Evacuation in World War Two lesson plan. Our resources are made by teachers so you can have full confidence that they will be following the national curriculum. What was evacuation during WW2?Little tots smiled gleefully and boys whistled and exchanged jokes. One boy, carrying a kitbag over his shoulder in true military style, kept humming to himself as he marched along. Know your class: some content may be too upsetting for some children, due to experiences in their own past. These World War Two Lesson Plan Ideas also have some great suggestions, such as writing letters home about being an evacuee — a perfect addition to any evacuation lesson! However, contrasting experiences have stayed with the evacuees and what is left can only be described as the best of times and the worst of times.