Year 5 - Miss Northcott

BIG WRITE for OCTOBER

Big Writing Day

Every month at Handsworth each class has a special Big Write Day
where children are given time and space to get creative with their writing.  
Year 5 have been reading 'The Silver Donkey' by Sonya Hartnett.  

It is a moving story of a soldier in World War One.
We read a chapter which related the horrors of life in the trenches on the Front Line of fighting.
We used this as a stimulus for writing
in the role of young soldiers sending letters home to their loved ones.

The letters Y5HS wrote were moving and informed.
Here are some extracts from the class:

How are you my two dear children? Don't worry about me.  I sleep in a trench with 20 other soldiers, so I should be ok. Only problem is, there are rats where I sleep ... I have to wear tight boots that give me blisters all over.  I can hear cries of agony over the night.  Bombs won't stop going off.  I am too foolishly frightened and awfully tired.  I want to come home!  But I am truly happy you're safe out in the countryside!  Just in case you never see me again, I want you to know I will always love you and you will be cared for. Love xx
by Sophie


I am writing to you from the darkness of the disgusting trenches with the only light souce a flickering candle beside me.  My hands are freezing cold as I look at the picture of the whole family.  I miss you so much that I can't even start to describe it.  Tomorrow me and my thirty troops are going to the German trenches across No-Man's Land.  The place is a state, covered in smoke and ash from the missiles thrown.  You can hear guns firing, granade explosions and the screams of injured soldiers... I am petrified of going.  To be honest, I don't want to go but I will do it for you and young Steve... If I don't come back, show Steve this letter and tell him all the stories about me.  
by Luke



I am missing you so much in the trenches.  The war field is horrible. All you can smell is smoke from the shelling which lots of people have lost their lives from, sadly ... Yesterday we thought of a great plan to get revenge on the enemy!  In the morning, when it is still quite dark, we are going to sneak round the back of the Germans and bomb them from behind so the can't see us and then BOOM! All die!  But, if they spot us, we are in big trouble!  
by Joseph


A huge bomb came down.  Sand, mud and pieces of broken bones shot up.  For moments I couldn't see a thing.  When everything came back into view, men lay on the earthy ground.  Fresh blood seeped out of uniforms.  All I could hear was cries of agony, wheezing of dying men, trying to make their last and final words heard.  I stood alone staring into the crack of dawn.  Tears trickled down my cheeks.  I saw the Lieutenant lying stiff on the ground amid all the shattered guns and rifles.
by Maia


  
 PEACE   NOT   WAR

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