Bring the First World War to life for your students

26th October 2018, 12:00am
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Bring the First World War to life for your students

https://www.tes.com/magazine/archived/bring-first-world-war-life-your-students

When considering the centenary of the end of the First World War, one of the challenges many teachers face is how to make the stories real for their pupils.

Looking at black-and-white photographs, grainy film and letters written in a historical cursive, it can be difficult for young people to imagine these names and faces as real, living people who, in many ways, weren’t wildly different to us.

But now, a stunning new film by Oscar-winning director Peter Jackson will bring the genuine faces and voices of the First World War into classrooms, thanks to a collaboration between Tes, the arts organisation 14-18 NOW and Imperial War Museums.

Jackson, perhaps best known for his Lord of the Rings movies, has created They Shall Not Grow Old from footage and audio recordings from the Imperial War Museum and BBC archives.

The film, commissioned to mark the centenary of the First World War, repurposes the familiar grainy, black-and-white film using modern technology to create coloured, smooth, high definition visuals and also draws on 600 hours of audio interviews with veterans.

“This footage looks like it was shot in the last week or two,” Jackson says. “We are making this film that shows this incredible footage in which the faces of the men just jump out at you. It’s the faces, it’s the people that come to life in this film. It’s the human beings that were actually there - that were thrust into this extraordinary situation that defined their lives in many cases.”

The film will be available on tes.com and the website also includes linked resources for history, English and PSHE lessons.

Jackson adds: “I think you’ll find it a very useful resource in your school and it will give pupils around the UK a sense of what it was like to be in this war 100 years ago - not the perspective from today but the perspective from the people who were actually there.”

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