Wartime Wednesday: British Schools During WWII

Wartime Wednesday: 

British Schools During WWII

British children were impacted by World War II in significant ways, one of which was their schooling. Both urban and rural areas were affected, but in different ways.

On the same day that Germany invaded Poland, authorities began Operation Pied Piper, a program that evacuated children, pregnant women, and mothers with infants. As the possibility of war loomed in the late 1930, the Anderson Committee (formed in 1924 and led by Sir John Anderson who would later invent a style of air raid shelter), published a report outlining evacuation of urban areas including London, Manchester, Birmingham, and Glasgow. Eventually, 1.5 million people, of which 800,000 were children, would move from cities to outlying areas.

England was divided into three zones: evacuation (areas expected to be heavily bombed), neutral (areas that would not send or receive evacuees), and reception (rural areas where evacuees would be sent. Rather than building camps, the plan called for housing evacuees in private homes. Individuals deemed suitable hosts faced fines if they refused to take in an evacuee.

As a result of the evacuations thousands of schools were closed in urban areas. According to one

source, approximately one in five was damaged by bombing or requisitioned by the government. Another site commented that around two-thirds were handed over the Civil Defence Services. Teachers were expected to evacuate as well, and a large percentage of male teachers were drafted.

Unfortunately, statistics indicate that only about fifty percent of the children in urban areas evacuated, which translates into about one million students without schools. This created several issues in addition the forfeiture of education:

• “Hooliganism” (as one source put it)
• Poor families lost their free milk and school dinners
• Medical inspections that took place in school ceased

In rural areas, schools remained open but were soon overrun with evacuees. Classroom size burgeoned with fewer teachers available. Some schools created a building-share, with classes held for locals during one half of the day, and classes held for evacuees during the other half of the day. Some areas used churches, village halls, or warehouses for schools. Shortages of books, paper, and equipment made teaching and learning a challenge.

Tragically, all this translated into the fact that a “significant number of children failed to reach the required levels of literacy and numeracy after the war.”

______________________

A Lesson in Love (The Strength of His Heart Limited Edition Anthology)

He thinks he’s too old. She thinks she’s too young. Can these teachers learn that love defies all boundaries?

Born and raised in London, Isobel Turvine knows nothing about farming, but after most of the students in her school evacuate during Operation Pied Piper, she’s left with little to do. Then her friend Margery talks her into joining the Women’s Land Army, and she finds herself working the land at a manor home in Yorkshire that’s been converted to a boys’ school. A teacher at heart, she is drawn to the lads, but the handsome yet stiff-necked headmaster wants her to stick to farming.

Left with an arm that barely works from the last “war to end all wars,” Gavin Emerson agrees to take on the job of headmaster when his school moves from London to Yorkshire, but he’s saddled with the quirky manor owner, bickering among his teachers, and a gaggle of Land Army girls who have turned the grounds into a farm. When the group’s blue-eyed, raven-haired leader nearly runs him down in a car, he admonishes her to stay in the fields, but they are thrown together at every turn. Can he trust her not to break his heart?

Purchase link: https://amzn.to/4f9iLKO