Year 6 Beaumanor Hall trip

Last week on Thursday, the year 6’s went to Beaumanor Hall. A place that has been standing since World War 2! To start off the day, the year 6’s learnt about discipline and good manners. We were told that girls had to sit upright with their backs straight and boys had to ALWAYS let the girls and ladies go before them. The boys even had to take off their hats indoors and hold open the doors for the girls, in return the girls must say ‘thank you sir’; this even included when going in air shelters.

The classes were split to do each activity separately. 6FE class went off to decode messages first. We learned that Beaumanor was a top-secret code-breaker organisation during World War 2. Its buildings were designed to look like normal Britain estates, such as: farmhouses with yellow bricks to look like hay; a normal house, with normal surroundings and much more. We sat in the very room women used to listen to radio messages and ladies could be in there listening to static and messages for up to 11 hours. We listened to messages and decoded them.

On the next activity, we learned about rationing and how growing your own vegetables could help with the war effort. Rations were small and expensive. Most people were only left with 40 pence a week to spend!

It was a great day and experience. I loved to dress up as an evacuee.

By Rhianna