the boy in the striped pyjamas

[workshy]

my yr5 DD watched this in school the other day

school sent home a permission slip explaining that it was a 12 but was related to a topic they had been covering in school

I know about the film and chatted to DD about it and was confident she would be ok so I gave my permission -obviously lots of parents had absolutely no idea what the film was like and many DCs were upset by it

is it really a film they should be showing to 9&10 year olds?

The book is in the upper KS2 study list

plenty of teaching resources aimed at 10 -11 year olds
shop.scholastic.co.uk/products/84337

So the national curriculum says that they must teach the holocaust to 9 year olds or just that they must teach the second world war??

neither

Children in year 5 are generally 10 years old but that's neither here nor there.

If you have children I'm sure you're aware of the levels system? If you want your child to stick at level 4 in history - ie just knowledge of rationing and knowledge of the Blitz but no wider understanding of the historical, social and political context of WW2 - then send them to a school that just teaches them the basics and doesn't include any human element like this story. History isn't just about teaching the number of bombs dropped or the territories captured, it's about learning the human impact of world events. If a child shows understanding of that it shows a sophisticated level of knowledge that parents should be proud of. I don't understand what hiding the world from curious children achieves. Teachers don't just feed children information, they try to help them understand the world they live in. The Holocaust is unfortunately a massive part of WW2, and a world event that you can't pretend didn't happen. Teaching intelligent, interested children about WW2 but then leaving out such an important part of it under the guise of some mollycoddling "innocence" bullshit is doing them a huge disservice IMO.

You don't have to teach either the holocaust or WW2 in the primary History NC

Should have said in my other post, WW2 is on the national curriculum:

Britain since 1930

b. A study of the impact of the Second World War or social and technological changes that have taken place since 1930, on the lives of men, women and children from different sections of society.

You'll see it says "a study of the impact of the Second World War." To me the Holocaust seems an obvious choice to fulfil that requirement. Children are also taught about bombings in Britain, rationing, evacuations, etc. All relevant to their understanding of History.

You have the choice of studying WW2 or the changes that have taken place since 1930, so don't have to touch the second world war at all.
However, I don't understand objections to teaching young children about our past.

True mrz but I would find it odd to see a whole generation of children with no knowledge of WW2. Surely even if you cover changes since 1930 you still have to "mention the war" so to speak?

Right, so you don't have to do the second world war at all - there's an "or" in there after " the impact of the second world war", and the NC asks you to focus on "Britain since the 1930's". From memory the holocaust didn't happen in Britain. There were huge and far reaching social impacts on British society.

However, you have, as I suspect 90% of other teachers also have, jumped straight onto the WW2 topic. I don't blame you- loads of resources and kids love wars. Far easier than trying to do the end of Empire, decline of the industrial heartlands or the impact of television.

I just find the Hitler obsession in British state schools a bit tedious. I sometimes think we'll get to the 100 yr anniversary before anyone realises anything's happened since.

Not really Cailin some schools study the 60s for example

I think best saved for KS3, too; DSy7 just read it, he is very unsentimental & emotionally impervious, & even he called it very sad.

Plenty of kids in y5 are still just 9.

I don't ask that the Holocaust is left out of teaching WW2 to Y5/Y6, but I do ask that it is handled sensitively. DDs honouree God mother is Jewish and she was really upset at being made to watch the end of Anne Franks' diary twice.

She really enjoyed the rest of the topic and a local museum did a brilliant evacuee day that wouldn't work for older children.

We know an old lady who was evacuated so she interviewed her for her project and we both learnt a great deal.

Primary is a difficult age, some children can cope with really grown up stuff and some really don't want too.

Seriously is that a bad thing? There are adult MNers who found the Sports Relief clips difficult to watch.

My dd is 13 and in year 8 and had to leave the room last week when they watched this film in class - she couldn't handle it. Other children were less moved by it but when she went back into class two other girls were crying.

That evening when she told me what happened, she had a good sob again. She said how upset it made her and we talked about it and why it is important for every generation to know about the Holocaust.

I would shudder to think how it would upset some 10 year olds.

I'm Irish and officially we didn't even fight in WW2, but we still teach it in Ireland! Such a massive European event can't really be left out IMO, it would be so odd for a child to know nothing about it. The attraction of teaching it is that it had an effect on everyone so children do find it interesting.

It is important to have plenty of resources for teaching as it helps the children to get inside the topic and really understand it and it just so happens that there are a lot of resources for WW2. Good teaching involves linking up all aspects of the curriculum in a meaningful way and WW2 really lends itself to that while at the same time being a very interesting topic for the children. I don't see why teachers should ignore a valuable teaching opportunity in favour of something children won't be interested in and perhaps won't learn a lot from.

WW2 can be used for
Geography - different countries fought in and taken over, cooperation between the Allies, etc.
English - The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, Goodnight Mr Tom, Anne Frank
Maths - working out rationing, how much do you need to feed a family for a week etc.

It just frustrates me that teachers can't win sometimes. If they taught a boring topic that the children didn't find relevant they would be accused of not having enough imagination, not catering for the children's needs, but when they do try to choose something interesting, and to link it all in a meaningful way they're accused of - what - being macabre or something.

We have use Ian Serriallier's The Silver Sword as an alternative but I've used Ann Frank's Diary with KS1 children (not the film)

Children in year 5 are generally 10 years old...

Not exactly true, they all start at age 9, about half way through half of them will be 10. By the end of the summer term some will still be 9. So more children will spend more time being 9 in yr 5 than will spend it being 10. My DD will turn 10 about a week before the end of summer term.

Not that it's terribly important, but that just struck me as a very odd thing to say.

Both DDs did activities around Anne Frank's diary in (different) primary schools. DD1 went to a talk which one of Anne Frank's school friends - herself a survivor gave and was raving about it for weeks. We have Dutch and Jewish ancestry so of course there was more of a connection. I have not read the Boy in the Striped Pyjamas but read the synopsis and it came across as quite a silly and inaccurate story. I would must rather my DDs read the actual facts for themselves; Martin Gilbert's book, the transcript of the Nuremberg trials or whatever. I think you obviously pitch the information at the appropriate age group. By the way DDs have also learnt about more recent holocausts like Rwanda and Cambodia at school; I don't think you can protect them from horrors for ever and they are more resilient than you think. My grandmother used to say that when you become a parent, all the awful things in the world become much worse, and she was right unfortunately.

The Silver Sword is a much better book in my opinion. As when I read it I learnt so much, such as about the Warsaw Ghetto, that even raised as I was on stories of WWII I didn't realise. However it is a much more "hopeful" book, which I think is more appropriate at thei age.
I assume someone using Anne Franks diary with KS1 is using an abridged version (even more than the normal one) or selections, as I remember a lot of stuff about being a teenager in it, which Imwouldn't think would be understood or of interest to KS1 kids.

yes there is a simple picture book version of Ann Frank's diary.
www.amazon.co.uk/Picture-Book-Anne-Frank-Biography/dp/0823410781/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1333190673&sr=1-7

I took my friends then thirteen year old to see it. We were both upset. She asked what the significance of the chimney smoking was and i told her. I also explained that if Wilf (my son) had been alive then then thats what would have happened to him...........

The Silver Sword is an excellent book as is When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit.

I would not give permission for my DS to watch The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas at primary school and would probably contact the school about it.

I wouldn't have a problem with him reading it or or having it read to him as a class novel.

I am in my 40s and ww2 did not feature in primary. Not sure if we tackled history at all actually!
In secondary we got there at Olevel I think but really got stuck into it [along with Garibaldi/ Gladstone and Disraeli/ Potato Famines etc] at A level.
I have not read the book but watched the film and was very upset by it. 9 and 10 too young in my opinion.

No I didn't study WW2 in primary either. We studied The Jacobites in Primary 6 and Victorians in Primary 7.

When I say 'study' I mean copying paragraphs of information from the board and drawing a picture 'to match'. Happy days.

I definitely studied WW2 in primary and read the Silver Sword and didn't touch it at Grammar school

Personally I find the need to protect children from this unnecessary. Both mine and DH's parents lived through this as primary school children including my own father being shot at by a German plane as he and his mother ran up the rural road.
I firmly believe that teaching the children early on how horrible the world is helps them to be more compassionate and less likely to contribute to a similar situation in the future. My DD is now 8 she has been to the Somme and seen cemeteries with 44,000 people buried in them and the Lochnager crater. She has been to Normandy and seen Pont d' Hoc. She has been to Anne Frank's house and she has watch Schindler's list with us. She understands the Holocaust and how terrible it was.
I think that the sooner you expose children to just how horrible the world is the sooner they are able to comprehend it without becoming overly emotional.