Trip Reflections - El Alamein

A Commonwealth War Cemetery

The annual trip to El Alamein is the highpoint of our Year 6 outings and children start looking forward to it as early as Year 4. The trip is an important part of our Inquiry Unit on Conflict. It is a unique opportunity in the Primary School calendar for students to demonstrate that they live the Learner Profile characteristics a good learner would be expected to have such as being caring, an inquirer, a thinker, knowledgeable, a communicator and so on. Every year I am impressed by how well our students meet the demands of these characteristics, and this year was no exception.
Below, you will find a variety of reflections on various aspects of the trip and what each pupil learned as a result. I hope you find them informative.

F:
I learned that in the battle at the end it was easier to beat the Italians. I also learned what a Spitfire is. It is a plane. I learned that the Germans didn't have enough money to build a big cementery so they made a small one wich has deep holes. They put all the dead soldiers in the holes.
I enjoyed swimming in the pool and staying in my room with my friends. I also enjoyed going to all the cementarys and the museum. I think I was thinker because I had to think of how to draw the hotel from the top. My favourite monument is the Commonwealth Cementery because it was big and nice and there was a grave for everyone.
I think Year 6 should go there again because it was fun. The most challenging thing was answering the camp booklet quiz questions.

S:
My class went on a field trip to a war memorial site. We visited three cemeteries that had soldiers buried in the graves. Someone was buried in the cemetery that had died when they were 17. One of the soldiers had died with his wife and daughter.
We also went to the war museum and saw real tanks and an airplane from the war. We then went to the German cemetery and saw some big monuments (memorials). Looking at the monuments made me feel sad. We also went to see the Italian cemetery. The Italian cemetery had the names of all the people who died on the wall. The monument also had a space on the wall for the unknown.
After we left the Italian cemetery we went back to the hotel to go swimming. We got to swim until it was time for everyone to go to write in our diaries and then have dinner. After dinner we went back to the room to go to bed. The trip was fun and we went to see a lot of things that I had never seen before.
Everyone that I talked to that went on the trip said that they had a lot of fun.  We stayed at a very nice hotel and it was very big and the places that we went to had a lot stuff to look at and learn about. While we were in the hotel we even got to see talent show that was done by the students from our school. After the talent show we ate yellow cake to celebrate one of the teachers birthday. Overall, the trip was fun and was it something that I really enjoyed.

M:
I liked the trip to the memorials. It was a good experience for me to see graves and memorials.This trip made me fearless of graves and memorials. I also felt sorry for the people who died in the war and for their families especially when I saw visitors putting plastic poppys and crosses infront of the headstone.
During the trip I learned alot about the WWII and that people had the courage to die for their country and thats not because they didnt like their family but they did it so even if they didnt survive the others would. I really liked the Italian memorial and the Commonwealth memorial. The German memorial was a completely different style: old and yellow. But its not about the style. I didnt really like the idea of putting the names on a tablet and burying them meters underground with lots of others.
I did not really enjoy the bus ride going and coming but I liked the rest. I think the things that could have been changed into somthing better was the German lid covering the burried people. I know for sure that I did not do very well in the trip booklet we had to finish because there was about a page in total that I didn't complete.
I think I have demonstrated the learner profile characteristic of a risk taker because I was scared to see places where people were burried but I am fine now. I learned alot about general Rommel of the Afrika Korps and about how he was not prepared for war and also alot about conflict, the Desert Rats and their emblem.
I enjoyed swimming the extraordinary hot pools but my favourite part was the talent show where NT and I performed the song "Greedy."

Z:
On the trip we went to the Commonwealth cemetery and there were hundreds of graves but by just looking at it and looking at the field of grave stones gave me the weird feeling that a long time ago people died for victory and for the independence of the safe countries we live in today.
I learned that war is something not neccesary at all and at sometime, someday, war is going to get worse and worse and even that it will destroy he whole planet with nuclear weapons or without, the world could be destroyed. I also learnt that disagreements can be solved by negotiating or war could end up being the result a field of grave stones just as I mentioned earlier.
I mostly enjoyed being with my friends because I am not allowed to go to sleepovers anywhere except at trips, with my friens makes me feel like I'm growing up and being independent. I think I demonstrated three characteristics: the first is being open minded the second was caring and the third was being a risk taker.
I was open minded because i tried to discuss what I've learnt with my my friends and tried to understand what they learnt too. I demonstrated caring by caring for N even though I wanted to sleep in the middle I let her sleep in th middle because she was used to it. I demonstrated being a risk taker too because I didn't get discouraged because I was away from my home.

AK:
When we went on our trip we went to the hotel, swam and then ate dinner. The learner profile characteristic which i demonstrated was principled and that was by not making a lot of noise and listening to my roommates.
The place which i liked was the war museum because there were lots of intresting things to see and write. On this trip, I learned about the battle.
I think year 6 should go again because we had lots of fun this year.I found the map activity challenging because it was kind of hard and tricky. I learned about the Commonwealth, German and Italian soldiers and the war museum.When we went to the memorials we had  much work to do so we were very tired .
When we came back to the hotel we swam, did the mapping activity, ate dinner and saw the talent show and it was funny and nice. Then It was Miss Hala's birthday and we cut the cake then went back to the rooms wrote our diaries ,packed our bags and then went to sleep.
The food in the hotel was very good. The next day we took a shower took our bags down ate breakfast and then played a game and got on the bus and went back home. We stopped for lunch and then went to school. I saw my mum, took my bags aand said bye to my teacher and then went back home.

Jun-Sik:
I learned about the Commonwealth cemetary and about the German cemetary. There was a difference
between the two cemetaries. The Commonwealth cemetary every soldier has one gravestone but Germans didn't have any money left after WW2 so they buried thier soldiers by what region were they born.
I enjoyed the trip because I got to see lot of places and also we had friends and I got to share the room with my best friend. I demonstrated being caring because i shared my food with my friends and we ate with them. It was very good. My favorite moment was when I was swimming and I liked it because it had an outside and inside pool and also it was heated and it was great.
I think year 6 should go again because it is so much fun and it helped me for our assembly to write scripts and for our play. I found some things challenging about the trip like the booklet questions because i didn't know
lot about WW2. It was also challenging to find the stuff that I didn't know. I saw the Italian cemetary too, they buried thier soldiers in a drawer. There is a thick book and people who visit, write down their thoughts of how war is bad and how they are sorry for soldiers who died in that war. There were lot of signs with the word "Ignoto" which means they don't know who he is. It is really sad because if the family or relatives come and they put flowers and bow but how  about unknown soldiers their family can't say it's him because there
are lot of Ignotos. Also if you go to the Commonwealth cemetary you can see a Unknown on the gravestone and under that it says "known only unto God." 

NS:
When we went to the memorials, we went to the CommonWealth cemetery and we made rubbings which was really fun but hard but I made 6 rubbings, on the same day. After that, we went to the German and Italian memorials and then to the War Museum. When we went to the museum, i learned that Darna and Tobroq were attacked. My favorite part of the trip was the talent show because it was fun to see all different acts being performed which we dont see every day!
During the trip i think I was Open Minded and a Communicator because I made new friends and i was Open Minded because I found out more and more things by the minute. i really enjoyed the swimming because every once in a while H, S and I would change a game instantly. I think the next Year 6 class should not go to the memorials again because I think the kids should go to another place to experience new things around the world and see more things than they think they have seen!!!
My favourite monument was the Italian Memorial because all the shelves are on the wall and you would not have to worry about stepping on them although at the German memorial they are under the ground, so you still have that feeling.
Also, the Italian memorial is my favourite because we got to go upstairs and it was an amazing view to see where most of the fighting was. It was humungous and I was not able to believe my eyes once I saw the beautiful Mediteranian Sea.
As we were going back to the hotel, it was boiling in the bus. Thankfully, we were allowed to swim but the pool was too hot so Hedy and I wanted to go back to the room and have a nice shower, change and meet up in the meeting room and went for dinner. I sat next to my friends. The food was great! I found making rubbings the first time hard.

NT:
At the memorials I learned about the German, Italian and the Comonwelth cimitary and the museam and I learned that they are defferent than each other and I learned how to grave rub. I saw were the battle happened. I enjoyed the talent show and the monuments I think I demonstrated a caring learner profile because I cared about the people I was with in the room with but i did not enjoy the night because me and Z did not know how to sleep. My favourite stop was the musean because it was important and had lots of information.
What I found deffecult was  the camp booklet it had lots of questions wich were hardand the diary because it was hard to write before I went to bed. I enjoyed the games we played and I liked the day we drew the ground floor of the hotel. in the talent show me and M came 2nd and H came 1st he deserved it. Miss hala turned 27.
Miss Tamara said that she will leave the day we come back for ever but she cheered us up with a song. Miss Marwa sang a song to us i really enjoyed the trip I whould like to go again. I think the year 6's should go next year they will enjoy it very much.

H:
On our trip we went to the Commonwealth cemetery, the war museum, and the German and Italian memorials. I think my favourite memorial was the Common wealth museum. I learned lots of things like how to do a rubbing. It was so much fun. I also learned that each monument was different and special in its own way. At the Italian memorial they burried people in a shelf and put them in a wall. At the German memorial they bury people in a hole then put a cover on and write the region the people come from on the cover. In
the Common wealth cemetery they bury the person and put a grave stone by their head.
I think I was an inquirer on this trip because I think I asked responsible questions. What I thought was challenging on the trip was drawing a map of the hotel. What I really enjoyed was having my friends as roommates. It was nice getting to spend time with my friends we had loads of fun together I wish I could stay longer even though I missed my parents. It was the coolest trip ever! I loved it. I think that year six should go on the trip again so they can experience new things like I did.

S:
When we went on our trip, we learned a lot of things about WW2. It was a very exciting and intersting trip.
We went to the musium, memorials and graves. In the musium, we learned who was very important in the war, and what kind of weapons they used. We found out how they work out when they got hurt. It was very intersting.
I learned when did WW2 start, and we guessed some questions like "what are the bombs called that the Americans dropped on Japan?" We wrote the answers in the booklet. We worked a lot in the booklet. We needed to bring our booklet every time. When we went to the German mnemorials, we did rubbing in our books we thought it was intersting.
I found a 18 year old boy who was killed. He was so young. I felt sad. It was very surprising. The German memorial was made of stone. It was gray and dusty. Also, in front you could see who was killed. But when i went to the Italian Memorial, I was surprised, because it was so different from German one. The italian one was so clean and the name of the monument was written with gold letters. There was also a cross. It was so beautiful. When i went to graves, I saw tonnes of graves. I guess it was more that 100.
Mr.L said, that this was only part of the war dead. It was sad and dreadful. If this was only part of the people that died in the battle, there must be a lots of people that died in the whole war. In the Italian memorial, there was a big book that you can write comments.  It was really nice.
I really enjoyed being with with my friend in the hotel. I was with U and M. It was so, so, so, so much fun and it was exciting. I used my caring skills. I helped my friends in thehotel when we needed to draw a map of the hotel. It was a very, very nice trip.

P:
When we went on our trip we first went to the hotel. The day after we reached the hotel we went to three memorials and  a  museum. I have learned a lot of new things in the trip. I learned how people lived in WW2 and how people suffered in the war. The first memrial we went to was the CommonWealth memorial, the second was the German memorial and the third was the Italian memorial. We also went to the museum.I liked the German memorial because every one asked me to read the letters that were on the walls.

MC:
On the bus to the monuments I was sitting next to my friend S and whewe stoped for snack there were mokeys. they were so cute. Aftera long trip we got to the hotel and we sat down and got are room key and partners and got set up. after a nice swim we got ready for dinner.
For dinner we hade a buffet.dinner was good but i was tierd and so it was time for bed.
(day 2)
Today was a bizzy day we are going to visit three mamorials and one musium so we met up in the meating area for the day plan and we were told we would be tierd. we got ready for the daythe first mamorial we went to was the common welth mamoril.i found a 17 year old and there was a message that said "till the day breaks." after we went to the war musium. they hade guns from the war. next on are list was the german mamorial.it was so nice. i found a five year old.after a nice time at the german mamorial we went to the Italian mamorial. it hade a long walk way but when you get in it its totly worth it.

K:
On the trip I learned about WW2 I enjoyed the swimming pool and the food. My favourite momment there is when we went to the memorial to shade in the names. I think we should go again next year. The booklet was a little chalenging for me. But I had a lot of fun there.
I think i was a communicator on the trip because when i was working on my booklet in the bus I youst to communicate a lot in the bus with everyone and get a lot of answers and I realy want to go again because i had a lot of fun and because i learned a lot about conflict and i think if i go again i might learn a lot more about world war 2.
My favourite monument is the Commonwealth memorial and the museum because there was a lot of interisting information about war. It tells you when it started and when it ended what was the reason for world war 2.
What i liked about the hotel was the room and the pool and the food. What i didnt like is the
room inspection i had to work very, very hard but i had fun.
AdK:
Year 6 had a trip to a war memorial site. The journy took a long time. When we arrived we stayed in a very nice hotel. On the first day we swam in the indoor swimming pool it was hot and fun.Then we had to draw a map of the hotel i found it challenging.We had to sleep by 9 oclok.
The second day was a very busy day. first we had breakfast, then we went to the Common wealth graves where there were lots of buried soldiers with different nationalities. i discovered that i was a thinker because i knew that if more than one buried in a grave they should be from the same family or they died togeter.
We had to do rubbings and it was cool. After that we went to the museum. We saw weapons , tanks,  a Spitfire plane and trucks.
I was caring because i was sencible and i took care of things.Then we went to the German memorial it was like a castel. The grave covers looked like a bed. Next we went to the Italian memorial which was amazing. Soldiers were buried in trays and their names put on a white stone in the wall.
On the third day we packed our bags and went home.

Thanks everyone for your hardwork!

Photo Credit: G Griffiths