Magdalen College School (MCS) has a tragically long list of Great War deaths, fifty in all. As a tribute to them, we wanted to make last year's centenary an opportunity for a whole school collaborative project, the sort that is increasingly dificult to justify as exam pressures grow and each department has its own packed calendar to navigate. The resulting experience felt extraordinary, and I'm hopeful that the exciting cross-department discussions generated last year will prompt similar collaborations in the future. I also hope that some of the elements we included at MCS might be of use to readers keen to cross-fertilise with other departments.
A cross-curricular project
Our project culminated in four performances of an entirely original musical play we called Reflections. It was a ninety-minute, one-act show which followed several real-life characters through the war and beyond, performed by students aged eight to 13, supported by a large backstage crew, a 20-piece band and the school's chamber choir.
The set included over 1,000 khaki-coloured postcards, unique acts of remembrance by every student and staff member: some featured original drawings, others short poems or dedications to a relative who had died in the conflict. I was very keen that every student in the school felt they had contributed to the production in some form, and the Art department gallantly undertook the task of co-ordinating the postcard project. In the end hundreds of cards were arranged as if erupting from canvas mailbags along the walls.
The performances were the culmination of a two-day commemoration, with the whole school off-timetable. Academic departments contributed heavily to the programme of events: the Science department led practical workshops on wartime medical advances, while Politics and Economics collaborated to provoke discussion on the changing role of women. The MFL and English teachers took the younger years on a multi-lingual literary tour through 1914–18, while Maths tackled the formidable statistics of war.
© FISHER STUDIOS, OXFORD
Students at Magdalen College School perform Reflections
We were lucky to have some excellent visiting speakers too, but the real success of the two days depended on every member of staff willingly suspending their syllabus teaching to lead interesting activities related to the Great War.
Real life stories
Reflections was born out of a discussion with the chairman of a local museum. We agreed that the school and museum would work together to produce a piece of theatre which reflected the varied experiences of Oxfordshire people. Even within the school archives there was a daunting range of material, but we were adamant that this play would locate MCS within the wider community, so it was vital to spread our research further afield.
A team of A-level historians researched the war stories of a range of men and women: some were ex-students of the school, including Ivor Novello, but we also covered more local stories, including a butcher's apprentice, Harry Stroud, who made a diary entry every day from joining up in August 1914 to being discharged after a leg was amputated in 1918. Having returned home and married his childhood sweetheart, he tragically took his own life some years later. It was stories like his which really struck a chord with the students researching from the museum archives. I imagine most local museums would be delighted to undertake this sort of collaboration, and it could make a wonderful History/Drama project for students of any age.
The research complete, a new team of students took ownership of different parts of the story, penning evocative scenes with songs marking the transitions between different phases of the war. My job was largely overseeing this script-writing process, with some tactful editing, and there was a real buzz in the room when the writers gathered at the end of the summer holiday to discuss the first draft. A final script emerged just in time for the start of term, and with only eight weeks of rehearsal it was an intense experience for all involved, not least the technical team who had to bring the Western Front and wartime England to our school hall.
The audience's reaction was intensely moving, and some very unexpected students made a point of saying how much it had affected them. It was, above all, proof that ambitious whole-school projects are achievable and a rewarding way to create a sense of togetherness.