In schools across England and Wales, students received their results for their AS and A-level qualifications today. Earlier I drove down to Southfields, taking my new baby boy Ieuan for a quick meet and greet. There I found out the results for my students– always a nervous time– and managed to catch a few of them collecting their results in the school gym.
It’s been another good year at A-level for the Southfields sixth form: and my AS group has much to be proud of. It was lovely to catch up with one of my students, clearly chuffed to have achieved an A grade. Of course, amidst the jumping for joy there’s also disappointment– but at least at AS there’s always the January resits. It’s rare that a committed student can’t improve a grade.
To everyone who has used this site in the past year to help your A-level studies, I sincerely hope that it has helped you: and I hope that you have achieved all you wanted. To my students at Southfields, I want to declare my continuing admiration and respect for your hard work and your academic success. Well done!
As if the revision wasn't going bad enough, suddenly a flock of angry owls, led by a cat having a stroke, attacked the hapless student.
So it’s the night before your big exam.
Or it is if you’re sitting your AQA AS English Literature examination tomorrow. There are a lot of you out there for whom Monday is your big day– at any rate, the viewing figures for this site have gone through the roof. Move Him Into The Sun hit a remarkable milestone today: over 25,000 hits in this, its first year. We’ve had over 1,000 hits today alone. That’s a lot of people revising! It can’t just be the members of my fabulous class at Southfields.
So doubtless you’re a little nervous. Perhaps even anxious. Or desperate. Or terrified!
All these responses are natural. I guess you’ll know in your heart of hearts whether you’ve put in the hours throughout the year. If you have, try not to worry. Even if the exam tomorrow is an absolute nightmare, you’ll still find a way to show off your knowledge. If the question you’re asked isn’t perfect, first, take a breath. Don’t panic. Remember how interlinked so many aspects of the war are, and contemplate how you can link what you do know to what you’ve been asked. You’ll find a way. Remember, too, that the person marking your paper isn’t a monster. They’re looking to reward you for what you write. So after that initial sinking feeling, don’t freeze.
Some of you will know that you could have, should have worked harder. We’ve all been there. Well, the first thing to say is that, even if everything goes terribly tomorrow, you’ll have the chance to resit again in 8 months: that’s a lot of time to work to make things better. Some of you will be kicking yourselves because you’ll have only discovered what a fascinating subject you’re doing as you desperately try to catch up. Well, if that’s the case, you’ve learnt something precious– and who knows? Perhaps the exam will ask you about those things you do know well. Optimism is as good as pessimism at this point.
What will come up tomorrow? Who knows. You can only make educated guesses at this kind of thing. If I were setting the exam, I’d say that we were overdue for something on Sassoon or Brooke– something related to patriotism and protest. I’m also waiting for Isaac Rosenberg to crop up sometime– his ‘Break of Day in the Trenches’ is such a richly associative poem, of such quality, that I’m sure we’ll see it feature one year in question 1b.
But I’m useless at predicting these things. Honestly. Don’t let me panic you: historically, I’ve had a 0% hitrate at this kind of guessing game. At the end of the day, it’s preparation that counts, not soothsaying.
So, one last piece of advice: get to bed nice and early tonight, and when you get up tomorrow, have a nice, big breakfast before getting to school in plenty of time. Rest your brain and body before the test ahead!
They say that there is a First World War memorial in just about every city, town and village in Great Britain. Within those cities, towns and villages, there will often be more than one place set aside for reflection on the sacrifice of the dead. There are memorials that go unseen by casual eyes: in churches and cathedrals to dead parishoners, in town halls, post offices, schools. Here at Southfields we have our own First World War memorial, and it’s one of the more beautiful modern memorials that you’re likely to see.
A few years ago some of our younger art students were encouraged to make tiles depicting scenes and symbols of the First World War. They made brightly coloured tiles of poppies, soldiers, trenches, airplanes and pressings of barbed wire and iron. They coloured these and gave them a beautiful glossy glaze. Finally, they constructed a tableau out of the different elements, arranged around the words, ‘We Remember’. My picture really doesn’t do the bright simplicity of the arrangement justice: you can see it in the college’s reception hallway. It’s a favourite part of the school buildings.
The Southfields War Memorial, made by our own pupils.
Today the school stopped for its minute’s silence which, as usual, was observed impeccably. History classes lead up to Armistice day and our pupils are well informed about the reasons for observing the silence and respecting the dead. Remembrance Day at Southfields also takes in those affected by many of the contemporary wars that have ravaged the planet, and too many of our pupils have been forced from the lands of their birth by conflict and death. Remembrance Day is not an abstract moment of reflection for some at our school. The war memorial at the very entrance to our school seems to commemorate that.
My AS class met today and together we read about the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior (see my post yesterday), watched a film of the coffin’s passage from France to Westminster, and the discussed the last days of the war. Then we read extracts from Max Arthur’s excellent ‘Forgotten Voices’, the words of those who knew how it felt on the 11th of November 1918.
The answer is not romantic. In London celebrations ensued. Elsewhere, exhaustion and sorrow reigned supreme. As Sergeant Major Richard Tobin of the Hood Battalion testified:
The Armistice came, the day we had dreamed of. The guns stopped, the fighting stopped. Four years of noise and bangs ended in silence. The killings had stopped.
We were stunned. I had been out since 1914. I should have been happy. I was sad. I thought of the slaughter, the hardships, the waste, and the friends I had lost.
The discussion we had about these feelings was perceptive and, for me, moving. At the end of the lesson, the class and I (well, half of the class at least– the rest were on a trip) went down to visit our memorial and allow me to take a photograph. It’s not a solemn picture, and that’s as should be when your English teacher keeps messing up with his camera.
The Southfields AS English Literature class, sharing a moment. Left to Right: Solomon, Toni, Jarry, Aakanksha, Abdul and Ryan.
This blog is intended to help you in your study of the literature of the First World War. It’s a project of the staff and students of the English Department at Southfields Community College, London, UK: together we’re exploring the poetry of the Great War, 1914-18.
Using Jon Stallworthy’s ‘Oxford Book of War Poetry’ as our source text (pp. 160-225), this blog will provide notes for an ongoing discussion of 68 poems written by 36 different poets. The practical end point of all this will be the AQA AS level examination for our students here at Southfields: the notes and discussions herein will hopefully help us prepare and appreciate the literature of the First World War. If you’ve got the hard luck not to be an A-level student at Southfields, never mind: you’re welcome to use these resources, or better, enter the conversation!
Each poem’s subject is in some way related to the First World War, a conflict which in its scale and murderous technological reach definitively transformed the world. These poems are personal testaments to the terrible loss of life experienced in a wholly new kind of war; they are historical documents; some are great works of art; and in their own way, they point to a change in humanity of which we are the inheritors.
The notes are mine, and while useful are very far from perfect. Any mistakes of fact, scansion or interpretation, I take sole responsibility for. There will inevitably be errors of fact: should you drift by here and spot one, please point it out to me! Similarly there will be some errors of scansion– again, tell me.
As for errors of interpretation– well, this is where a discussion begins, isn’t it? If you have an opinion about a poem, an appreciative thought, or a different reading to the one you find jotted down here, please feel free to contribute to ‘Move Him Into the Sun’.
G. M. Griffiths
A final note: I have attempted to observe UK copyright law in reproducing the poetry on this site. Should any copyright holders find their property reproduced here, please inform me and I will take down the offending material.
Move Him Into The Sun 