Packing for the Longest Journey s1

Teachers’ Notes

These activities help your pupils to build on their art session through exploring the Docklands at War gallery. Activities include guided looking, talking, and role-play, as well as a written activity.

Our aim is that pupils should engage with the museum exhibits, rather than worksheets!

You can choose to distribute all the activity cards, or select those you feel are most appropriate for your class. It is possible to keep the class in one gallery at a time, or set groups off on their own with an accompanying adult. Make sure the adult has a copy of the activity!

Please bring a camera to photograph your pupils at work. You’ll see that some activities suggest that the pupils are photographed, which can be a reminder of their visit as well as a way of recording their work. You could even video their role-plays.

Please chip in with further ideas and support to help the activities go well on the day – if you come up with one that works really well, please feel free to share it with us so we can add it to this pack. Email it to or add it to your visit evaluation.

Each activity can be done in pairs, or in groups of up to six.

Air raid!

Find the model of the Port of London.

Watch the film.

If it’s not running, get started in the shelter activity but listen for the siren and return to watch the film when you hear it.

Find the Consul shelter and the PLA shelter.

Read the wall panels to find out about these shelters.

·  Sit inside the PLA shelter. Imagine being in an air raid when you were working in the docks. Close the door. Cover your eyes. What would you hear? How would this make you feel? What would you be worried about?

·  Sit inside the Consul shelter. Two adults would have sat in this. How would that have felt?

Tea break

Explore the gallery and see what you can discover about food in wartime.

Can you find tins of dried egg and milk? Why didn’t people use fresh milk and eggs?

Find the Mobile Kitchen.

Look inside at the pictures on the wall.

Read the text board to find out why the bosses, the dockers and the women who ran them thought they were important.

Can you think of other reasons? Discuss them with your group.

Imagine you are in a wartime documentary film. Use the Mobile Kitchen as the background. Get into role as a docker, one of the bosses, or a woman kitchen worker. Introduce yourself and say what a difference the kitchen has made to you.

Ask your adult to video the ‘documentary’ or to take photos.

Bombs and homelessness

Find the Mothers, send them out of London poster.

Use the Take cover interactive to find out what Len Faram says about being in an air raid. Use the pictures in the interactive to see his story.

Read the Homeless text board to find out about the impact of bombing on Londoners who lived near the docks.

Imagine you are the family that lived at number 9.

·  Stand in front of the green door and tell the story of finding your house bombed and having to move away. Your character could be: Mum, Ethel (aged 13), Kitty (aged 5), Albert (aged 9), or William (aged 11).

·  How do you feel? Did you manage to rescue anything? What did you think when you came out of the shelter? What do you think it will be like to share a house with your relative until you get rehomed?

Ask your adult to take photos or to video your story.
The river

Find the War on the water display case.

Why was it so important to keep the river safe for ships?

How did the river help to save London from the fires of the Blitz?

What did the river police do during the war?

Read the information about The River Emergency Service.

What did the RES do?

List three things here.

1.

2.

3.

The three volunteers are all women.

Look to your left.

Can you find out where else women worked in the war?

Why did women need to go to work during the war?