SOS-Schools
What is SOS?
Their Finest Hour is looking for schools across the UK to help with our big push entitled 'SOS: Save Our Stories' for November 2023. Leading up to, during, and just after Remembrance Weekend (11-12 November 2023) we are asking schools to help promote this initiative to pupils and parents, but also looking for nominated teachers in a school who could lead on this and help parents and pupils to take part. We want to create a national effort to save stories or items related to the Second World War for future generations, and you can help!
How can my school get involved?
We have sent a letter to Head Teachers across the UK informing them of this initiative which you may have seen. As with all our activities you can do as little or as much as you want of any of the below:
- Basic Level - Promote the ‘Save our Stories’ weekend to parent and pupils. You will know how best to do this and the age groups that you would want to concentrate on, but a suggestion would be to include something like the following in your school newsletter:
- '[Insert your school name] is pleased to be supporting the University of Oxford in its ‘SOS: Save Our Stories’ campaign to preserve items and memories held by families across the UK and Commonwealth related to the Second World War. Please take some time to work with your child around Remembrance Weekend (11-12 November) on finding a story about what your family did in the war and sending it to the Their Finest Hour online archive. You can find out more by visiting theirfinesthour.org and clicking 'Share your story'.
- Higher Level - Create an activity for the students to find, record and send us a story and maybe offer to help them do this. If this is of interest then please register your details here and we will send you more information.
Can I get started now?
Yes! Download the documents below and look through them (especially anything in yellow that you may want to alter). But if you register with us by 14th October we will offer a short briefing session for you and also send you a full 'teachers' pack'::
- Short Information Sheet for Teachers [PDF] [MSWord]
- Full Information Sheet for Teachers [PDF] [MSWord]
- Short Information Sheet for Parents/Guardians [PDF] [MSWord]
- Full Information Sheet Parents/Guardians [PDF] [MSWord]
- A Story/Consent Form [PDF] [MSWord]
- An Opt-out Form for Parents/Guardians [PDF] [MSWord]
We are happy to answer any questions - please just email us at theirfinesthour@ell.ox.ac.uk.
