YAHL Primary School students are designing commemorative murals to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I.
In the lead up to Remembrance Day on Sunday, students have been learning about Australia’s armed forces and the sacrifices of defence personnel.
Part of their focus has been designing artwork after the school received a $3182 grant as part of the $5.3m Armistice Centenary Grants Program, which was spread across 660 community projects nationally.
“We have two flag poles outside and every day we do our national anthem, acknowledgement of country and go through our school values and mottos,” Yahl Primary School principal Chris Morrison said.
“It is a really special place for our kids and there is nothing behind the flag poles except a fence.”
The Yahl community plans to craft two large rustic steel panels to place behind the flag poles with cutouts of the students’ designs.
“I have seen quite a few other designs with the rustic metal look and thought it would suit our school well,” Ms Morrison said.
“The older look matches the 100th year celebration, rather than something bright, shiny and new.”
Ms Morrison envisioned one metal panel representing the history of the war and the second showing what it means to the students today.
“We will leave the designing up to the kids, but we want something that depicts what the war was about,” Ms Morrison said.
“My guess is ‘lest we forget’ will be merged between the artwork.
“It will be our tribute to the men and women who served us, the people that gave us the freedom we enjoy today.”
The school received the honour roll a few years ago of returned soldiers that lived in Yahl.
“We read each name out and a student brought forward a poppy and placed it in the garden along the front of the school,” Ms Morrison said.
“It had such an impact on the kids and we thought this is something we would like to develop and have something present as a reminder.”
Yahl Primary School Year 3 and 4 teacher Mel Holtz has brainstormed ideas for the artwork with students.
“I asked my students what does Armistice Day mean to them, with one student mentioning soldiers walking away from the war,” Ms Holtz.
“He crafted this picture that looked like the sun was setting on the war and the soldiers are walking away from the war.
“Other kids said he was walking towards the light and leaving the darkness behind.”
Currently just Year 3 and 4 students are involved in the design process, but there are aspirations for the whole school to have input.
“We have been studying silhouettes and have talked about the light coming from behind to encourage inspiration,” Ms Holtz said.
“We then researched some copper memorial signs that had the cut outs just as Chris had envisioned.
“We have recently started preliminary sketches of designs that could be cut out of the steel.”
School community member Josh Knightly will lazer cut the steel with Ms Morrison encouraging community involvement.
“It is really great we could involve the community members as well,” Ms Morrison said.
“We hope it gets finished by the end of the year, but it is not something we can rush as the artwork will be there forever.”
The school will also plant poppies in the area and plant an Anzac pine as part of the memorial area.
“We recently celebrated our 150th year anniversary of the school and with this being the 100th anniversary of Armistice Day it all fitted in really well,” Ms Morrison said.
“Previous students came back and said were here 60, 70 even 80 years ago.
“The kids now really understand how things change over the years.”
