Suitability: Key Stage Two

Bluebirds has been written for Key Stage Two audiences to tell the story of the Home Front in the Second World War and promote discussion of feelings experienced during the war as well us during the Covid-19 virus pandemic. The story is realistic and founded in accurate historical details, but is presented in role to explore the war through its central character, Frank.

Bluebirds captures Frank’s preparations for a community VE celebration in 1945. Frank talks directly to the audience about his own experiences during the war outside. Through members of his extended family, he refers to Dunkirk and the Battle of Britain and the war in the Pacific. He discusses his own experience of the war on the Home Front: of shortages and rations, air raids and the fear of invasion, of meeting evacuees and POWs, of witnessing war time work for women in agriculture and of the experience of those in reserved occupations.

The performance will be supported by teachers’ notes with lesson plans, links to relevant online materials and research sources and the full text of the story for reference.

The project aims to be top class history – detailed, accurate and evocative. The dramatised storytelling techniques used are particularly good at opening up feelings for discussion. The story has been designed to support learning through the History curriculum; for a younger audience the story will explore the differences and similarities between ‘then’ and ‘now’; for older children, focus on evidence and interpretation will draw out historical research skills. The story will present a fixed reference point for teachers addressing feelings of fear, separation, loss and privation.