soc.history.war.world-war-ii

Swanitch 40 wrote:

> Where could I find out what the impact on education of the war? I am
> interested in how schools ran their terms during these years. Did
> they match the holidays schools have today or were they very
> different?

British policy in 1939-45 was that schools should
continue to act and teach as normally as possible,
. this was a topic of public policy in a way it
was not in WW1.

Schools were also the operational unit of wartime
evacuation of children from London and other cities
likely to be bombed. Parental approval was required
(and pre-school children were not evacuated by the
state: this was left to parents.) Children flagged
for evacuation reported with hand luggage to the
school and traveled with classmates and familiar
teachers, . the social unit that was relocated
was the school rather than the family.

Where possible, an evacuated school was added to
an existing rural school. ( . St. Paul's Cathedral
school moved en bloc from London to Truro Cathedral
School, Malvern College (requisitioned for the Tele-
communications Research Establishment) staff and
boys were pitched into Haileybury College, numerous
London schools parachuted onto rural schools, so the
children would study with familiar faces even while
billeted with stranger families.

Numerous books describe this. For London, see
David Lodge, Out of the Shelter. He started school
in London just after the Blitz.