CWGC by Michael Jansen

1 of 10

Slide Notes

“Visitor numbers to our major cemeteries and memorials have increased massively in the last twelve months as a result of the Centenary of the Great War. But we have more work to do to help those visitors understand the historical significance of our sites and encourage them to visit the lesser known war graves and memorials we care for.

“The Commission, its work and its team have a rightly-deserved reputation for excellence amongst those who know about us. But that is far too few people. We want the world to value what we do.

Victoria adds: “We need to seek greater recognition, and be proud of what we have achieved for nearly a century. And with the Commissioners and the senior team, I am now starting to look at the next hundred years, and how we take our mission, to ensure that our war dead are never forgotten, into the future.”

Victoria Wallace
Director General of the Commonwealth War Graves
Commission (CWGC)

CWGC

Published on Nov 18, 2015

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (www.cwgc.org) The CWGC maintains the graves of the 1.7 million Commonwealth servicemen and women who died during the two world wars. It also holds and updates an extensive and accessible records archive. The CWGC operates in over 23,000 locations in 153 countries across all continents except for Antarctica. Established in 1917 by Sir Fabian Ware as the Imperial War Graves Commission, CWGC will be celebrating its own Centenary on 21 May 2017. 14-18: A series of high-profile worldwide events will take place to mark the centenary of the First World War and key Second World War anniversaries, many of which will take place at Commission sites. The Commission will ensure that these sites are maintained to the highest standard and is installing information panels at over 500 sites to enhance the visitor experience. Smartphone users will also be able to access additional information, including the personal stories of some of those buried at the site. The CWGC provides teachers and youth workers with a comprehensive range of educational resources and support materials so that future generations remain engaged in the work of the CWGC and continue to remember those who died in the two world wars

View Outline

PRESENTATION OUTLINE

WE WANT THE WORLD

TO VALUE WHAT WE DO

through COMMUNICATION

education & INTERACTION

Enhanced Communication

" In order to engage with a new generation and to align with the 2014 – 2018 preparations, the Commission has devised a new education strategy, aimed at reaching
audiences in the UK and beyond.

We plan to support local curriculums or complement existing education resources. As a result, the Commission has recently conducted an independent
survey of teachers. The data will inform our future work and enable more in-depth consultation.

One very pleasing result of the survey was that 73.6% of
respondents thought the work of the Commission was relevant or very relevant to the National Curriculum.
This is exactly the sort of endorsement that the Commission needs in order to engage with future generations. "

"73.6% of respondents thought the work of the Commission was relevant or very relevant to the National Curriculum"

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission
Annual Report 2011 – 2012

http://issuu.com/wargravescommission/docs/2ar2012/1?e=0

we NEVER UNDERESTIMATE

THE importance OF HISTORY

If we have no history, we have no future
This elimination of our national story in many of our schools is nothing short of a tragedy

Tristram Hunt
The Observer, Sunday 28 August 2011

My history education began in dramatic fashion. "In a rather deep hole, in a curve of the Medlock and surrounded on all four sides by tall factories and high embankments, covered with buildings, stand two groups of about 200 cottages in which live about 4,000 human beings, most of them Irish. The cottages are old, dirty, and of the smallest sort, the streets uneven, fallen into ruts and in part without drains or pavement; masses of refuse, offal and sickening filth lie among standing pools in all directions…"

This was Friedrich Engels's account of 1840s Manchester, as depicted in The Condition of the Working Class in England. And it was the text which my inspirational history teacher, Mr Mackintosh, decided it would be interesting for a class of 11-year-olds to study. So, week by week, we travelled through the mills, workhouses and lodging rooms of urbanising England; the accounts of effluent-bubbling streams, smog-laden skies and overcrowded tenements.

We met typhus-ridden Irish immigrants and philistine factory owners. And it was wonderful: a beguiling mixture of gore and grime along with a sense of the visceral, foreign, unknowable past which we all wanted to get our hands on.

Sadly, last week's exam results revealed far too few students are receiving the history teaching I enjoyed. But more worryingly, the figures showed not just a fall in numbers taking GCSE history, but that the study of the past is becoming the preserve of the private sector. Our national story is being privatised, with 48% of independent pupils taking the subject compared with 30% of state school entrants. And academy schools, so admired by government ministers, are among the worst offenders.

This elimination of the past is nothing short of a national tragedy. We can rehearse the arguments about the "competencies" history provides – the ability to prioritise information; marshal an argument; critique sources. But such utility fails to do it justice. History is so many things: the material culture of the past; understanding lost communities; charting the rise and fall of civilisations.

Yet history also provides us with a collective memory; it gives us a sense of connection to place, time and community. And that sensibility is being lost. As Eric Hobsbawm has put it: "The destruction of the past or, rather, of the social mechanisms that link one's contemporary experience to that of earlier generations, is one of the most characteristic and eerie phenomena of the late 20th century. Most young men and women at the century's end grow up in a sort of permanent present lacking any organic relation to the public past of the times they live in."

Naively, government ministers think the problem lies simply with the syllabus. Indeed, education secretary Michael Gove has launched a review of the history curriculum, blaming political correctness for a failure to teach "one of the most inspiring stories I know – the history of our United Kingdom".

However, key stage 3 of the national curriculum allows for a perfectly decent chronological history of Great Britain. The problem is that teachers aren't allowed to teach it. In most schools, the average 13-year-old is lucky to get one hour a week of history, making it difficult for even the most gifted classroom performer to develop a strong narrative arc. And when it is taught, history is too often batched together with other subjects into a vapid and generalised "humanities" course which fails to do it justice. This state-sanctioned amnesia is becoming acute in some of our most deprived communities. In Knowsley, near Liverpool, just 16.8% of pupils were entered for history, compared with 45.4% in Richmond upon Thames. In fact, across the UK, pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds have been systematically steered away from academic subjects to be placed on grade-inflating semi-vocational GCSEs. All too often, these provide neither the skills which employers require nor a route into further education.

Academy schools have proved particularly adept at this manoeuvre. Data are hard to track, but research by the thinktank Civitas has revealed that, for example, in one academy in the Yorkshire and Humber region, out of 150 students only nine were entered for history in 2008-09. In an East Midlands academy, just 5% of entries were in history and geography.

This matters because of what is being lost. "The soft bigotry of low expectations", an assumption that those in communities of historically low educational attainment should not be challenged, means young people are being denied the patrimony of their story, an understanding of their country and society. This is the mindset that cuts off their history of the English Civil War, the Industrial Revolution and the British Empire.

This is wrong because history is a national asset for Britain: we have a lot of it and we are very good at explaining it – in books, radio, museums and film. And if historical understanding is going to become the preserve of the private sector, the nature of our national story will also shift. The signal achievement of the postwar years was to take history teaching out of the preserve of the public schools and inspire the likes of David Starkey and Linda Colley to research and reveal the past. History, in the hands of grammar school and comprehensive-educated scholars and TV producers, became far more accessible. The current trend puts that achievement at risk.

George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four had it right. "Who controls the past," ran the party slogan, "controls the future: who controls the present controls the past." Last week's figures are a wake-up call. We need to ensure that our national past remains available to everyone, and does not become the preserve of an elite teaching itself a certain type of history which could fast define the national narrative. We need the discordant, uncomfortable, jarring voices of the past, as well as Michael Gove's homely tales of national heroism. Peterloo as well as Pitt the Younger.

What is needed is a culture shift. Ministers need to stop interfering; headteachers need to be braver about league tables and the type of education they are offering; local authority directors need to stop second-guessing the professionals; and parents should not accept uninspiring teaching or grade-massaging at the expense of their children's appreciation of the past.

The coming generations are in real danger of becoming detached from the past, of losing their capacity as citizens to call power to account, as well as simply to revel in the contradictions, achievements and misdeeds of our forebears. Every pupil deserves a Mr Mackintosh.

interactive content

& media rich solutions

carved in stone

each story to be told

War stories:

Reay School pupils honour lost heroes
By Steven McKenzie BBC Scotland Highlands and Islands reporter

Pupils at Reay Primary School in the far north of mainland Scotland have researched the names on their local war memorial.
The monument in Reay, a small community near Thurso in Caithness, lists the names of soldiers and sailors with connections to village and surrounding area who lost their lives in the world wars.
They include men who died in World War One's battles in France and Belgium, and others who perished in Sicily, Libya and Burma in World War Two.
The children have written and illustrated a book called Reay's Lost Heroes.
Using official records and newspaper stories at the time, the pupils have told the story of the memorial and recounted stories of the men whose names are engraved on it.
Some of the children have family connections to the war dead.
Reay's monument is one of more than 160 war memorials in the Highland Council area.
The local authority has started a process of repairing and improving many of them in time for 2018's 100th anniversary of the end of World War One.

if a picture says

a thousand words, an experience says it all

A Picture Tells A Thousand Words
By Nina Rahmatallah

The new wave of twenty-something (and younger) consumers don’t just expect good design, they demand it. Having grown up with iPods and iPads, they have the tools and ability to create great design for themselves, and so can’t forgive poor design when it comes from brands.

Yet the poor visual experience many brands deliver, particularly when it comes to mobile and social media, is astounding. Perhaps ten years ago, a poor visual experience online could have been forgiven. Images took time and money and this was still the ‘testing era’ for the platforms.

But today, brands which neglect to put the necessary resources into making their digital experiences look great, especially when pouring money into high-value TV production, act counter-intuitively. According to IBM, in the US alone, $83 billion is lost each year as a result of poor customer experiences.

What’s more, good design online can enhance a brand’s search rankings. With a greater and greater proportion of that experience happening on mobile, it is time to re-prioritise.

Instagram is doing what it can to raise the bar – their move to allow brands to advertise has been done so with extremely stringent guidelines as to the quality of the imagery they will allow. Beyond Instagram it is up to brands to take matters into their own hands.

The first task is to prioritise. There is no doubt that the digital world has driven a focus on content creation delivered through many different channels. But if you can’t afford to do it well, don’t do it at all.

The second task is to invest in working with the right partners. A combination of focus on form and function is critical to success – beautiful images are not worth having if they don’t work well. Likewise, make sure you are working with the right SEO experts – again beautiful images are pointless if no-one can find them!

Finally, if you are going to invest anywhere, invest in video. Video is the most engaging and entertaining form of content. On social media it also has a longer shelf-life than the likes of a simple tweet or facebook post. Whether on talent, partnerships, or simply content creation, video is something we’ll see more and more of in the months and years to come. If a picture says a thousand words, then video says tens of thousands.

repurpose across

all media channels

Repurposing is so commonplace in today’s multi-channel marketing environment that it is the standard. Everyone must deploy their message across multiple mediums in order to get the greatest impact and maximize the ROI in the time and money spent producing that asset. As marketers, if there is one thing we have learned over the last few years, we are expected to “do more with less.” It is also incumbent upon us to take advantage of all the latest cost-effective digital marketing vehicles that have come about. Advancements in technology, creativity, digital media management and digital asset optimization mean the emphasis is on efficiency.