Remembrance Day

Remembrance Day Commemoration at Wantirna College

Remembrance Day is a significant event in the lives of all Australians.  This year at Wantirna College, we will be undertaking a range of activities leading up to Remembrance Day on 11th November in order to commemorate this important occasion.  These activities will include:

• Displays in the Library
• Home Group activities
• Staff wearing poppies
• The SRC selling poppies

Inspired by the WWI poem, In Flanders Fields, poppies are worn to honour Remembrance Day as they were the first flowers to grow again on the battlefields of Belgium, once the guns fell silent. 

Given that Remembrance Day falls on a Saturday this year, we will be holding a minute's silence on Friday 10th November at 11am.

Remembrance Day is different to ANZAC Day in that it commemorates the end of World War I, when an armistice was reached between the Central Powers and the Allies.  Rather than only remembering ANZAC soldiers and the Gallipoli campaign, it is intended to represent all theatres of war and all soldiers who fought and died for their country or sustained injuries.  More than 18 million people died as a result of WWI and another 23 million were wounded, making it one of the bloodiest wars in history, and the worst at the time that it came to an end in 1918.  Nearly 100 years later, Remembrance Day now extends to remembering soldiers who have laid down their lives in all wars since that time, as opposed to just WWI, and is a time to be thankful for peace and reflect on the sacrifices made by our fellow human beings.

Joanna Karanikolopoulos

Leader of Humanities and Whole School Research Literacy