The Highfield and Brookham community came together for a deeply moving Remembrance Day service to honour the men and women who have given their lives in service to our country. Pupils from Nursery through to Year 8, along with staff at this local independent school, joined in reflection and remembrance, ensuring that the significance of this day continues to be understood by future generations.

The morning began with the Nursery children creating a beautiful wreath from their handprints, which they then laid in the school chapel as an act of remembrance. Reception pupils were joined by parents and grandparents to make poppies from paper and clay, each one a personal symbol of respect and reflection.

Older pupils attended a special Remembrance chapel service before the whole school gathered on the school’s Chapel Field, led by the school’s piper, Year 6 teacher Mr Simon Gunn. Following the two-minute silence, Year 4 pupils laid the ceramic poppies they had made, inspired by the 2016 Tower of London installation “Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red” (by artist Paul Cummins and designer Toom Piper).

The service concluded with Head, Mrs Suzannah Cryer and her husband Robert, reading aloud the names of Old Highfieldians who lost their lives in war, a poignant moment that brought home the true human cost of conflict.