As the Gallipoli Centenary Education Project draws to a close we are delighted to present a film which captures so many of its successes. The 12-minute film records the conference which we held in March 2016 but goes much further than that, highlighting the real impact of the project across the U.K. and further afield to Ireland, Turkey and Australia.  It also shows the impact on a personal level, felt by young people as they researched the lives of soldiers who went to Gallipoli and sought to make sense of what they discovered through a wide range of activities.  We also meet the academics, teachers and museum specialists who helped to make it happen.

Turkish historian Dr. Burçin Çakır from Glasgow Caledonian University, said: With the transnationality of the soldiers and their stories, Gallipoli can be easily implemented into the curriculum as an example of the horrors of war but at the same time a good example of how reconciliatory rhetoric and discourse around Gallipoli can create friendship – ‘mateship’ – and can create a human side of politics.

One of the teachers involved in this project described the benefits of the arts focus taken by many of the schools we worked with: It has been fantastic working alongside amazing practitioners engaging students in the Gallipoli Campaign. Art, projection, theatre, mixed with hard evidence allowed for a heavy subject to be digested in bite sizes chunks. Creativity is such an important tool for educational projects. It makes learning an experience rather than just 2 dimensional facts in a textbook. I know that most of the students will remember this project for years to come and isn’t that what education should hope for?

Ian Potter, Headteacher, Bay House School, Hampshire put the whole project in perspective: The important thing about engaging students in history such as Gallipoli is that they can relate to events in the past in a way that can then help them understand their present and give them a sense of what might be their responsibility for the future. We are who we are because of where we’ve come from, who we are now and what we intend to be and the fact that we are doing this with schoolchildren – who will be the leaders of tomorrow – is I think a very significant event and I am grateful for the Gallipoli project in making that happen.

Thank you to all the people who have helped to make this project happen.