PUPILS at Okehampton Primary School recently experienced the lives of world war two evacuees.

The project, run in collaboration with the Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter, sees children experience life as it would have been for children their age in 1942, following the Exeter Blitz.

The project involved plenty of hands-on experiences and dramatic role play, helping the children think about how different life would have been during wartime.

They dressed in authentic world war two clothing, took part in a morse code workshop, and even had to consider what they would take with them on their very own evacuee's journey.

An air raid experience also gave the children the opportunity to see, hear and feel the impact of an air raid, using authentic artifacts and reproductions.

The children practiced putting out fires with stirrup pumps, dealt with incendiary bombs, tried on gas masks, considered how to help an injured person, and even joined in with a wartime song.

Year 5 class teacher Sarah Godbeer said: 'It's really important for the children to learn about what life would have been like had they been born 60 years earlier.

'It's also been great fun for them, but primarily this is about encouraging children to remember the past and those who have gone before them.'