Students, staff, parents, alumni and partners of Bishop Vesey’s Grammar School took part in a moving virtual Remembrance Day service to honour pupils who gave their lives in military service.

Usually, the school marks Remembrance Day by holding several assemblies across the site, in which every student has an opportunity to reflect on the meaning of remembrance, and the sacrifices made in the fight for freedom and democracy.

However, due to the ongoing Covid-19 restrictions, Sutton’s oldest school decided to produce a moving virtual service, filmed at various locations around the school.

The school marked Remembrance Day in a number of ways – most notably in a virtual service.

A first in Vesey history, this meant the service could be shared with parents, Old Veseyans and other members of the Vesey community who previously would not have been able to see how Remembrance Day is marked at the school.

Speaking in the service, headteacher Dominic Robson said: “What we do today, when we remember, when we wear our poppies with pride, is we remember the suffering, we remember the people who died, and we remember what people are fighting for, which invariably is to make the world a better place of justice and peace and harmony.

“So, as we look back and look forward, we remember and we also strive and hope for a better future.”

The video service features the memorials in Big School where the names of Vesey pupils who served and lost their lives in the two world wars are listed, as well as readings by students Shanice Hewitt and Fahad Wasseen, and a performance of Abide With Me by Vesey’s Cantus.

Year Seven students Samuel Sharp, Taiseer Syed, Neil Ghedia, Krish Burdhirana, Sam Rudrum, Awaal Salou and Thomas Ray read iconic remembrance poem For the Fallen, before sixth former Ben Thorn closed proceedings by expertly playing the Last Post on the bugle.

The service centred around both the sacrifices of Old Veseyans who fought and died in Wold War I and II, but also a wider reflection on soldiers from the outside of Europe, who can too often be forgotten by history.