Private peaceful class plans

Five past ten

1. Look at each of the character names below. What have you learnt about each of the characters so far?

Character What have I learnt about them so far?

Tommo

Charlie

Mr Munnings

Mother

Big Joe

Father

Miss McAllister
 Molly

Grandma Wolf

The colonel

Lesson 2

Twenty to eleven

1.
In pairs to describe Tommo and Charlie’s relationship in 5 words/phrases – close, brothers, Charlie is the
carer, Tommo idolises Charlie, Charlie understands Tommo’s worries and tries to make Tommo feel better.

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2.
Is Tommo to blame for his father’s death? Why? / Why not?

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3.
How did Tommo know that his mother loved having Molly around at home?

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4.
What did they catch when they went poaching?
What was the miracle?
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Lesson 3
Previously read chapters one & two

1.
Write down any words you associate with Grandma and Wolf. Share and discuss Morpurgo’s choice of name and how it
fits with the character of Grandma Wolf.
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2.
● Divide into groups of three. One section will be looking at Tommo’s feelings for Charlie. One section
will be looking at Tommo’s feelings for Molly and one section analysing Tommo’s feelings for Charlie
and Molly when they are all together. You have five mins to identify Tommo’s feelings for the other
characters and identify quotations to support your points of view.
● Re-organise groups into 3s. You have 3 mins to discuss your findings with each other.
● You must produce three still images that reflect Tommo’s feelings for Charlie, Tommo’s feelings for
Molly and Tommo’s feelings for Charlie and Molly.
● Discuss with the class what you reveal about Tommo’s inner thoughts.

3.
How is Tommo feeling at this point in the story?
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4.
Describe Tommo’s feelings for Charlie?
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5.
Describe Tommo’s feelings for Molly?
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6.
Describe Tommo’s feelings for Charlie and Molly?
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Lesson 4
Complete after you have read page 60

What do you learn about Tommo’s relationship with Charlie and Molly from the statements below?

‘But when it’s Charlie’s turn, all we hear are the whacks, and then the silences in between. I am so proud of him
for that. I have the bravest brother in the world.’

1. Tommo’s feelings about Charlie here are

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‘Molly likes Big Joe. Now I know for sure that I will love her till the day I die.’

2. Tommo’s feelings for Molly here are

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‘The trouble was that it was becoming more evident to me that the gap between us was more serious, and that is was
widening.’

3. Tommo’s feelings for Charlie and Molly when they are all together are

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Lesson 5
Before starting twenty four minutes past twelve

1. Write down the weaknesses and the strengths of the Colonel and the boy’s mother. Discuss these and consider that when the
Colonel was weak, their mother was strong and vice versa.

Weakness strength

Colonel

Mother

2.
● Read ‘Twenty four minutes past twelve’ pages 61-64
● Organise into groups of 5. You are going to act out the passage you read at the start of the lesson. You are
going to be assessed on the way that you present the interactions and read with expression. Remember you can
vary your expression to show different emotions. Also identify how body language can contribute to expression.
Keep in mind the relationship between the boy's’ mother and the Colonel. You have 10 mins to practice your
performance.
● Share performance performances and discuss presentation of characters and their feelings and the use of
expression.
● Organise into groups of four. Each group reads a section from the chapter ‘Twenty four minutes past twelve.’
Two groups read page 65-67, two groups read pages 68-71 and two groups read pages 71-74. We want you to
discuss how the reader realises what Tommo does not - that Molly and Charlie are falling in love.
● Work individually to identify key quotations from their sections of the story that help us to infer that Charlie and
Molly are falling in love.

3.
Read pages 74-76

Lesson 6

1.
● Hand out episodes from previous chapters where Tommo discusses his feelings for Molly / talks
about Molly. Ask students to sequence these episodes into chronological order. These episodes will
form content of main activity. Feedback and discuss how the episodes develop until Tommo realises
that Charlie and Molly are in love.
● Brainstorm Tommo’s feelings towards Charlie and Molly. Ask students to justify choice of word.

2.
● You are going to write a secret letter from Tommo to Charlie explaining his feelings of anger, hurt and
betrayal after realising Charlie and Molly’s deception. Explain that the letter never got to Charlie but
the you must imagine what Tommo would have put into it. Students write their letter.
● After twenty minutes silent work, share their work with the person they are sitting next to and peer
assess each other's work according to the given criteria. Suggest ways to improve the piece of
writing.

So while she calls the roll Molly kneels down in front of me and does up my laces. She ties
laces very differently from Charlie, delicately, more slowly, in a great loopy double knot.
She doesn’t look up at me while she’s doing it, not once, and I wish she would. She has
hair the same colour as Billyboy, Father’s old horse – chestnut brown and shining – and I
want to reach out and touch it. Then she looks up at me at last and smiles. It’s all I need.
Suddenly I no longer want to run home. I want to stay here with Molly. I know I have a
Molly comes over, and taking me by the hand, leads me towards the pump. She soaks her
handkerchief under it and dabs my nose and my hands and my knee – the blood seems to
be everywhere. The water is wonderfully cold and soothing, and her hands are soft. She
doesn’t say anything for a while. She’s dabbing me very gently, very carefully so as not to
hurt me. Then all of a sudden she says: “I like Big Joe. He’s kind. I like people who are
kind.”
IMolly likes Big
remember theJoe.
day Now
MollyI know
daredfor sure that
Charlie I willoff
to take love
allher
his till the dayand
clothes, I die.
to my amazement he
did. Then she did, and they ran shrieking and bare-bottomed into the water. When they
called me in after them, I wouldn’t do it, not in front of Molly. So I sat and sulked on the
bank and watched them splashing and giggling, and all the while I was wishing I had the
courage to do what Charlie had done, wishing I was with them. Molly got dressed
afterwards behind a bush and told us not to watch. But we did. That was the first time I
ever saw a girl with no clothes on. She was very thin and white, and she wrung her plaits
out like a wet cloth.
Back in the cottage we found waiting for us the best Christmas present we could ever have
hoped for. Molly was sitting there smiling at us as we came in through the door. She was
pale, but she was back with us. We were together again. Her hair was cut shorter. The
plaits were gone, and somehow that changed the whole look of her. She wasn’t a girl any
more. She had a different beauty now, a beauty that at once stirred in me a new and
deeper love.

I tried all I could to interest them in my life at school. I told them about how we’d all heard
Miss McAllister and Mr Munnings having a blazing argument because he refused to light
the school stove, how she’d called him a wicked, wicked man. She was right too. Mr
Munnings
Then would never
quite suddenly, justlight
afterthemystove unless
twelfth our fingers
birthday, the last were so larking
of the cold wewas couldn’t write. He
all over.
shouted
Charlie back
and Mollyat her
left that
school he and
would lightalone.
I was the stove when
I was he thought
a Biggun, in Mrfit, class and
and that anyway
Munnings’
suffering
hating himwasnow part
even of more
life and than good for a him.
I feared child’s woke
soul. up
Charlie and every
Molly made out they were
I ran down to the brook and waited under the Itrees where dreading
we’d always day. our
done Both Charlie
fishing
I could tell they weren’t. Then one day down by the brook, I turned and saw
she –came.
interested,
and Molly had but found work upto inwait
the Big House almostShe everyone in hand
the village worked up
together. I didn’t have long before took my without a word,
them
there holding
or on hands. We’d all held hands before, often, but then it had been the three of
and led methe down estate.
under Molly was under-parlour
the bank where we couldn’tmaid,possibly
and Charlie worked
be seen. She in was
the hunt
crying as
us. I knew
kennels and at
in once
the this was
stables different.
looking after As
the I dogs
watched
and them
the I felt a which
horses, suddenheache loved.in my heart.
Molly
she told me everything: how the Colonel had come to the cottage – she’d overheard it all –
I don’tcome
didn’t thinkround
it wastoanger
see or nearly
us jealousy, so more
often a pang
as before –
of loss,
likeofCharlie,
deep grief.
she worked six days a
how he’d told her father that Charlie Peaceful was a thief; how he’d heard Charlie Peaceful
week. So I hardly saw her.
had been seeing much more of Molly than was good for her, and that if he had any sense
Molly’s father should put a stop to it. “So my father won’t let me see Charlie any more. He
won’t let me see any of you.” Molly told me, brushing away her tears. “I’m so miserable
without you, Tommo. I hate it up at the Big House without Charlie. And he said he’ll take a
gun to Charlie if he ever comes near me. I think he means it too.”
“Why?” I asked. “Why’s he like that?”
“He’s always been like that,” she said. “He says I’m wicked. Born in sin. Mother say’s
he only trying to save me from myself, so I won’t go to Hell. He’s always talking about Hell.
I won’t go to Hell, will I, Tommo?”
I did what I did next without thinking. I leant over and kissed her on the cheek. She threw
her arms around my neck, sobbing as if her heart would break. “I so want to see Charlie,”
she cried. “I miss him so much.” That was when I remembered to give her the letter.

That was the first of dozens of letters I delivered from Charlie to Molly and from Molly to
Charlie over the weeks and months that followed. All through my last year at school I was
their go-between postman. I didn’t mind that much, because it meant I got to see Molly
often, which was all that really mattered to me. It was all done in great secrecy – Charlie
insisted on that.

It seemed that someone had put salt in her tea instead of sugar and she swore it was on
purpose – which it probably was, Molly said. She’d been ranting and raving about it ever
since, telling everyone how she’d find out who it was. Meanwhile she was treating all of
them as if they were guilty.
 “Yours I believe,” said Molly’s mother, her voice as hard as stone. She handed Charlie a
packet of letters tied up with a blue ribbon. “I found them. I’ve read them, every one of
them. So has Molly’s father. So we know, we know everything. Don’t bother to deny it,
Charlie Peaceful. The evidence is here, in these letters. Molly has been punished already,
her father has seen to that. I’ve never read anything so wicked in all my life. Never. All
that love talk. Disgusting. But you’ve been meeting as well haven’t you?”
Charlie looked across at Molly. The look between them said it all, and I knew then that I
had been betrayed.
“Yes,” said Charlie.
I couldn’t believe what he was saying. They hadn’t told me. They’d been meeting in
secret and Ineither
That night of beside
lay there them had told me.
Charlie not speaking. I was so filled with anger and
resentment towards him that I never wanted to speak to him again, nor to Molly come to
that. Then out of our silence he said: “All right, I should’ve told you, Tommo. Molly said I
should tell you. But I didn’t want to. I couldn’t, that’s all.”
“Why not?” I asked. For several moments he did not reply.
“Because I know, and she does too. That’s why she wouldn’t tell you herself,” Charlie
said.
“Know what?”
“When it was just letters, it didn’t seem to matter so much. But later, after we began
seeing each other… we didn’t want to hide it from you, Tommo, honest. But we didn’t want
to hurt you either. You love her, don’t you?” I didn’t answer. There was no need. “Well,
so do I, Tommo. So you’ll understand why I’m going to go on seeing her. I’ll find a way no
matter what that old cow says.” He turned to me. “Still friends?” he said.
“Friends,” I mumbled, but I did not mean it.

Lesson 7

1.
● Read ‘Nearly Five to One’ (pages 77-86)
● Focus students on the last paragraph. What emotions are the Peaceful family experiencing? Is there an element of
tension? Where does this occur?

2.
● Read ‘Twenty-eight minutes past one’ (pages 87-97)
● Organise students into groups of four. Hand out recruitment speech. Ask one person from each group to read the
speech out to the rest of their group.
● Identify the purpose of the speech. Ask students to identify how it intends to persuade the audience of young men
to sign up to the war, making notes on sheets accordingly. Feedback the different methods: rhetorical questions to
make the audience think about the consequences of not joining up. repetition of you to emphasise that each person
is being addressed, lists of three to identify consequences etc etc
● Ask students to consider how this speech might be presented in order to persuade the audience. Explain to
students that they need to consider facial expressions, hands, body language and tone of voice. Give students 5
minutes to nominate one person to act the speech out and then work on the presentation of the speech. Hear
examples. Pose question: how does the speech make you feel? Would you want to join up?
3.
● Hand each group a different recruitment poster and give students 4 mins to discuss how the poster is attempting to
persuade men to sign up to war. Each group feeds back their ideas to the rest of the class.

Below are are the links for different posters

Poster 1
Poster 2
Poster 3
Poster 4
Poster 5
Poster 6

Lesson 8

Chapter Three Character Cards

‘He’d tell Mother. He told Mother everything.’
Charlie
Who?

Who knows how to do the poaching? Big Joe

Who ‘always lied well’? Charlie

Who gets ‘puffed up with self-importance.

Tommo – Molly holds his hand
Aglow with it’?

‘She always looked grey and grim’ Molly

Who do Charlie and Tommo pray for? That they’ll always be together

Who says they ‘never want tomorrow to come

because no tomorrow could be as good as Molly’s mother
today?

Who looked ‘gruff and unkempt’? Molly’s father

Who says ‘I had never been so happy?’ Why? Grandma Wolf

What fortune does Molly tell? Molly