Remembrance Sunday will have poignant meaning for a group of Thanet students who visited Belgian battlefields and Ypres for a moving history lesson.

Young people from St George’s Church of England Foundation School in Broadstairs will join thousands across the Isle in paying tribute to the fallen this weekend.

Parades and services across the Isle will honour those killed in conflicts across the decades.

Margate Mayor Cllr John Edwards will leave the Mayor’s parlour at 10.40am to parade from the Old Town market place to the war memorial in Trinity Square for wreath-laying at 11am.

He will be accompanied by standard bearers, Royal British Legion representatives, war veterans and civic dignitaries.

In Ramsgate on Sunday there will be wreath-laying and a service of Remembrance at St George’s Church at 10.50am. The parade starts in Elms Avenue at 10.35am and makes its way via Queen Street, King Street and Broad Street.

There will be three ceremonies around Ramsgate on Armistice Day, Monday, November 11.

The first is a wreath-laying ceremony at Destiny in Albion Gardens at 8.30am, followed by a service of Remembrance in the town centre, outside Lloyds TSB Bank, at 10.50am.
There will be a further wreath-laying and service in Ramsgate Cemetery at 10.50am.

In Broadstairs the annual Sunday service of Remembrance is at the war memorial by Pierremont Park in the High Street at 10.45am.
There will be music from the Broadstairs and St Peter’s Concert Band.

There will be special meaning to Remembrance services for Year 8 students from St George's, aged 12 and 13, after their first hand taste of the trenches when they walked through Belgian battlements remaining from the First World War.

They visited the cemeteries of Langemarck and Tynecot, enabling them to compare how both sides commemorated the war dead and gained further insight at war museums.

The group also laid their own wreath in memory of the fallen on behalf of the whole school community.

The school's Shirley Balcombe said: “The staff were very proud of the students who were a credit to the school throughout the day and were very appreciative of the opportunity to see history beyond the classroom, even if only for a day.”

For a full report and pictures form the trip, see next week's Thanet Extra.