Welcoming Refugee Children: Advice and Guidance for Schools (Webinar)

Wed, 9 Feb 2022 16:00 - 17:00 Greenwich Mean Time (UTC±0)

Register here.

Experts in the field will give practical advice about how schools might best welcome and support newly arrived learners who are refugees.

About this event

Experts in the field will give practical advice about how schools might best welcome and support newly arrived learners who are refugees.

As more Afghan families are moved out of temporary accommodation and into longer term housing, schools continue to welcome new arrivals. This webinar will provide schools and practitioners with useful information, as well as practical guidance to help ensure a smooth induction period for learners and their families. The content will be of interest to schools welcoming families from Hong Kong and other countries, as well as those from Afghanistan.

Speakers include:

• Megan Greenwood, Schools of Sanctuary Support Officer
• Catherine Gladwell, Founder and Chief Executive of Refugee Education UK.
• Jane Daffe, Nottingham Education Sanctuary Team (NEST) Manager

Megan Greenwood will discuss how the Schools of Sanctuary model might be used as a vehicle to enable school development around welcome and inclusion. Megan will reflect on how raising awareness of issues relating to migration and seeking sanctuary amongst the whole school community can help to combat misunderstanding and misinformation, and instead promote compassion and welcome.

Catherine Gladwell will focus in particular on welcoming children from Afghanistan. She will consider some of the potential barriers to their progress in schools and will provide practical approaches that schools can follow to overcome these challenges.

Jane Daffe will share some key learnings from setting up NEST – the Nottingham Education Sanctuary Team, a specialist full-time educational provision for asylum seeking and refugee young people aged 15-18.  Jane will consider how the NEST ethos is built on the three fundamental elements identified in the work of Professor Ravi Kohli (University of Bedfordshire); safety, belonging and success.

Areas of focus will include:

• Creating a whole school ethos around sanctuary and migration.
• The impact of previous experience on children.
• Challenges for resettled Afghan children (well-being and academic).
• Strategies for helping new arrivals and their families to settle in your school.
• Strategies for working students who enter the education system in England during KS3 or KS4.

Who should register for the webinar:

• Local Authority education teams.
• Schools leaders.
• Inclusion teams.
• Pastoral leaders.
• Teachers, teaching assistants and trainee teachers.
• EAL co-ordinators.

Why you should register for this webinar:

• A great opportunity for participants to have direct access to expert advice from experts in the field.
• Opportunity to pose questions regarding supporting learners who are refugees.
• Links to useful resources.
• Time-saving, one-hour intensive session with Q&A.
• Access to session recording.
• First to hear about future webinars and how to sign up.

If you have any questions that specifically relate to the webinar topic which you would like answered during the live session you can send them to: webinar@bell-foundation.org.uk.

If the webinar is full, please complete the Wait List form and you will be contacted if a place becomes available. Everyone on the Wait List will be sent a copy of the webinar recording.

Biographies:

Megan Greenwood is Schools of Sanctuary Support Officer at City of Sanctuary UK, a charity which seeks to help communities, such as schools, become welcoming and safe places for those seeking refuge from violence and persecution. Megan has previously worked in both the formal and informal education sectors in the UK and abroad. She has an Erasmus Mundus joint master degree in education policies for global development in which she focused on refugee and migrant education.

Catherine Gladwell is the Founder and Chief Executive of Refugee Education UK – a charity helping refugee and asylum-seeking children and young people get into and thrive in education – from primary school to university. She is also a founding director and board member at Jigsaw Consult, a social enterprise building evidence on education, forced migration and technology through research. Catherine has led large-scale multi-national practical interventions and research programmes and worked in sixteen different countries. Before working for Refugee Education UK and Jigsaw Consult, Catherine worked in education in emergencies at Save the Children UK, and as a teacher. She has a degree from Oxford University, a Master’s in Education from University College London, and is an honorary fellow at Winchester University.

Jane Daffe is an independent education consultant and the Manager at NEST – Nottingham Education Sanctuary Team.  Until 2018, Jane was the Senior Achievement Consultant in Nottingham City Local Authority’s IDEAL service – Identity, Diversity and EAL – providing training, advice and support to City schools; her specialisms include Black Achievement, Race and Equalities, Diversity in the Curriculum, EAL and Refugee Education.

Joining Instructions:

Joining Instructions will be sent to all attendees 90 minutes before the webinar. Please check your ‘junk’ folder if you have not received this information by 3 pm on Wednesday 9 February.

We recommend that you access the session at 3.45pm on Wednesday 9 February as the technical team will be available to assist if you have any questions.

Ticket sales end 2 pm Wednesday 9 February 2022.