Teachers turn to poets to help refugee children in increasingly hostile Britain

Volunteers are using books and art to create a more welcoming environment for refugees in UK schools

Author Onjali Q Rauf and a drawing by Mykhailo, 11, a Ukrainian refugee from Lviv at a school in Eastleigh, UK. Photo: Hachette / International Rescue Committee UK

Refugee children face isolation and mental strain as the UK seethes on migration, forcing teachers into a hunt for ways to help pupils hiding their background and identities from the rest of classroom.

Volunteers have been drafted in to use art and books to support refugee children express themselves as concerns grow about the impact on those already trying to adjust to a new country.

Children’s author Onjali Q Rauf is among those working to help schools create a more welcoming environment for refugee children. Her latest picture book, The Girl at the Front of the Class published this month, gives younger children five ideas to help a refugee in their school feel welcome. This includes smiling at them and saying hello every morning, and sharing books and toys with them.

Ms Rauf was overwhelmed with messages this summer from teachers and parents who wanted to teach the refugee crisis to their children, in the aftermath of riots across the UK. Teachers looking to curb some of the toxic stories around migration got in touch with the London-based author.

Her schedule is now packed with speaking engagements at schools, where she will be teaching her books about integrating refugee children, and speaking about the wider crisis in general. “I ask (the children), do you know why they were in that dinghy? Do you know where they've come from? Most of the kids don't, because all they're hearing is migrants, immigrants, boats coming over,” she told The National.

Ms Rauf believes working with children in schools can help curb the prejudice against refugees. “What they're trying to do is use stories to undo what the kids have learnt outside school,” she said. “My hope is to get through to the children so that they go home and ask their parents what's going on, and to maybe have those discussions, if it's a safe space to do so.”

In her conversations with teachers after the riots this summer, Ms Rauf sensed panic. “Some of them had to come back from holidays early, and start work on what they're going to do with the kids when they go back,” Ms Rauf said.

A British parent had also sought advice from Ms Rauf, after her daughter started having nightmares after seeing images of rioters setting fire to a hotel housing asylum seekers.

Ms Rauf has drawn on her experiences volunteering with refugees in Calais to write her books. Her first novel, The Boy at the Back of the Class (2018), tells the story of Ahmed, a Syrian refugee whose UK classmates embark on an adventure to help reunite him with his family. Many schools now have plans to teach the book as part of their curriculum, amid fears that hostility towards migrants in the UK is likely to persist.

Concerns are growing as to whether Prime Minister Keir Starmer will follow the lead of right-wing European governments in their handling of the migrants issue, after his meetings with Italian premier Giorgia Meloni on Monday to discuss Italy’s processing model.

Mr Starmer scrapped a Conservative policy to have asylum seekers who arrive on small boats deported to Rwanda immediately after his election. But critics, including Ms Rauf, say the overarching vision of stopping refugee flows into the UK remains the same. “He's not stopped (saying) 'stop the boats'. He's still going on with that campaign. They're still paying millions of pounds to France to abuse refugees over there,” she said.

Children’s views on refugees are being negatively shaped by public debate, where asylum seekers are demonised by politicians and influential personalities. “(Our politicians and the media) call them migrants, which makes it seem like these people are travelling by choice, not desperation,” Ms Rauf said.

Teachers were also concerned about children whose parents may have been involved in the riots, or who held hostile views towards refugees. “(Those children) will be coming back (to school) with that kind of devastating defence of their parents. On the flip side, there will also be children who feel they can’t be friends with this person because their parents did this,” she said.

Schools also face challenges in welcoming refugee children, with limited resources for teachers, Ms Rauf said. Sometimes staff were unaware a child was a refugee, and teachers lacked training to handle trauma. In one extreme case, a Syrian boy was made to sit through a presentation, despite being visibly upset by the images. The school had no teaching assistant available to support him.

Ms Rauf's family were immigrants from Bangladesh. Born in Newcastle, she spent most of her childhood in East Ham in London, where she still lives. The racism she faced, including being told to “go home”, led her to find solace in books.

At school, she wondered why South Asians were from the history lessons. “I remember opening up books and going, why are there no characters that look like me? Why are all our heroes white? Why is there no one who Bengali or Indian or Sikh or Muslim in any of the stories that I'm reading?” she said.

She fears a similar erasure is occurring in schools today regarding the Palestinian issue, despite its significant role in refugee discussions. Schools often avoid the topic, fearing it could increase tension or require teachers to make referrals to the government’s Prevent programme which monitors early signs of radicalisation.

In many schools, teachers have told students not to discuss the continuing Israel-Palestine conflict. Ms Rauf said she has been asked by “a lot” of schools not to show images related to Palestinian refugees and the war. “A lot of the questions that I get (about Palestine) are whispered to me,” she said. However, one child dared to raise a question during assembly: “Why can we talk about Afghanistan and Ukraine, and talk about other places, but not speak about Palestine?”

Ms Rauf feared this would have a long-term impact on the children. “There's kind of a school policy on trying not to upset people. But thing is, it's upsetting because children in the schools have links there, they have family there. They will feel that racism on another level,” she said.

Some schools run art therapy programmes, to help refugee children integrate. At a school in Hampshire, siblings Mudasir, 10, and Musbah, 7, from Afghanistan, showed their experience of starting school in drawings.

Mudasir's drawings depicted the transition from home-cooked meals to fish and chips for school dinners. Another image shows Mudasir entering a new classroom for the first time, his sad expression highlighting the contrast with his unfamiliar surroundings.

When asked how he spent his break time at school, Mudasir drew himself apart from the rest of his class on his first day, who were all playing together.

“On day one everybody was playing outside during playtime and I was sitting alone,” he said. “Everything was new and I was shy in the class and I felt like stranger. I didn't know how to ask to go to the washroom and couldn't think what to do if I wanted to see my mum as I was scared.”

The Healing Classrooms programme was set up by the International Refugee Council (IRC). Over the last three years, it has helped more than 2,500 teachers and an estimated 10,000 refugee children from Afghanistan, Syria and Ukraine. It shows how schools in refugee camps and dedicated facilities can, in contrast to established schools in countries away from the crisis frontline, can actively assist children to cope with their experience.

IRC’s education manager, Josh Corlett, a former teacher in Greece's Moria Refugee Camp, told The National that the drawings made by youngsters of their first week in school highlighted the importance of the project.

Mr Corlett said schools have to deal with children entering their classrooms at a moment’s notice. “Often schools have to welcome an influx of children with just 24 hours notice with no support,” he said.

“We help with online trauma training and teachers share their experiences. Schools can be the only sense of normality for these children and their safe space -- they may have been moved around the country, living in terrible conditions and having a fractious home life -- so it is very important that schools make sure their time there is as normal as possible.

“The children need a sense of belonging in order to foster future success. Teachers always want to do their best and it is important they are given the support to be able to do that. The feedback is positive, teachers say they are relieved to have this support and know that with dedication and hard work these children will succeed.”

The project helps give youngsters a sense of belonging by integrating them into the school community through sports and buddy systems to help them make new friends.