This session is part of a series of six ITE sessions that can be delivered to increase students' knowledge about key issues and effective practice for teaching refugee and asylum seeker children and young people in primary and secondary schools. All the sessions help student teachers plan for the diverse needs of all pupils, support their educational achievement and promote race equality, well-being and community cohesion.
The curriculum, resources used and the climate for learning all play an important role in determining the extent to which all pupils, including those from black and minority ethnic backgrounds, feel included in the school. Pupils from all sections of a community served by a school need to see their cultures, histories and experiences reflected in the curriculum, and to know that the school values and respects their heritage.
An inclusive curriculum also helps all learners learn about and understand other cultures.
This session focuses on how one school, Woodberry Down Community Primary School, has sought to make refugee issues a core part of the curriculum. Woodberry Down is located in the London Borough of Hackney. Many pupils are refugees (25%); some stay at the school for many years, others for a short time. The children who are refugees at the school come from all over the world, including a significant number from Somalia and Nigeria.
Through their engagement with refugee children and their families, the teachers at the school have learnt the importance of being innovative and passionate about ensuring that all children make progress. Curriculum development at the school is underpinned by a strong belief that equality matters and by a commitment to challenging discrimination.
The session looks at what makes effective practice for promoting race equality and developing a culturally diverse curriculum and shows how literacy lessons can be based around a text about a refugee.
Greg Wallace, Executive Principal,
London Fields / Woodberry Down Federation