Preparing for arrival by EUN Partnership aisbl

Michael, VET, Germany

2022-05-23 19:17:11 UTC

During the last weeks in our school there arrived around 10 students from Ukraine, who are in a separate welcome class for the beginning. So in this case we have got a pretty homogenous group. For Ukraine is my second home; I know about the Ukrainian school system, the standards and curricula etc. Most of them have got basic skills in the English language, which makes it easy for the colleagues to communicate. Although it was easier for them to tell about their personal story in Russian. All of them want to return back home. But the central perspective for them is to learn the German language to finish school according to European standards, maybe to start an apprenticeship. They are very open minded. So besides language lessons the main aspect will be to let them learn about Germany, get in touch with German students to discover the possibilities and also problems here in Germany.

Cornelia Alina Moţ, Romania

corneliamot79 — 2022-05-24 15:48:07 UTC

During the beginning of the war, 3 primary school students and one high school student from Ukraine came to our school, who were integrated into the classes and helped to communicate by teachers who teach the Ukrainian language from other schools. based on English, which helps them communicate with their colleagues. They try to integrate them in the school community and to learn the Romanian language. They manage and master the notions of mathematics very well. So, the most important thing is to learn to communicate in Romanian and to succeed together with the local community, school counselors to integrate them.

Cristina Dias - Portugal

2022-05-28 17:00:20 UTC

This year I had two different experiences:
- 2 Ukrainian girls (12 and 16 years old) were placed in my class of 8th grade. Although they are not in the same grade, they stick together just to feel more welcome. The headmaster asked my opinion and I cherished the idea of helping both. Their English level is very different: the elder has got a minimum English level while the younger has a better level of communication. They attended only sports, English and citizenship with the rest of the class and attended Portuguese in individual classes, because they have ukrainian online shool for 5 or 6 hours a day. In fact, being included in a class with regular students is basically to get integrated in our daily life and to get acquainted to our habits and traditions...
- 1 brasilian student, whose parents came looking for a better life. She's in the class for 2 months. She doesn´t need special care in the portuguese language because obvoiusly she speaks brasilian portuguese which make things a lot easier, but we are helping the family, with other local organisations, to settle down properly in the community.

Cathy (Aikaterini) Sideri

kate_sideri — 2022-05-29 12:12:31 UTC

There are 17 newly coming refugees at my school. They are from Afghanistan and Syria. The Syrians speak Arabic and the Afghans several languages. They all use English to communicate with everyone at school. The youngest shared the story of their frightful journey to Greece, while the oldest were more reluctant to share their experience. They all said they are relieved to be here, away from war.

Gemma F. Barcelona

gfontova1 — 2022-05-29 17:42:57 UTC

In the welcoming class we are 34 students, so we have students from every place: China, Pakistan, Ukrania, Morocco, Honduras, Venezuela, Cuba, Colombia, El Salvador, Peru and Armenia.
The spanish speakers for them is very easy the Catalan, so they can understand quickly and if they aren't shy the can integrate easily. The rest need more time.
They usually share their story with time and in the moments they feel are prepared to explain it. Most of the time they come for economical cause but also for the criminality and violence of their country of South America. Some of them they have asylum.
The new students that we have from Ukrania only one explained the situation of the father. For the moment, they can speak about Ukrania, like a song, but not much.

Isabel Quirino, Portugal

2022-05-29 17:50:15 UTC

My experience more relevant is with brasilian students in secondary. I work individualy with 12 students. They are from different cities in Brasil, some from big cities like São Paulo and others from very small cities. I have learned with them that Brasil is a big country, and that there are big differences North/south, seaside/interior, big cities/small cities. All of them spekk portuguese, but there are some pronuntions that cause some communication dificulties. Even when they speek portuguese, there are also some questions about vocabulary: in Portugal and in Brasil there are different words to say the same thing. All of them have particular experiences beeing at my school: some come to Portugal with their families but they did not what to come; some did what to come to Portugal. Some come looking for a better life, others come because in theirs small coties there are no opportunities. So, the expecience here is personalized. When we have the time and the ability to tell them that we realy what to know, they share their individual story with us - and that is super important: being listened is a universal need; and when we listen, we realy understand who they are and what do they need, and how can we help all of them.

Györgyi, Hungary

2022-05-30 16:37:56 UTC

Two pupils (siblings) came to our school around March. They are from the Ukrain, but they speak Hungarian, as they belong to the Hungarian minority in Ukrain. Their family is here, so they live together with parents. In my class we have the boy (10), we integrated both pupils into our Hungarian classes. These children don't really talk about their past in the Ukrain. They have to cope with new subjects, new curriculum, new teachers, classmates etc. (without printed books or school things). Children/ parents in both classes helped these new kids with pencils, rulers, clothes etc.

Carlos Sousa, Portugal

carlosdsousa28 — 2022-05-30 17:33:56 UTC

Right now, my school cluster has 1 Syrian student, 1 Guinean student and 10 Ukrainian students. Each student has their time and space for integration, with the linguistic profile, the number of years of schooling is integrated into the class group. Ukrainian students have 10 hours of learning Portuguese as a non-mother tongue. The Syrian student, aged 16 and with some knowledge of English, can integrate the Portuguese curriculum, accompanied by individual support in Portuguese. The Guinean student, despite being a citizen of the Portuguese-speaking community, at the age of 16 had never attended a school, does not write Portuguese and has many difficulties in oral communication, hence his integration is supported by a teacher and is not yet integrated into a class, being the only case. During school holidays they will continue to have support in learning the Portuguese language.

Eylem/TURKEY

sustainablesifekills2024 — 2022-05-30 17:37:13 UTC

I have 2 refugee students who came from Syria. Their age is 6. The boy's adaptation was a bit difficult, but he makes a lot of effort to speak our language. My girl student learns slowly and quietly, but she adapted more easily than my male student. Sometimes I can't understand what they are saying. They can express themselves easily. When they are young students, they can easily ask what is it. They do not want to talk much about the country they come from.

Ana Correia, Guarda, Portugal

2022-06-01 12:06:07 UTC

In the school cluster I’m working in students’ ages range from 3 to 12. We’ve been integrating students from different backgrounds, and even though most of them come from Portuguese speaking countries, the cultural diversity and the linguistic nuances are quite clear. Lately, we’ve been receiving students from Syria and Iraq and even more recently, as many other schools around Europe, we’ve been working with Ukrainian students. As refugees, these two groups, have three significant differences: deeper emotional stress, a different language, and a different culture.

Most of them seem to be happy at school and have been able to deal with daily life here, but when we go deeper, cultural issues, communication, economical needs interfere in their integration and emotional health.

2022-06-01 17:42:56 UTC

Ina, Germany

1.053 / 5.000

I am a class teacher of a preparatory class at a vocational school. 2 students from Somalia, 6 from Syria, 1 from Bulgaria, 2 from the Czech Republic, 4 from Afghanistan and 1 from Georgia study there. While the Georgian received a good education in his homeland, the others rarely or never attended school. So every student has a different language level, a different knowledge of the world anyway. On the one hand, attempts are made to make them literate and, on the other hand, to prepare them for life in the country without help. In addition, there are different residence rights, some have been in limbo for a year - how are the students supposed to calm down and learn? It really only helps here to give them the feeling that they are a good person, even if they are not that popular politically... well, they feel like 2nd or 3rd class migrants. Not everyone was allowed to go to school immediately upon arrival at the initial reception facility, some were only assigned to a school after 6 months of stay, despite the fact that school attendance was compulsory!

Hacer Sezen/ Turkey

sznhacer — 2022-06-01 18:03:33 UTC

I work in a vocational high school. A total of 83 refugee students, 73 of whom are Syrians, are enrolled in my school. 10 of them are from Iraq and Afghanistan. Their aim is to learn a profession and integrate with the society and they strive for this. They go to work on holidays because their families need financial support.

Andreea Mihai-Romania

mihaiandreea990 — 2022-06-02 06:27:20 UTC

This school year we received in our class 2 refugee girls from Ucarina. We tried to integrate them, to understand their needs and to help them as much as possible.

Danijela,Croatia

danijela_sajtar — 2022-06-02 09:02:03 UTC

There are no new students at my school. We live in a small town wich is not interesting to newcomers.

Stavriana from Athens -Greece

ssoubassi — 2022-06-02 15:12:21 UTC

Last September we had eight Afghan students at school aged 16 - 21. From the very beginning the majority of the teachers were against the idea of welcoming them so I did my best to welcome them but mainly in my English classes. The newly arrived students were all highly motivated and struggled to fit in despite their poor schooling background. Although I designed and carried out lots of awareness raising activities, both the newcomers and the native students were too shy to start talking outside the classroom. The catalyst to their socialisation was a peer-teaching course we carried out with the Greek students teaching the refugees Greek via the culture and in an experiential way.
Unfortunately, most of the Afghan students were forced to leave the country and there remained just one. Last month we welcomed another boy from Ukraine. The attitude of the refugee hostile teachers towards the Ukrainian student changed dramatically because he is a Christian Orthodox like us and seems less of a threat to our civilisation!

ruqaya

thesmurfsteamt — 2022-06-02 17:41:33 UTC

In my school there are 5 refugee students, 3 of them are from one country..but different cultures..
They were combined into different classes.

Thanasis Aspropirgos

dimofontas — 2022-06-02 17:54:16 UTC

I work in a school with children aged 13-15. Last September 6 Afghani students were enrolled to our school. The students were welcomed by the teachers and most of us tried to help them intergrate. Unfortunately the students were speaking only farsi. A fellow teacher found some words and phrases in their language so we can use them in classroom.
The school had good cooperation with their shelter, which was ran by a Greek Orthodox Church NGO. The shelter was helping them with psychologists, teachers for greek and english language. Unfortunate by the end of the year only two have remained at school. The rest of them left the shelter and traveled first to Italy and then to France. Nobody forced them to do so, they were fully protected and well taken care, they consider, though, Greece as a temporary stop to their journey to Central or Northern Europe.

Voicu Corina, RomaniaFor the arrival of a refugee, I would tell the students to be responsible and to help them. I would suggest that they take him home on the weekends to settle in more easily and make friends.

corina_v1978 — 2022-06-02 19:38:54 UTC

I work in a primary school. A total of 124 refugee students, 118 of whom are Syrians, are enrolled in my school. 6 of them are from Iraq and Their aim is to learn a reading and writing with the society and they strive for this. They go to work on holidays because their families need financial support.

ahmetbulut_1907_ab — 2022-06-03 22:35:52 UTC

Sema Özkılıç/Turkey

2022-06-04 07:19:25 UTC

I really liked the activities and ideas in the video for immigrant students to adapt easily and easily.In our country, there are mostly refugees from the countries of Syria, Afghanistan.

Ana Patrícia Almeida - Portugal

anapalmeida1 — 2022-06-06 11:00:42 UTC

As I stated before, I'm not a Primary or secondary teacher. I'm professor at university.
although I am not a teacher at these levels, I do have some experience as a foster family.
About 5 years ago we welcomed an 8 year old Syrian child into my family and now we have a Ukrainian refugee mother living with us, with two children (a 6 month old baby and a 10 year old girl) and I think that the first moments of welcome in schools are fundamental.
Not all teachers are prepared or have support to do this.
In many cases, children are placed in schools without warning and without a special concern to adapt the regular work of the school to their particular situation.
Considering this, I think that:

The reception of refugee children in schools and classrooms must be taken care of. First of all, it is very important to know in advance that you are going to welcome refugee or migrant children into your class. This prior knowledge is fundamental for the teacher's response to be adapted and more effective.
In this advance knowledge of the arrival of migrant or refugee children, the school management plays an important role.
Also in the preparation phase, it is important that teachers know the "story" of the child. Only by knowing the child's context, history and background, can we understand certain behaviors, certain ways of being and be able to respond to their needs and adapt our work to their skills.
It is also important, in this welcoming phase, to work with the other students to welcome the new student. It is important that they feel welcomed and loved. But it is also important that they feel like one more, like being part of it. Something that takes time, but that can be worked on together with the class.
There is no greater lesson in citizenship, than this work of sincere and open welcome.

Petrina ALB

2022-06-08 12:33:10 UTC

Recep Ökdem-Türkiye

recepokdem15 — 2022-07-06 15:58:15 UTC

I really lked the activities and ideas in the video for immigrant students to adapt easily