According to UNHCR refugee statistics, in mid-2023 the number of forcibly displaced people worldwide topped 110 million for the first time in recorded history. Children who are refugees or asylum seekers have the right to access a quality education, as outlined by UK and international law, and teachers and other adults who work in schools have the potential to make a big difference in these children’s lives. This blog post focuses on educators’ knowledge, attitudes and practices when working with refugee and asylum-seeking pupils and considers how schools and educators can be supported in this area going forward.
Our study included a survey of 295 educators (teachers, teaching assistants and school leaders) in one county in England, as well as in-depth interviews and observations at two schools, one secondary and one primary. The secondary school had a long history receiving refugees, including unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. The primary school had a wealth of experience with children with English as an additional language and had received many Syrian families in recent years. The educators who took the survey had a range of different previous experiences and worked in both rural and urban nursery, primary and secondary schools.
We found that educators with previous experience of refugees had more relevant pedagogical knowledge (Prentice & Ott, 2021) and felt better prepared to teach refugee pupils than educators without such experience. Some of this knowledge was gained through formal training, but educators cited interactions with colleagues and online resources as their main sources of information about how to teach refugee pupils. One secondary teacher reflected, ‘I haven’t studied how to teach refugees. I haven’t done any formal qualifications. But I’d say I’ve learned a huge amount from E—and S—, who have years and years of experience.’
