City of Sanctuary
Y&H Conference, York – Saturday 1 October
City of Sanctuary Streams: Schools of Sanctuary
INTRODUCTION
I am employed by Bradford City of Sanctuary, as a Schools Development Worker. There appears to be some uncertainty about the future of the streams, so I want to start by putting my cards on the table. I am a great supporter of streams within CoS, particularly the Schools Stream and feel strongly that they should continue to flourish.
CURRENT SITUATION
Context
The first School of Sanctuary (SoS) project was started in 2010, in Leeds, followed approximately a year later by Bradford and Bristol. There are around fifteen SoS projects mentioned on various pages of the CoS web-site but I suspect there are several more on the ground. In Yorkshire and Humberside there are etablished projects in Bradford, Leeds, Sheffield and Wakefield. New SoS projects are emerging in Calderdale, Kirklees and North Yorkshire.
The SoS stream has developed from the grass roots. The result is a diversity of approach and emphasis and different structures in each SoS project. Usually SoS projects have grown out of local CoS groups. However, there are variations. In November 2015, Rose McCarthy and I both spoke in Liverpool, at a conference organised by School Improvement Liverpool, which runs maintained education in the city. School Improvement Liverpool started the SoS project there, rather than Liverpool CoS.
School of Sanctuary award
Being part of a SoS project is not all about gaining an award. In addition to offering awards, SoS projects enable schools to participate in a variety of ways, eg in Bradford submitting work to the annual Refugee Week Art Exhibition.
The SoS award is offered to all schools, whatever their location – rural or urban; intake - whether or not they are likely to have asylum seekers / refugees amongst their students; form of governance – maintained, free schools, academies, independent etc or whether they are primary or secondary. The need for the project is probably more urgent in rural and semi-rural schools.
Schools working towards the award are a required to do three things:
· Learn what it means to be seeking sanctuary and about the realities of the lives of asylum seekers and refugees in the UK
· Embed the knowledge and understanding in the curriculum and the daily life of the school
· Share this new knowledge and understanding with the school's wider community, through parents, governors, staff who live locally.
The SoS award is not prescriptive in terms of specific acts or activities which schools are required to perform. There is no tick list. This is both a strength and a weakness. It is a strength because it means that school staff can suit the work for the award to the needs of students and the school. It is a weakness in that it requires school staff to put in quite a lot of effort, viewing existing work from an SoS perspective and devising suitable additional activity.
To gain the award schools have to create a portfolio of evidence. This can be paper-based or electronic. It is assessed locally, ideally by a team of three, which should include someone with a knowledge of schools and someone who has had experience of being an asylum seeker/refugee. Usually awards are largely a recognition of existing good practice.
FUTURE CHALLENGES / OPPORTUNITIES
The English education system is changing rapidly which, which, inevitably, creates challenges for any organisation wanting to work with it.
Structures / Organisation
· The continuing tensions between the bottom-up and top-down approaches in CoS are reflected in the Schools Stream.
· A mix of national and local developments may be needed to raise the profile of the stream and to be more effective. In my view, the criteria for the award should be agreed at national level. Three years ago a small group of us did some work on this and on creating a national structure for the stream.
· Information flows between SoS projects are not good.
· We need to do more work in rural / semi-rural schools and convince them – if necessary – that this is relevant to them. The moves to develop SoS projects in North Yorkshire are very welcome.
· The stream needs to respond to the changing organisational structures in English education. Good relationships with local authorities are still needed. In Bradford we are very appreciative of our good relationship with the City Council's Ethnic Minority and Traveller Achievement Service. However, we also need to establish, cross-country relationships with the central management of big academy chains, eg Academies Enterprise Trust (66 schools), Oasis (47). This is one of the reasons to have a strong central organisation for the stream, within national CoS.
· We should consider expanding the stream to become an Education stream, encompassing further education. Many young asylum seekers, including unaccompanied minors, are students at further education colleges, often in ESOL classes..
Curriculum related
· British Values is a hot topic in schools at the moment. Linking SoS values specifically with British Values is not difficult. It would be good to draft a definitive Programme of Study / Scheme of Work in this area, as something to offer to schools. British Values may be a way of achieving the re-entry of the community cohesion requirement by the back door.
· The idea of offering a set of definitive classroom materials has been around for a time but this aim has never been realised.
· As we all, sadly, know, the incidence of Hate Crime has greatly increased since the Brexit campaign. Perhaps we should get involved with the outcome of Dame Louise Casey's investigation – to tackle the spread of racism and extremism, by teaching Integration. We should take what we can from the Prevent duty on schools.
MORE THOUGHTS
· The Schools pages on the CoS web-site need to be sharpened up. I appreciate the considerable effort that went into creating the page, with its good visuals and recognise that it contains a lot of useful resources. Despite this, an Assistant Head in Bradford, who was greatly interested in the SoS award did not find the Schools home page useful.
· Should the Schools Stream be more involved in campaigning, eg over lack of access to schools or even rudimentary classes by children in Initial Accommodation (IA)? Although the aim is to move families on from IA within three weeks, I know that sometimes large families or those requiring accessible accommodation are at Urban House for months, which is really damaging for children's educational progress and general development. There is, of course, no requirement on local authorities to make school places or any form of education available to children in IA. However, there is some some good practice in Cardiff, where the Local Authority Ethnic Minority and Traveller Achievement Service makes some provision, in the form of limited classroom delivery and resource packs, for different Key Stages. Perhaps this is something that we could take up regionally or nationally.
· To build recognition and the profile of SoS locally and nationally, we need to work closely with allied organisations, eg nationally we could get involved in the #iwill campaign, which promotes social action among 10-20 year-olds. This includes activities such as campaigning, fundraising and volunteering. OfSTED is working on its pledge for #iwill. CoS might consider making a pledge too.
CONCLUSION
The Schools Stream is just getting recognition and purchase more widely. I have recently been approached, on behalf of Catholic chaplains in schools, to see if anyone from CoS can speak at their national conference next June. Within the last few days I – and some others in the room – have received an e-mail from the Senior Media Officer for the Archbishops' Council asking what Church of England Schools are doing to welcome refugees and how many are signed up to SoS.
Responding to these requests and implementing my suggestions requires a strong central organisation for SoS. This is a time for consolidation not retrenchment.
Mary Blacka
October 2016
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