We are proud to announce that we have been awarded School of Sanctuary status in July 2022 for the second time.

A School of Sanctuary is a school that is committed to being a safe and welcoming place for those seeking sanctuary. It is a space for those whose lives were in danger in their own country, who have troubles at home or are just looking for a space they can feel safe. A School of Sanctuary is a school that helps its children, families, staff and wider community understand what it means to be seeking sanctuary and to extend a welcome to everyone as equal valued members of the school community. It is a school that is proud to be a place of safety and inclusion for all.

There are three core processes for a School of Sanctuary:

• Learn: learning about what it means to be seeking sanctuary
• Embed: taking positive action to embed concepts of welcome, safety and inclusion within the school including, but not limited to, the children and the staff
• Share: sharing your vision, achievements and good practice with other schools, the local community and beyond.

At St. Hugh’s we are fully committed to providing a safe and welcoming space for all. We provide a great deal of support to all our families, and particularly to those who are seeking sanctuary. We ensure that we learn, embed and share so that we really are providing a true place of sanctuary to those in need.

Refugee Week 2022

The whole school has taken part in Refugee Week 2022. We started by taking part in ‘Welcome Gems’ workshops run by Zoe from AS Creatives. We began by considering the ways in which people can be made to feel unwelcome. We prepared short dramas to explore behaviours such as ignoring and excluding. We then identified ways in which we can make sure we are welcoming to new children and families. We made a set of ‘Welcome Gems’ – a set of words to describe how we can be welcoming in the future.

The theme for Refugee Week was Healing. There were 8 Simple Acts that we could do to be welcoming and healing. One of those was to ‘have a chat’. We decided that each class would meet another class in the hall and we would have a chat with someone we do not normally talk to. We really enjoyed having conversations with new people and some of us even made new friends!

 

We thought about how we could be kind and welcoming. We wrote kindness postcards.

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Y5 and Y6 had a visitor (on Zoom) from Amnesty International. His name was Rahat Ismail and he talked to the children about human rights, children’s rights and about refugees. The children were very interested to hear the stories of some children who have come to this country because they did not feel safe in their own countries. Through their PSHE lessons, the children knew about why it is important to expect the rights of others and they will try their best to respect the rights of all children who come to our school.

Asylum Link Merseyside 

A visitor from Asylum Link Merseyside visited our school to share with us the work they do to support refugees and people seeking asylum in Liverpool. He taught us about why they might leave their own countries to settle in England. We talked about how we can make them feel welcome and about some of the things they might need. We will try our best to make everyone feel valued, safe and welcome in our school.