‘It opens eyes’: How one UK school has welcomed and learned from refugees

Staff at Essex primary describe struggle to secure support and the difference a charity's specialist training made

When a hotel in the village of Birchanger started hosting refugees in 2022, a group of the fathers turned up at the local school one day and asked: Can our children join?"

It was both an easy and a difficult decision for Birchanger Church of England primary school in Essex. The school sees itself as a welcoming space rooted in the community, yet staff feared that, like most schools, they would be left on their own to integrate the new pupils.