Refugee Week 20-26 JUNE 2022

Refugee Week is a UK-wide festival celebrating the contributions, creativity and resilience of refugees and people seeking sanctuary.

Watch Now “NLT Refugee Week virtual event: In Conversation with Tom Palmer”  recorded from 20 June 2022 here

Certificate to share with your pupils here.

All the other Refugee Week resources with the National Literacy Trust are all now available from here .. https://literacytrust.org.uk/resources/refugee-week-2022/

The downloadable resources are on the left hand side of the webpage, including the new 5 part story called “The Girl in the Lewandowski Top”, a teacher guide and worksheets.

If you scroll down there are films of me reading the story and an introductory film.

If you would like a reminder of when any other resources will be available please use the contact form below.  Please be patient.  Our replies are not automated so you will get a personal reply.  See T&Cs. 

Tom on “Why I featured refugee child characters in recent books…”

“Several of my latest published books have featured child refugees who have made it to the UK to be taken in by families and communities.

I did this because I have visited many schools and communities that have children who are refugees from Syria (and other troubled places in the world) and met them and heard their stories.

That – and reading books and articles about the war – motivated me to develop Yusra, Galip and Aylan as characters in my children’s books.

I did it, also, because I want children who are in all schools to be able to read about how we – in our relatively safe and stable country – can help people whose lives have been smashed to pieces and how we need to remember this country has a history of taking in and accepting refugees.

D-Day Dog (Barrington Stoke)  I wanted to think about how today’s refugees are part of our history, part of our future and that is why it is so good to welcome them to the UK.

 

 

Gus the Fantastic Football Cat (Egmont, KS1) is about a Syrian girl and her dad who look after a rescue cat when they arrive in the UK from Syria. The parallel of the girl taken in by a UK community and her, in turn, taking a rescue cat in is the only thing about the story that relates to her background. The rest of the story is hopefully a lot lighter, as the cat reveals it can predict World Cup football results.

Pitch Invasion (Barrington Stoke) is a bit more direct. The story is about a haunted hillfort in Cornwall and a ghostbusting duo – Seth and Nadiya – who realise there is a parallel between the ghost of Iron Age refugees escaping the brutal Romans by heading west and two Syrian boys – Galip and Aylan – who have recently been taken in by a Cornish family, after tragedy in Syria. The refugees I describe could well have been some of your Iron Age ancestors, people who might have been part of Boudica’s Iceni tribe after she was killed fighting them. I wanted to think about how there are refugees now just as there always have been. People have always had to flee. Then and now.”

More resources :

“Them” – is a FREE 5 part read aloud story set in 1945, from the point of view of the children in the Lake District community who received 300 child refugees from the Nazi concentration camps after the end of the Second World War.  This was written for Holocaust Memorial Day 2022 for the National Literacy Trust but can be used all year round.

• Read “Them” here
• A powerpoint introducing “Them” here
• 5 short films and worksheets to support “Them” story and inspire pupils to write their own responses here
• A teacher guide with ideas and sources to support your delivery of “Them” and children’s writing here
• 5 short films of Tom reading out loud “Them” available from here

“The Question” is a FREE 5 part read aloud story set today, from the point of view of pupils meeting a Holocaust survivor at their school and asking them about their refugee experience.  This was written for Holocaust Memorial Day 2021 but can be used all year round for the National Literacy Trust but can be used all year round.

•  Read “The Question” here for you to read aloud / stream / share or as a series of 5 films of Tom reading the story for you to use however suits your school here ).

You can also find out more about the Windermere children’s story in my children’s book “After the War from Auschwitz to Ambleside” here.

More resources from Holocaust Memorial Day 2021 here.

More resources from Holocaust Memorial Day 2022 here.