Northern Ireland
Pockets of positivity: School leaders’ strategies for developing school inclusion for students with refugee and asylum-seeking backgrounds
Currently, millions of children and families with refugee and asylum-seeker experiences find themselves living in new countries, with different languages, dissimilar cultures, diverse expectations, and different forms of schooling. For school leaders, the challenge of integrating these students and their families, some of whom may have endured and be dealing with trauma and loss, can be challenging. This paper presents…
2023
School-based support for Syrian refugee pupils in Northern Ireland
Over the past 5 years Northern Ireland has welcomed approximately 1,900 Syrian refugees, including almost 700 school-aged children and young people, through the Vulnerable Persons Relocation Scheme (VPRS). Many of these have experienced war and persecution, and a range of additional adversities during and post-migration. Alongside language proficiency, ‘trauma’ has been the most common challenge reported by school staff to…
2021
‘Sitting on a wobbly chair’: mental health and wellbeing among newcomer pupils in Northern Irish schools
Schools in Northern Ireland (NI) have become increasingly diverse with the numbers of newly arrived migrant pupils more than doubling over the past decade. While studies have shown an increasingly high prevalence of mental health difficulties among young people in NI generally, there is a paucity of research with at risk groups, including members of ethnic minority communities. This paper…
2020
Supporting refugee children with special educational needs in Northern Ireland
Background: As of February 2020, Northern Ireland (NI) has welcomed 1,815 Syrian refugees, almost half of whom are under the age of 18 (NI Department for Communities, 2020), and many of whom have special educational needs. This study aims to explore the reasonable adjustments made by educational communities thus far, to minimise the impact of potential barriers to learning for…
2019