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Schools of Sanctuary is a City of Sanctuary national stream that aims to make schools places of welcome.
It is an initiative to celebrate the good practice of schools who foster a culture of welcome and inclusion for all, especially asylum seeking and refugee families. Schools of Sanctuary offers a way to educate the whole school community about the human right to sanctuary and engage with sanctuary seekers and families in their local communities.
The aim is to create a safe environment that includes everybody in a school, regardless of people’s background, ethnicity, faith or gender. Schools that are committed to welcome and inclusion can apply for an award from the City of Sanctuary movement. Schools with the award have demonstrated that they follow the Schools of Sanctuary model to ‘learn, embed and share’ issues related to refugees and asylum seekers.
Over the past three years, Cardinal Wiseman Catholic school has worked closely with the Coventry Ethnic Minority Achievement Service (EMAS) to develop a highly successful sixth form provision for pupils and families who have recently arrived in the UK and have little or no understanding of the English language. Many of the pupils who have successfully completed the course have come to the UK as refugees from countries that have been ravaged by war such as Iraq and Syria.
The Cardinal Wiseman Sixth form offer for these pupils allows the pupils to have access to key language specialist who support not only their acquisition of English but also broaden their cultural horizons. The pupils complete qualifications in mathematics, humanities and computing and benefit from structured support in applying to college. The course has been extremely successful with a 100% of pupils going on to further education, employment or training. From September 2019, the school has worked in partnership with the local authority EMAS team to expand the provision to 30 pupils.
If you have any further queries please do not hesitate to contact Leanne Cameron, Senior Teacher of EMAS, who is based at Cardinal Wiseman Catholic School (Leanne.Cameron@coventry.gov.uk).
The EMAS team, City of Sanctuary, Coventry Cathedral colleagues, and many others, are aiming to build the growth of Sanctuary Schools in Coventry in order to locally and nationally recognise the amazing work that some Coventry schools are already doing and to encourage more to do so. EMAS have developed a range of activities and resources to support schools and we have held several meetings with Coventry schools, both primary and secondary, which are actively working towards achieving the Schools of Sanctuary award by summer 2020. Continued sharing of great practice across the city and through social media will be central to the project.
Cardinal Wiseman school has played a significant part in the Sanctuary school movement across Coventry schools and worked together in the run-up to our City of Culture 2021 celebrations and beyond.
On the 21 January 2020 a significant launch event took place at Coventry Cathedral where we celebrated schools’ achievements in their journey so far and inform more schools about starting the process. The Cardinal Wiseman choir performed at the event and the Executive Principal spoke to all of the professionals present to share the experience of the work we have completed over the last few years.
We hope that as the Schools of Sanctuary profile increases through Coventry schools’ participation it will increase interest and encourage more schools to participate.
If you have any further queries please do not hesitate to contact Leanne Cameron, Senior Teacher of EMAS, who is based at Cardinal Wiseman Catholic School (Leanne.Cameron@coventry.gov.uk).
