Best Practice

How well are we supporting refugees and immigrants in primary schools?

Vulnerable children Mental health Pastoral issues Pupil wellbeing Behaviour
While the exact numbers are unclear, we know that thousands of refugee children are arriving in our schools. Dr Stephanie Thornton considers what psychological and mental health challenges these pupils may present with
New arrivals: UNICEF estimates that between January and June 2020, one-third of migrants/refugees arriving in Europe were children and that 3,445 child migrants/refugees came to UK in that period - Adobe Stock

Immigration is a matter of huge public concern. The public debate focuses on the large numbers of people coming to the UK and how to reduce those numbers. There is far less discussion of our humanitarian obligations to these people, and particularly toward child migrants and refugees. And there is surprisingly little research into these children and what their needs might be.

 

The scale of the issue

It is difficult to get a clear fix on the numbers of recently arrived child migrants and refugees currently in our schools. UK sources such as the Office for National Statistics are coy, or do not measure this, or as emerged in the news in November, have wildly inaccurate data. Our best guess comes from UNICEF.

UNICEF asserts that between January 2020 and June 2020, one-third of migrants/refugees arriving in Europe were children. It estimates that 3,445 child migrants/refugees came to UK in that six-month period.

UNICEF has no age breakdown for these children, but break-downs across the EU found that 30% of migrant/refugee children were aged 0 to 4 years, 53% were 5 to 14 years, and 17% were 15 to 17.

So, for the 3,445 children noted for the UK, this would suggest 1,033 pre-school child migrants/refugees arriving in the first half of 2020, many of whom will now be of school age, plus 1,826 child migrants aged 5 to 14 and 586 aged 15 to 17.

It is worth underlining that these figures are from one single six-month period in the pandemic, when travel was much harder. Are there similar figures arriving every six months? This is not a small population. And given climate change and political realities, this is only going to escalate.

 

The shape of the issue in primary schools

Child migrants come in many forms. The majority come with parents legally entering our workforce. Some are refugees from war zones or other problematic situations. Some are illegal entrants who have survived dangerous journeys. There are no available data on how many children are in each category. All are facing considerable upheaval and cultural change – and they deserve support. But those who are refugees face the worst challenges and need the greatest support – and these pupils are the main focus of this article.

           

Mental health in migrant and refugee children at primary age

A priori, one would assume that migrant and refugee children would be at higher risk of mental health problems. Even those in families coming to work here face risk factors, such as the upheaval of migration itself (even moving house is stressful enough, even for the very young), and the consequent loss, or distancing from former support systems such as school, friends, extended family – granny, who has often been a major care-giver, for example.

Membership of an ethnic or cultural minority in the new location is also a risk factor for mental health problems (Deng et al, 2021).

Refugees and asylum-seekers face all these issues, and more – especially those who have experienced trauma. They may be living in dire and uncertain domestic and socio-economic situations, also a risk factor for mental health (Deng et al, 2021; Frounfelker et al, 2020).

How many young refugee children have mental health problems? Research in this area is sparce and poor (Frounfelker, et al, 2020). What little quality research we have suggests that mental health problems are extremely common in very young child refugees – with up to 80% of children at primary school age affected (Murray, 2019). These problems include behavioural issues (“acting out”), generalised anxiety and depression, traumatic grief, and post-traumatic stress disorder.

 

Educational issues in migrant and refugee children at primary age

Starting at a new school anywhere can be a challenge for any young child. Add in new country, new culture, new language? A priori, we should expect challenges.

How big is the educational problem for refugee children? We don’t know. Research at secondary level produces widely different results (no problem/big problem), reflecting poor methodologies. There is shockingly little quality research at primary level. But common sense suggests that refugee children face challenges that indigenous children don’t.

 

Supporting young migrants and refugees in primary school

One would hope that the UK could soon develop better research and better resources to support migrant and refugee children. There is general expert consensus that schools can play a vital role in improving the lives of migrant and refugee children, in fostering both their education and their mental health (Dangmann et al, 2020).

While we wait for better understanding, recognition and resources, we can focus on the following areas.

  • Identifying issues: Schools are well placed to identify children struggling with mental health or educational problems. Flagging that a child has problems is important. It documents the need for resources in this area and can trigger support for the individual. There are effective interventions for the mental health problems experienced by refugee children (Frounfelker et al, 2020). Sadly, access to these is likely to be hard. And as we know, CAMHS is overwhelmed.
  • Second language learning: Migrant and refugee children may need extra help with learning English – but this may be the least of our issues. Young children pick up a second language fast – start learning below age 10 and you will likely rapidly be as fluent as a native speaker (Hartshorne et al, 2018).
  • Loss of culture? There is a surprising downside to the young child’s ability to quickly learn a second language and assimilate to a new school/culture: parents fear that the child is losing their language and culture of origin (personal communication from Ukrainian refugees, for example). What to do? The child must master English to cope in school but needs to keep contact with their culture of origin, to foster inter-generational bonding. Talk with the parents. Is there community support for this challenge? For example, in Kent there is a local Ukrainian children’s club to maintain language and culture for young refugees. Is there anything like that locally, for others? Headteacher Update has published a number of articles with a focus on language learning for refugees (see further reading).
  • Integration, socialisation: Schools that provide strong social communities, social clubs, and opportunities for friendships provide the best support for mental health in refugees (Samara et al, 2020). A sense of “belonging” to a community reduces the incidence of PTSD and depression (Cardeli et al, 2020). In this context, is a “buddy” system beneficial for new arrivals? Common sense suggests that it is. Research is absent.

 

Understanding and awareness

It is difficult to understand a child’s experiences when they are far beyond our own. The best we can do is humbly acknowledge the limitations of our understanding, even in the lives of migrants in families coming to work in UK, let alone refugees fleeing intolerable situations.

An instructive moment for me, illustrating the point: shortly after the Berlin Wall fell, a student from East Germany told me.

Every night on TV, they watched Sandman (think Jackanory) bedtime children’s story. The same story shown on East Berlin TV and West Berlin TV. Same story, same reader, the marked difference being the colour of the story-teller’s sweater. Every morning in school the teacher asked: what colour was Sandman’s sweater? So she could tell which families were watching East TV (permissible) or West TV (illegal). By age 5, my student says she had learned not to answer about the sweater – she understood that a wrong answer and her parents could be taken away. Her experience is something I had never imagined.

Many children have lived with repression and fear of one kind or another. How does that affect them? Research suggests that this kind of stress doesn’t go away easily: young refugees who have experienced chronic anxiety often stay hypersensitive to threat in their new lives, and are consequentially easily stressed (Hahnefeld et al, 2021). It takes time to trust.

Should you encourage young children to talk about their experiences and worries? While it is always good to make the young aware that sympathetic, non-judgemental adults who will hear their stories in confidence are available, it should always be the child who is in control of whether or when they want to talk.

Quite apart from the issue of trust, it is important to be aware of cultural differences in how mental health issues are experienced, and how acceptable it is to acknowledge or discuss such things (Gopalkrishnan, 2018).

For example, Brits in 1950 would assert that they were “just fine” in situations where today they would be happy pour out woe. Back then, Brits were ashamed to admit to distress, to not coping, to a variety of feelings deemed acceptable today. Not every culture has made that transition, and pressure to disclose may cause some damage.

 

Learning all the time

One mistake that adults often make is assuming that the young understand more than they actually do about the world they find themselves in. This can be a particular problem with very young migrant/refugee children and needs sensitive handling to avoid teasing and bullying.

Encourage migrant and refugee children to ask questions when they are puzzled and be ready to give full answers. A classroom culture that accepts such puzzles without negative judgement, without teasing or bullying, is a blessing indeed – for everyone.

  • Dr Stephanie Thornton is an author and lecturer in psychology and child development. She is the co-author of Understanding Developmental Psychology (Macmillan International/Red Globe, 2021). To read her previous articles for Headteacher Update, visit www.headteacher-update.com/authors/dr-stephanie-thornton 

 

Resources & further reading

 

Further information & references

  • Cardeli et al: The importance of assessing and addressing psychosocial needs in a school setting, The Journal of School Health (90), 2020: https://doi.org/10.1111/josh.12935 
  • Dangmann et al: Health-related quality of life in young Syrian refugees recently resettled in Norway, Scandinavian Journal of Public Health (48), 2020. 
  • Deng et al: Predicting negative and positive affect during Covid-19: A daily diary study in youths, Journal of Research on Adolescence (31), 2021.
  • Frounfelker et al: Mental health of refugee children and youth: Epidemiology, interventions and future directions, Annual Review of Public Health (7), 2020.
  • Gopalkrishnan: Cultural diversity and mental health: considerations for policy and practice, Frontiers in Public Health (6), 2018.
  • Hahnefeld et al: Survival states as indicators of learning performance and biological stress in refugee children, BMC Psychiatry, (21.1), 2021: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12888-021-03233-y 
  • Hartshorne, Tenenbaum & Pinker: A critical period for second language acquisition: Evidence from 2/3 million English speakers, Cognition (177), 2018.
  • Murray: War and conflict: Addressing the psychosocial needs of child refugees, Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education (40), 2019.
  • Samara et al: Examining the psychological wellbeing of refugee children and the role of friendship and bullying, The British journal of Educational Psychology (90), 2020: https://doi.org/10.1111/bjep.12282 
  • UNICEF: Latest statistics and graphics on refugee and migrant children, accessed 2024: www.unicef.org/eca/emergencies/latest-statistics-and-graphics-refugee-and-migrant-children