My daughter has been teaching English to a group of Afghan refugee children. Many are very traumatised by recent experiences. It has been a slow & difficult process, the children just needing kindness & support.

They are aged between 7 & 12 years. Some of them are now orphans.

It has been decided that they should join mainstream classes in all subjects with an extremely limited amount of English. My daughter argued that with very limited language skills along with the trauma they had suffered, they would not be able to cope with this level of integration.

Following a meeting of school governors, it was decided that the children should be ‘thrown in at the deep end’ My daughter argued that this would have a negative effect on the progress the children were making.

Her belief is that it equates to a traumatised child from this country being sent to a foreign country with very limited language skills (maybe orphaned) and be expected to be able to understand what is being taught without the relevant language skill.

If one of the objectives, apart from their safety,  of accepting refugee children is to integrate them & make them feel secure, this does not seem to be the best way to achieve this. This will in effect reduce their ability. to progress satisfactorily. The decision appears to be purely for financial reasons.