LSJS Publishes Report on Welcoming Israeli families into UK Schools
Following on from the 7th October over 100 Israeli families found themselves looking for school places in the UK and the community stepped up to support these children in a number of ways.
The London School of Jewish Studies (LSJS) has recently published a report looking at how the UK Jewish communities welcomed Israeli families into our schools.
Dr Helena Miller, Director of Degrees & Teacher Training Programmes and Senior Research Fellow at LSJS, recognised that this unique situation and the speedy response from the community should be documented. Dr Helena Miller heads the “Jewish Lives” longitudinal study, following the cohort of young people who started in UK Jewish secondary schools in 2011 and has both initiated, and been involved in, many innovative education, research, and evaluation projects in the UK and overseas.
The report noted that although it usually takes weeks to get a place at a Jewish school, the relevant local authorities helped reduce the process to just a few days. That Israeli children were given uniforms and all the necessary resources they needed, and that the schools found Hebrew speakers to work with the children to make them feel comfortable at such a challenging time.
Part of the report details the opportunities and challenges faced by the schools, including how teachers had to respond to children arriving into a country they didn’t necessarily want to be in or feeling confused, asking questions such as “where is the safe room?”. The joint efforts of a number of community organisations which quickly jumped into action and worked collaboratively was incredibly important.
Dr Helena Miller commented, “we have seen how the coalition of communities can come together at very short notice to work together to ensure that we can respond to such a terrible situation.”
To read the full report please visit
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For more information, please call 020 8203 6427 or email lsjsadmin@lsjs.ac.uk
