School of Sanctuary
We are extremely proud to achieve the School of Sanctuary Award today!
Staff, children & families have all worked together to ensure that our school is a place of sanctuary for all those who need us! Huge thank you to the whole of our community on this award!
The assessors were overwhelmed with the amount of work that we are doing in school to make our school a place of sanctuary, for those who need us! They were thrilled with all the art work that the staff & children have created to celebrate all their learning & displayed around school for all to celebrate.
The Assessors were very impressed with the Caritas Ambassadors who showed them around; they commented on their knowledge & passion about our Catholic Social Teaching & especially how important it is to our whole school community.
Huge thanks to all the children and their families for their support and for the contributions they have made to supporting those less fortunate at the Halesowen Welcome Group- they are thrilled with all the Christmas Boxes for the children in the group! Thank you to all who donated.
We would like to thank Miss Meese for her continued passion, drive & energy to lead this in school. She is a true inspiration to everyone in our school and beyond! We are very grateful for the hours she has put into making our school the wonderful place it is & to all the staff for supporting her in this Mission!🙏💕🙏
Congratulations everyone! 🥳🎉🙏💕🙏
We all have a part to play in building a welcoming and inclusive society.
A national network of over 350 primary and secondary schools, nurseries and sixth forms all committed to creating a culture of welcome and inclusion for refugees and people seeking asylum.
Driven by teachers, school staff, parents, governors and community groups, this network supports the thousands of young people seeking sanctuary in the UK, raises awareness of the issues facing people in the asylum system, challenges misconceptions and builds social cohesion.
Schools of Sanctuary are schools that:
Learn about what it means to be seeking sanctuary, issues surrounding people who are seeking sanctuary and how to support those who are seeking sanctuary within the school.
Embed concepts of welcome, safety and inclusion into their very fabric, and that share and celebrate their achievements.
Share their values and activities across the entire school community, with students’ families and in their local community.
School of Sanctuary
As a school, we are working towards becoming a School of Sanctuary. But what does this mean?
School of Sanctuary is a national network of over 300 primary and secondary schools all committed to creating a culture of welcome and inclusion for refugees and people seeking asylum.
Being a 'School of Sanctuary,' means welcoming and supporting refugees along with people from all different backgrounds. We want to educate the children at our school about the human right to sanctuary and help them make sense of the world so that they can become responsible citizens and to create positive change in their communities. As a 'School of Sanctuary,' we strive to build an inclusive and supportive school community, which helps the most needy and vulnerable.
What is a School of Sanctuary?
- A place that fosters a culture of welcome and safety for people seeking sanctuary, including asylum seeking and refugee families.
- Educates the whole school community about the human right to sanctuary and identifies practical means for schools to demonstrate that commitment.
- Builds empathy and intercultural awareness through promoting the voices and contributions of people seeking sanctuary, encouraging an understanding of the experiences of displaced people and helping to combat stereotypes
What are we doing to become a school of Sanctuary?
All of our learning at OLSK is rooted in our Gospel Virtues and Catholic Social Teaching but we are committed to turning this learning into action.
Keep up with our ongoing journey to achieving School of Sanctuary below!
5.12.22 our school choir visited Halesowen Welcome Group this afternoon to sing some carols and spread the Christmas spirit!
2.12.22 Mrs Ofosu led our Golden Book assembly today. It was great to hear the CST learning from each class, a special shout out to year 3 who wrote letters to refugees!
28.11.22 Wow! We are overwhelmed the the generosity of our families and staff supporting The Welcome Group. Mrs McNulty was thrilled to received 81 boxes that will be given to the children at the Christmas Party. Thank-you to everyone who contributed! 🙏💕🙏
25.11.22 The Caritas Ambassadors have been working hard assessing our school of sanctuary application. It has been great to get pupil voice about what is going well and what we can do to improve!
Children's work from across the school
24.11.22 celebrating all we do to make our school one of welcome and sanctuary 🧡
21.11.22 Miss Meese delivered an assembly to all children and the staff today to celebrate all the amazing things we are doing to ensure our school is a school of sanctuary. Miss Meese reminded us of the difference between asylum seekers and refugees and we thought about the reasons why some people are forcibly displaced and how they would cope in these situations. We watched a video about a Syrian refugee called Maran and her family and empathised with her situation. We then all wrote pledges to commit ourselves to making our school one of sanctuary.
18.11.22 Some year 1 children visited Miss Meese today to share their amazing learning about refugees!
18.11.22 today James Morris our local MP visited our school for Parliament Week. Our Caritas Ambassadors asked him a range of questions about issues we are concerned with in school, including the recent deal the UK made with France.
11.11.22- The Caritas ambassadors met with Mrs Smith and Miss Meese today to discuss and plan the question for James Morris (our local MP) on Friday. The topics of our questions include what help the government has in place for refugees and asylum seekers, the cost of living crisis, education and the environment.
10.11.22- Y6 have teamed up with YR and Pre School to plan and prepare a welcome service for all the new families joining our school community in YR and Pre School. Father Stefan and families are invited to the service. We are committed to making our school a sanctuary and place of welcome for our new families!
7.11.22
Discipleship in Action!
Pope Francis talks about service and charity: “Love and charity, are service, helping others, serving others. There are people who spend their lives in this way, in the service of others.When you forget yourself and think of others, this is love!
As part of our Catholic Social Teaching, all staff are volunteering at the Halesowen Welcome Group; supporting those less fortunate than ourselves. We are extremely proud to be called by God to serve others, especially at this time of the year, when families are really struggling financially and refugees, are in need of our love and support. 🙏💕🙏
4.11.22 our amazing Community Language Day! Today we spent a whole day celebrating the different languages and cultures in our school community. Each year group and a different language focus in the class and was a language spoke by someone in each class. We invited parents in to teach about about traditions, culture and even how to speak some words and phrases! We are so lucky to have families in our school community from so many different places.
12.10.22- today in KS2 we have been learning about and celebrating g Black History month. We have celebration the lives of black people in our global community and learnt about the unfair treatment of black people through history.
12.10.22-14.10.22 Wow, what an amazing trip to Ingestre Hall we had. Our theme this year was ‘Dignity of The Human Person’ which all our work was linkied to. In music, we began by creating a mind map on how we can help different people and created rhyming couplets to turn into a song. Our final piece was all about helping refugees and asylum seekers. In art, we created a blanket which we would use to help refugees and asylum seekers who are on perilous journeys. In drama, we created a production all about little acts of kindness and how they can make a difference to many peoples lives, especially those in poverty. Finally, in dance, we created a pieces centred around trust and how we can help the needy in our communities trust us to help them.
3.10.22 Today Mrs Finnegan and Mrs Brandrick volunteered at The Welcome Group and had the privilege of working alongside volunteers, as part of our Catholic Social Teaching, supporting those less fortunate than themselves!
27.9.22 Today the Caritas Ambassadors wrote their letter to James Morris and Liz Truss to accompany the planes we launched the fill the skies with hope!
26.9.22 Mrs Turner and Mrs Woolls enjoyed their afternoon volunteering at the Halesowen Welcome Group today. It was wonderful to see how much fabulous work is going on to support people in our community and beyond!
23.9.22 Here at OLSK we stand united with refugees against the Rwanda scheme. We stand united with our brothers and sisters from our global community all around the world! We launched our messages of hope into the sky today 🧡 #filltheskieswithhope
12.9.22 Year 6 have been very reflective so far during our first Catholic Social Teaching week- Family and Community. We have been thinking about how to create a welcoming community for refugees, asylum seekers and people less fortunate than ourselves.
20.7.22- Today the Caritas Ambassadors have been working hard bagging up all our donations of school uniform and shoes for the The Welcome Group! Thank you to everyone who donated.
12.7.22- We raised an amazing £134 for The Halesowen Welcome Group from our Refugee Art Exhibition! Thank you so much for your donations, the money is really going to help families in our community.
1.7.22 Today we hosted our truly amazing refugee art exhibition to raise funds for the Halesowen Welcome Group. Each class created a piece of art, which was showcased at the exhibition. The choir sang and year 6 also read prayers as part of the performance. Everyone who attended including Bishop David, Maggie Dugan from the diocese, members of the SVP and Welcome Group, parents and carers, all donated money which will be a huge help for the Welcome Group. The afternoon was so emotive and lots of visitors left crying because of how powerful the exhibition was. We are so please to say we raised
1.7.22 today we were very lucky to welcome Boniface into our school from the Halesowen Welcome Group to share his experiences of being a refugee in the UK. We listened to his story and asked him questions about his experience and what we can do to help.
27.6.22-1.7.22- REFUGEE WEEK. Lots of amazing learning has been happening this week in Y6 to mark refugee week. Children have been creating art and writing prayers to perform at our art exhibition, writing haikus in English about refugees, planning a weekly shop with the amount of money asylum seekers receive in the UK in a week and reading about real refugees' stories and plotting their journeys in geography.
27.6.22-1.7.22- REFUGEE WEEK. Lots of amazing learning has been happening this week in Y5 to mark refugee week. Children have been creating art for our art exhibition, research the amount of refugees that are taken in in different countries around the world and displaying this information in graphs in maths, making welcome posters to be displayed in airports and ports around the world and writing poems in English!
27.6.22-1.7.22- REFUGEE WEEK. Lots of amazing learning has been happening this week in Y3 to mark refugee week. Children have been creating art for our art exhibition and exploring famous refugees and their contributions to society!
27.6.22-1.7.22- REFUGEE WEEK. Lots of amazing learning has been happening this week in Y2 to mark refugee week. Children have been creating art for our art exhibition, been making music reflecting the journey of a refugee and what they may hear along their way and writing prayers.
27.6.22 We are taking part in Refugee Week this week at OLSK! (A week late due to y6 residential). Miss Meese and Mrs Smith volunteered at the Welcome Group this afternoon which is a local organisation supporting asylum seekers and refugees! We had the chance to help out, talk to people who use their services and offer support and advice.
Today was such an exciting day. Our Caritas Ambassadors were commissioned by Bishop David and trained by Sister Judith to put our faith into practical action. We are committed to making a difference to the most vulnerable people in our community and can’t wait to start our projects to help refugees and asylum seekers in out local area.
Today we invited our local Mp James Morris into school to tell him about our new Caritas Ambassador group and what we are striving to do to help refugees and asylum seekers in our local area. We interviewed him about current affairs we have seen in the news such as the Nationality and Border Act and whether he thought new laws were just.
As part of our Lenten preparation, our families donated children’s clothes and shoes for the Halesowen Welcome Group. Thank you to everyone for their generosity! ❤️🙏🏾
Today our Caritas Ambassadors met to prepare a speech to share with parishioners in church. They are going to talk about upcoming fundraising for the welcome group, what we are doing in school to support them and to invite them to our refugee week art exhibition!
Today we presented our speech in church to the parishoners in our community. We told them about the current state of affairs for refugees and asylum seekers in the UK and explained what we plan to do to help. We also invited them to join us in our Refugee Week art exhibition to raise money for Halesowen Welcome Group!
