A few Ukrainian children play war during the first break at their Dutch primary school

The girl has blond tails, on a mint green tracksuit. She eats a white sandwich with cheese. nine she is, she says with a serious look. Her brother is eleven. He has neatly combed hair, parted on the right. They came by car with their mother. From “Chervonograd,” the girl writes. She depicts driving the car with her hands.

Today she started at De Wilgen public primary school in Sliedrecht, South Holland, together with nineteen other Ukrainian children.

“Sit on the table Maxim”, says teacher Jennie Guis-Duim. She articulates and points to the table. Maxim (11 years old) climbs on the table. He understands. “Point to the floor,” says Miss Jennie. Eleven Ukrainian children point to the floor. “Throw your ball to Miss Lena, Micha.” A boy throws his ball to Miss Lena. “That way they learn Dutch while playing”, explains Jennie Guis-Duim later. “That goes fast.”

Jennie Guis immediately canceled her two days off a week last week to teach the children of Ukrainian refugees. The other three days she is in group 6. The municipality had asked De Wilgen if they had room for fifteen Ukrainian children; it became twenty.

Of course, said director René de Kuiper. We make room. Four teachers immediately reported that they want to work on days off. Retired teachers also volunteered.

Guis has been a teacher for 27 years – the first refugee children she taught came from the former Yugoslavia. Much later, Syrian children, Afghan, Eritrean, followed.

The Ukrainian children are happy that they can go to school, says Teacher Lena Vijverberg, who also started at De Wilgen this morning. There is white bread on the table, cheese, chocolate sprinkles, milk and apples. They go to lunch. “School in Ukraine is strict,” says Vijverberg. “You can play outside once a day at most. The rules are tight. Children play here and go outside twice a day.” Rene de Kuiper had also noticed that school is stricter there. The first thing the parents had asked him on Friday at the meeting was: should they wear a uniform?

Regularity

The most important thing in these first weeks is rest, cleanliness and regularity, says De Kuiper. “Creating a safe environment. That is what we do. In the morning the children learn Dutch in a playful way, in the afternoon we do sports and games.” A few children had already played war during the first break, says Vijverberg. “But that’s normal, they’re children.” She interprets between the children and the school staff. She is Ukrainian and has been living in nearby Papendrecht for nine years.

Lena Vijverberg (married to a Dutchman) is a “needle in a haystack”, says director De Kuiper, because she speaks Russian, Ukrainian, German, Dutch and English. She started interpreting as a volunteer at the reception center in Sliedrecht two weeks ago. “I suddenly had a job here through someone else.”

Six days earlier, the first Ukrainian student also started at the Tragellijn primary school in Lobith, Gelderland, 92 kilometers away as the crow flies: Lina (6). The girl fled with her mother and older sister from her hometown west of Lviv. Her mother’s boyfriend is Dutch, that’s how they ended up here. Lena is the only Ukrainian child at this school, but the Tragellijn has a lot of experience with language lessons for children who come from abroad. About 20 percent of the kids here get those classes.

In Russian

Teaching assistant Armine Khachatryan walks in with Lina. She is a somewhat shy girl with her hair in two pigtails. She sits down at one of the colorfully painted tables and rests her head on her hands. Khachatryan speaks to her softly in Russian. “She feels good today, and she has contact with other children,” she translates. Lina shows how she can count to ten in Dutch. “One, two, three…” she says. Gently at first, then harder. She smiles broadly when her teacher compliments her.

Lina gets extra language lessons three times a week. But you let these children get used to it first, says director Marion of the Chamber. “Just sit down and watch the cat out of the tree. The moment she feels free – you can see that in the freedom of playing outside, or when she dares to raise her finger in class, speaking Dutch comes naturally.”

Also read: How do you talk to children about war? Six tips from the pedagogue

Van de Kamer thinks that Lina is still the only Ukrainian child at school, which is not such a bad thing. The director would even rather have that than many Ukrainian children in one fell swoop. That does not help with learning the language, she saw through her experience at an asylum seekers center school in Duiven. But a school with many children of non-Dutch descent, such as here, is nice, thinks Van de Kamer. “That gives Lina a sense of security. ‘Oh, you don’t know the language well either.’”

Children from war zones have to get used to a new school for the first six weeks, says Anita Klompsma, who has been running the Interschool for children of asylum seekers in Ter Apel for thirty years. “They have been through a lot and everything is new. You really shouldn’t rush them. For example, most of these Ukrainian children have left their father behind.” Parents often spend the whole day on their mobile phone in the shelter to follow the news from their home country as far as possible, says a teacher in Sliedrecht. School is therefore primarily a pleasant distraction.

According to Klompsma, lessons in a group with children from the same country are pleasant and productive in the beginning. “I always say to young teachers: what would you want if you suddenly ended up in China? That you met a Dutchman who understood you! Well, that’s what all refugees want.”

Lina in Lobith heard the air-raid siren in Ukraine, says Marion of the Chamber. “So we won’t be doing a fire drill very soon.” On arrival, the girl was given two “buddies” who take her by the hand. “Children sign up themselves, they like that.”

Also read: What to do with the children fleeing alone?