Because Ukrainian refugees have been in the Netherlands for several months now, the government is asking schools to teach the children. That is why teacher Nine Deckers and her colleagues started De Optimist at the beginning of April, a school in Alkmaar especially for Ukrainian children.
The school now accommodates about 25 students between the ages of six and eleven. That number varies every week, because new students are added and students sometimes go back to Ukraine or leave with their families to another country. “Today we said goodbye to a girl. The children were really sad about that,” says Nine.
“There is a boy in the class who saw his school being destroyed by bombs”
This is also difficult for herself: “I hadn’t really thought about the fact that children leave. In regular education it is also difficult to say goodbye every year, but then you will still see them in the schoolyard the following year. you: I don’t see them anymore.”
intense stories
Nine thinks it is important that the students gain knowledge at school, but personal attention is just as important. “We are shocked by the stories children tell,” she says. “For example, there is a boy in the class who had to hide in his basement and saw how his school was destroyed by bombs.”
“There are also three new children at our school since today,” she continues. “They were in an air raid shelter for a long time and their parents went upstairs once a day to get soup. They were eventually able to flee because they received permission from Russian soldiers to go to the hospital with their sick baby.”
“I don’t know what we would do without our Ukrainian teaching assistant, she is really worth gold”
Nine can imagine that learning new things is not the top priority for children who experienced this, she says. That is why learning is largely done through play. “We mainly focus on teaching Dutch and keeping track of the math level.”
A Ukrainian teaching assistant, who was a history teacher in her home country, is a welcome help in this regard. “She has a lot of personal conversations with the children and helps a lot with the translation. She is really worth gold, I wouldn’t know what we would do without her.”
Support each other
Ukrainian children are also taught in regular primary schools, for example at the Van Reenen School in Bergen† “In those schools, learning the language might go a bit faster,” says Nine. “We notice that the need to speak Dutch is less important here, because they can all understand each other.” Nevertheless, according to her, a school for Ukrainian children also has many advantages: it ensures that they have a lot of support from each other and can easily help each other.
“Most students live in a hotel, miss their friends and worry about grandparents”
“They are all in the same situation,” says Nine. “Most students live in a hotel, which is not a house where you can relax. They miss their friends and are worried about grandparents, for example. That is why social interaction in the classroom is extremely important.”
After the summer, it will be considered whether De Optimist is still needed. “That is of course very uncertain and depends on the developments in Ukraine,” says Nine. “But it is in any case the intention that children continue to a regular school after about a year with us.”
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