Celebrating diversity in schools

Refugee Week takes place every year across the world in the week around World Refugee Day on the 20 June; this year, Refugee Week was 19th-25th June 2023. In the UK, Refugee Week is a nationwide programme of arts, cultural and educational events that celebrate the contribution of refugees to the UK, and encourages a better understanding between communities.

The theme for Refugee Week 2023 was compassion.

For Refugee Week’s 25th anniversary, we invite you to celebrate what compassion looks like in action. Together we can create a shared understanding of compassion to ensure we are extending it widely to all.

“Our task must be to free ourselves – by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”

Albert Einstein

Refugee Week Website

Refugee Week School Event at Warwick Arts Centre

As part of our Refugee Week celebrations, Coventry young people, from a mixture of backgrounds, attended a day of arts-based workshops arranged in collaboration between Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry Ethnic Minority Achievement Service (EMAS) and Coventry City Council Migration Team. Pupils from Lyng Hall School, The Westwood Academy and Cannon Park Primary School came together to explore this year’s theme of compassion and what it means to be a refugee in today’s society. They took part in a movement workshop provided by Ascension Dance exploring compassion, unity and the ‘other’ through movement and dance techniques as well as a printmaking workshop run by Niall Singh where students designed and created their own alternative flags using a monoprint technique.

Pupils new to learning English, from Westwood Academy, expressed their enjoyment, “We make a flag – that was hard but happy”.

Discussing the topic of compassion and unity, student ambassadors suggested, “Patience is the key to relief” – (Arabic proverb) and “Life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how we react to it”.

A further secondary pupil from Lyng Hall School explained, "We went to Warwick Arts Centre today because it was Refugee Day and we wanted to learn about what is compassion and unity. When people come from different countries you show compassion and can relate to them."

Finally, a Year six pupil from Cannon Park Primary commented, ‘I had a chance to express myself using colour and learned about the life of a refugee. This class trip really brightened my day!’ 

View the photos from the day on Flickr.