Holy Rood Supports Ukraine Project

In July 2022, Inna Shakhman, a Headteacher at the Nedoharky Lyceum in the Poltava region of Ukraine and relative of a pupil at Holy Rood, asked to come and visit a primary in England to see what school life is like in comparison to home. On Inna’s visit, she was sending video messages to her Headteacher’s network back home showing them pictures of displays, resources and school spaces used to support children’s learning. It was a very positive visit and I was able to ask her questions about school life for her pupils as well. Inna shared with me at this point that her pupils, aged between 5 and 18, are learning remotely due to the conflict and they cannot return to school until a bomb shelter has been built which can hold all children and staff. Inna shared with me that her husband is the ‘Mayor of their village and together they support many refuges fleeing the East of the country and taking shelter in villages like theirs.

This initial meeting sparked the beginning of a professional friendship between Inna and I through email exchange and the development of a project between Inna’s pupils and our own. This started with the exchange of video messages showing our pupils and communities what our schools are like and extending a hand of friendship to one another. As we currently have three Ukrainian families at Holy Rood, the children from these families helped me to translate our videos as much as possible and for them to be involved in getting this project underway, something they really appreciate and enjoy being involved in.

We then chose one of our year 5 classes to become international pen pals with the 4^th and 5^th class at the Lyceum, beginning with the exchange of Christmas cards in December and video messages showing them being received. The teachers involved here at Holy Rood and at the Lyceum will be meeting online to discuss how this project will develop further including the exchange of ‘All About Me’ passports and photographs between the children to strengthen their relationships further and hopefully continue to offer thoughts of hope and love to our Ukraine brothers and sisters as the conflict in their country continues.

A snapshot of our links so far...

All About the Lyceum

Christmas Card Deliveries

You can also watch another video about the Christmas card deliveries here.