Theresa May visits Ukrainian school students in Maidenhead

MP Theresa May paid a visit to a Maidenhead school last week to meet Ukrainian students who have fled war in their home country. 

The former Prime Minister was at Claires Court School in College Avenue last Friday (September 23).

She was invited to speak to the students and understand the challenges that had faced them and their individual circumstances, and started her visit in the nursery school, where she met Year 2 pupil Milana. 

The MP was presented with gifts, while three A-level students, Marina, Vavara and Daniela, gifted Mrs May a Cyanotype print, framed and signed by the girls who are now learning subject-based English. 

Daniela, who is studying photography at A-level, also presented Mrs May with a print of a photograph she took of the Big Ben tower, now showing a prussian blue clock face. 

The Ukrainian students within the school are supported by Ms Balynets, a qualified teacher and Ukrainian translator employed by Claires Court who also fled Ukraine as a refugee.

She is concentrating on teaching English to the youngest students and offering assistance at GCSE & A-level. 

James Wilding, academic principal, said: “Community is the absolute heart of who we are at Claires Court and we were determined to do our level best to help those students who had experienced such awful circumstances at home.

"Providing their education is only a small step in this process, welcoming their mothers so they feel included and welcomed has been important too.

"We seem to have provided them, and for many of their fathers back in Ukraine, with the comfort of normality and importantly, the stability of routine and friendship in school.”

Stephanie Rogers, head of sixth form, added: “In addition to the class work, Ms Balynets has been of great help acting as an interpreter between students, their mothers and the school to ease the transition between home and school.

"She’s really helped to explain how the school works for them, so very different from their experiences in their home country.”

Pictured: Mrs May meeting staff and students at Claires Court

Four senior students each took time to write a personalised letter to Mrs May, outlining their experiences of the war and how this has affected them.  

Mr Wilding added: “This was, and still is, a national emergency and we want to mitigate the upheaval of moving to the UK as much as possible especially at such key points in the childrens’ education.

"We have received invaluable assistance from our own community with our PTA being instrumental in this, alongside Goyals who provided their school uniform, and Hawkinsport who gave the children all their sports kit requirements."

The school has supported raising money for the crisis, organising events including an ‘own clothes’ day, cake sales, sponsored walks and ‘throw the sponge at the teacher’, clocking up in excess of £10,000 which was donated to the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC).

Sixth Form students also filled a bus with nappies, thermals and medicine, gifted by the school community, that was donated to the Red Cross and dispatched the same day. 

Hugh Wilding, principal and bursar, said: “It was our pleasure to invite Mrs May to the school to hear the real life stories of those in her constituency and to meet our Ukrainian cohort.

"We were so glad that she expressed such an interest in the plight of our students studying here and the children were honoured to have been given the chance to speak directly to her.”