Citizenship/Young Unaccompanied Asylum Seeker Unit of Work

Suggested key stages: 3 & 4.

Subjects: Citizenship, PSHE, SMSC (including Values), English, Media Studies.

This resource has been created to support learners at key stages 3 & 4, and their educators, to engage with the situation facing unaccompanied young people who arrive as asylum seekers in the UK. The resource is built around a short animation called ‘Dear Habib’  that shares the story of one young person and their experience of coming to the UK.

It is a suite of 7 activities with an accompanying introduction and guidance notes for teachers, and a supporting Safe Space resource that is useful for this type of learning. Across the activities, this resource responds to learning and teaching in Citizenship, Media Studies, English, SMSC (including values) and PSHE, with suggested learning pathways for each of these included in the introductory overview.

Through engaging with this resource, learners will develop their understanding of unaccompanied young people, build their concern and compassion for this issue, respond in a variety of creative forms, reflect on their own character, resilience and citizenship. A full breakdown of learning outcomes is included in the introductory overview.

The individual activities within this suite can be used in isolation, but we strongly advise that educators read the introductory overview to appreciate the full learning potential of the resource.

Common guidance
As the content covered by these resources could be considered controversial or sensitive, we recommend that all educators take a few minutes to read through the following ‘Creating Safe Spaces’ document before using any of the activities with learners.

This resource was produced in partnership with Rosie Wilson and Rob Bowden of [Lifeworlds Learning] (http://www.lifeworldslearning.co.uk/) and Shouting Ant.

For more free educational activities bringing to life social, humanitarian and other contemporary issues, please visit PositiveNegatives education.

PositiveNegatives is a not-for profit collaborating with educators, artists and researchers creating true stories, drawn from life to inspire empathy, critical thinking and creativity. Those stories, and the educational resources are freely available, and published under Creative Commons licenses. For feedback, suggestions or more information please contact us.