Besmir Mustafa and his sister Aida arrived in England hidden in the back of a lorry. Their mother sent them away from Albania after their father was murdered and their grandmother beaten up in front of them. Dumped by the roadside, they were found wandering by a fellow Albanian speaker, who took them to social services in South Yorkshire. Now the 14 and 15-year-olds are pupils at Firth Park school in Sheffield, where, says headteacher Mo Laycock, they are “eating up” education. David Blunkett, in whose constituency Firth Park lies, has a rather different way of describing the effect refugees are having on Britain: last month the Home Secretary caused an outcry when he claimed they were “swamping” our schools.

Inner-city Firth Park has around 80 refugee pupils out of a student body of 1,350, and support for them is ad hoc. The head of modern languages has a degree in Swedish, so is able to help the young Somali who arrived here via Sweden - partially deaf and with no English. Besmir and Aida are being launched into school life from the safe haven of the school’s new learning support unit. “It was set up for children who aren’t coping well,” says the unit’s co-ordinator, Andrea Ward. “Children with emotional problems, behavioural problems. Having asylum seekers is a positive development; they work like Trojans and they’re over the moon to be safe.”

The Home Office has no figure for the number of refugee children in UK schools; the Refugee Council estimated 69,000 early last year. For traumatised and culture-shocked young people, school is a lifeline. A report from the Institute of Education found that, for most refugee children, “the education system, as a universalist service, seems to be the only statutory agency from which they gain support in settling into their new lives”.

But schools face this fluid and challenging situation with no blueprints and with limited resources. No special funding is available beyond the component of the ethnic minority achievement grant (EMAG) that is triggered retrospectively by the numbers of pupils with English as an additional language who are identified in the schools census each January.

“It is totally inadequate,” says William Atkinson, head of Phoenix school in the London borough of Hammersmith, up to 18 per cent of whose pupils are refugees. “Refugees are not distributed evenly through the system - they’re excluded from the high-achieving, high-performing schools, the schools with more stable and more experienced staff. We’re trying to advantage all our children, and there’s a temptation to spend a disproportionate amount of time on these youngsters, to the detriment of the others.

“Headteachers have been vociferous about this for a long time but they have not been well listened to, and refugees as a constituency have no clout. It’s the powerless schools, catering for the powerless.”

Few would deny that large numbers of asylum seekers put a strain on resources. But David Blunkett’s proposal to confine newly arrived refugee children to four experimental accommodation centres - planned for 2003 - worries many teachers. Marion Rosen is head of the London borough of Newham’s Star primary, where 41 languages are spoken and around 130 of the 700 pupils are refugees.

“Children integrate by being surrounded by other children speaking English,” she says. “Many refugees have had traumatic experiences, and being in a mainstream school where children are laughing, playing and talking has a normalising effect. How can you normalise your life in an accommodation centre?”

At Star, staff have adapted the curriculum to the needs of boys, transient children, children whose parents speak no English - making it “more physical, more visual, practical and interactive”, says Marion Rosen. “Because we’ve been changing the way we teach, we’re more able to meet the needs of all children.”

But where there is a sudden and sizeable influx of refugees, the need for specialist resources is brought into sharp relief. Dave Harvey is the EMAG co-ordinator at Elmwood junior school in Croydon. Between September and November last year, his school took in 20 asylum seekers; 10 were from Somalia and had no previous experience of formal schooling. Along with two other schools experiencing a similar influx, Elmwood went to the director of education for emergency funding to buy regulation sweatshirts for the newcomers and extra dual-language resources.

Dave Harvey and the three other EMAG teachers at Elmwood were taken off their regular timetables to work intensively with the children. Six of the original 20 are still in school, while the rest have been dispersed around Britain. “We welcome refugee children,” says Mr Harvey. “We feel upset for the kids when they’re suddenly gone. It’s unfortunate for them; they’re so motivated. It’s been their aspiration to come to Britain and to settle, and that rubs off on native children.”

Despite the difficulties involved in planning for refugees, few schools want segregated education. But David Blunkett has made clear his determination to proceed with the pilot scheme under the nationality, immigration and asylum bill, which is currently at committee stage and likely to become law later this year. Details are sketchy. The centres, which will take a total of 3,000 people, would not be locked. Sites under consideration are rural and remote, and the anticipated maximum stay is six months. The education element is still under discussion, but a Home Office spokesman insists: “Education for the children of asylum seekers will not be compromised under the bill. The proposed accommodation centres will provide quality education facilities equivalent to that provided at schools.” Provision will be made in discussion with the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, and will be inspected by Ofsted. There are no details of how the centres plan to recruit teachers, or of likely facilities.

The London borough of Croydon is home to Lunar House - the Home Office asylum application processing centre - and plentiful bed and breakfast accommodation. The town has 1,400 refugee children - 4 per cent of total pupil numbers. Some reports suggest child traffickers use Lunar House as a drop-off point. However they arrive, more than a third of Croydon’s child refugees are unaccompanied, and most of them are in their mid-teens.

“We were finding it quite difficult to place the Year 11 students,” says Linda Wright, assistant group director for student services. “Having them come in at key stage 4 poses particular problems for local schools, particularly those that already have high levels of pupil mobility.”

In response, the local education authority has established a key stage 4 course at Croydon College, for those whose English is not good enough for GCSEs. Although nominally on the school roll, the asylum seekers are at college full-time, receiving language support, maths and IT alongside vital counselling, careers advice and other help. Intended to equip students to enter further education, the course is popular with schools and students. “These are young people who would be on the margins otherwise,” says Linda Wright. The council has also developed youth work with refugees, improving access to health services, mentors, homework clubs and a social life. “There were real issues around the young people being on the streets, getting picked up in shopping centres, at risk of getting into crime.”

Richard Warne is head of Ashburton community school in Croydon, where 10 per cent of the 1,000-plus pupils are refugees. “The presence of children from all manner of places can and does enrich the school,” he says. Fifty languages are spoken at Ashburton; teachers and assistants at an English language development unit provide a home base for new arrivals at break and lunch times, and language support in lessons or small groups.

Staff at Ashburton get involved outside school, too; when two unaccompanied minors were recently assigned a local authority flat - and opened the door to find not a stick of furniture or anything else - they rallied round to contribute furniture and cash. “More often than not, refugees are well behaved and value education,” says Richard Warne. “My teachers would say, ‘We’d have them any time if we didn’t have to have disaffected, uncooperative children relocating from other local schools’.”

The Refugee Council’s policy development officer, Deng Yai, says: “We don’t want separate provision but more generous funding to allow schools to be more flexible. Refugees are in the first place children and in the second refugees, and should not be treated any differently from other children.”

Novels aimed at key stage 3 and 4 pupils which focus on refugees’

experiences include: The Other Side of Truth by Beverley Naidoo (Puffin); Refugee Boy by Benjamin Zephaniah (Bloomsbury Children’s Books); and Smiling at Strangers by Gaye Hicyilmaz (Orion Children’s Books). Frances Lincoln will publish a picture book aimed at key stage 1, The Colour of Home by Mary Hoffman and Karin Littlewood, to coincide with Refugee Week (June 17-23, see www.refugee week.org.uk). For information on bilingual textbooks, see: www.littrust.org.uk; www.mantra publishing.com; www.jubileebooks.co.uk