Oak National Academy will roll out translated versions of its lessons in Ukrainian and Russian for refugee children newly arrived in the UK, the education secretary, Nadhim Zahawi, announced today.
The online school’s 10,000 lessons will be made available to Ukrainian children in their own languages to help support families arriving in the UK seeking refuge from the Russian invasion.
Mr Zahawi had earlier announced plans for the UK to take in 100,000 children fleeing the war in Ukraine, speaking on BBC One’s Question Time on Wednesday.
And, speaking at the Association of School and College Leaders’ annual conference today, he said: “To support schools’ efforts, I asked the Oak National academy to roll out an auto-translate function across all 10,000 of its online lessons.
“And I can share with you today that they have delivered on this, meaning that Ukrainian children arriving in the United Kingdom can access education in their native language.”
Although the vast majority of those fleeing the war are in countries neighbouring Ukraine, Oak has said that the UK “is shortly to welcome up to 200,000 Ukrainian refugees with a large number of them expected to be school-aged children”.
Oak lessons will be available in Ukrainian and in Russian, which is the native language of about a third of Ukrainian people.
Thousands of Ukraine child refugees to be placed in UK schools
The online academy said that some subjects in its collection of 10,000 lessons will be of only partial use to Ukrainian children, given the curriculum differences between England and Ukraine.
Oak principal Matt Hood said: “It is tragic that the lives of so many children have been blighted by this horrific invasion. The work we have done to make Oak’s lessons available in Ukrainian is only a tiny contribution to this crisis, and pales in comparison to the international effort needed to ensure the safety of families fleeing violence. We hope that for Ukrainian children who will be arriving shortly in the UK, it’s a tool that may help them re-establish some sort of routine once they reach safety.
“The automated nature of the translation means it will not be perfect, nor is it an attempt to align with the Ukrainian curriculum or replace Ukraine’s own remote-education efforts.
“Oak has been exploring whether our lessons can be translated into the common languages spoken by pupils in English schools for whom English is not their first language but, with the tragedy unfolding in Ukraine, we have pushed this work forward as rapidly as possible.”
Tes revealed yesterday that Oak National Academy is to be made into a new government arm’s-length body.
It will be designed to provide free curriculum resources to schools across the UK and it is understood that the government is to give Oak the contract to run a nationwide online academy.
Yesterday Geoff Barton, general secretary of the ASCL, said schools “stand ready” to support plans to increase capacity to take in Ukrainian children.
Mr Zahawi said today: “We have a team that’s ready and already making plans for a capacity of 100,000 Ukrainian children that will come in to take places now.”
The Department for Education is yet to provide more details about how and when it expects this to happen.
Home secretary Priti Patel yesterday said the UK will introduce a streamlined visa application system for Ukrainians fleeing the war.
More than 2 million people have fled Ukraine since Russia’s invasion. Figures from Downing Street on Wednesday showed Britain had granted just 957 visas.
