Schools of Sanctuary
We are delighted to announce that Gladstone has officially been awarded School of Sanctuary status as from July 2025. This demonstrates our commitment to ensuring all of our Gladstone community are made to feel welcome, safe and supported to thrive.
​
We are very proud of the representatives from a selection of our pupil voice groups – Gladstone Senedd, Diversity Group and Young Interpreters – who met with the assessors and were described as ‘well-informed, knowledgeable and empathetic’. They were also very impressed with our Year 4 pen pal exchange with children from a Saharawi refugee camp. This gave a thoughtful insight into life in a refugee camp and our children were able to share their experiences with the rest of the school during assembly – we have included the video from the refugee camp below.
​
We celebrated A Day of Welcome and Refugee Week with each year group fully participating in many different activities, reading books, live lessons and assemblies. We also welcomed Norman from the refugee charity Oasis back to Gladstone and managed to raise over £300 for the charity.
​
The Schools of Sanctuary programme is not political, it simply helps schools to understand why people seek safety and to lead with kindness and humanity. We are proud to be a school where every child feels safe, where individual needs are understood and where pupils are equipped to be kind and thoughtful members of our community.
At Gladstone we have started our journey to become a School of Sanctuary – a school committed to creating a culture of welcome, understanding and belonging for all, especially those seeking refuge or asylum.
In March we were delighted to welcome Norman from the charity ‘Oasis’ into school where he was able to share with us the work Oasis do and how they offer asylum seekers and refugees a warm Welsh welcome. We presented him with a selection of our orange hearts that we made in February for ‘Together With Refuges Collective Action’, with messages of welcome from the children.
Year 4 are excited about starting a penpal exchange via Sandblast Arts with children in a Saharawi Refugee Camp in Algeria. They will exchange letters and ask and answer questions about life in Barry and life in a refugee camp and will present their experiences to the rest of the school during Refugee Week in June.