PRIMARY seven pupils at Kirn Primary School were challenged to put themselves in the shoes of a young refugee as part of an immersive writing experience exploring displacement, children’s rights and the meaning of belonging.
The thought-provoking lesson saw youngsters imagine they had arrived in Cowal by boat after being forced to leave their home, before writing the story of their journey from a makeshift shelter base camp.
Pupils were asked to create the identity of a young refugee, considering where they had come from, why they had been forced to leave, how they had travelled and what happened when they eventually reached Scottish soil.
They also considered something most children would take for granted – what belongings they would have been able to carry with them on such a journey.
The exercise formed part of P7’s study of The Boy at the Back of the Class, Onjali Q. Rauf’s novel telling the story of a young Syrian refugee through the eyes of his classmates.
It also links with the school’s wider interdisciplinary learning topic for the term, A Place at the Desk, a Place in Cowal – Where Friendships Know No Borders.
P7 teacher and Kirn Primary’s acting head teacher Aileen Wilson explained that the work was intended to encourage pupils to think about the experiences of children whose circumstances may be very different from their own.
Images used during the experience confronted pupils with the reality of journeys made by people fleeing their homes, while the class was encouraged to use imagination and empathy to bring an individual child’s story to life through their writing.
The refugee project was part of a wider focus on immersive writing at Kirn which took place last Thursday, with pupils elsewhere in the school also discovering something decidedly unexpected in their playground.
A boat and treasure chest mysteriously appeared in the school grounds, leaving youngsters to work out where they had come from – and how they had ended up at Kirn.
The unusual arrival transformed pupils into storytellers, detectives and explorers for the day.
Children wrote their own explanations for the mystery, imagining stormy seas, secret voyages and adventures before some went on to create their own treasure maps.
The maps were even treated with teabags to give them an aged appearance and turn them into convincing pieces of old parchment.
One pupil said: “We wrote about how we imagined it got here.”
Another explained: “We made treasure maps and used teabags to make them look like they are from history.”
For staff, the aim was to demonstrate how giving children something tangible to see, explore and discuss can provide a powerful starting point for writing.
Rather than beginning with a blank sheet of paper, the pupils had objects, experiences and questions around which they could build their stories, while working together and sharing ideas.
The school thanked Alison Currie, who provided the boat, Joe and Mhari at R&R for the use of the treasure chest, and staff and parents who helped bring the experience to life.
