The first call has come from the head of Saint Felix School in Southwold, Suffolk, after the prime minister agreed earlier this month that Britain would take 20,000 refugees in the next five years.
Fran D’Alcorn, who leads the 2 to 18 private school, which includes boarding facilities for nine to 18-year-olds, said that local authorities will have “an immensely difficult time” placing orphaned refugees in schools and with foster parents or in children’s homes.
She estimates that if all the boarding schools in the independent sector agreed to support this initiative then “up to a thousand vulnerable and desperate children could be given the chance of a new life in this country”.
She added: “Working alongside the local community, boarding schools could offer solid, pastoral support as well as a first class education to some of the most vulnerable children entering the country.”
The call for schools to play their part has been echoed by Sebastien Chapleau, headteacher at La Fontaine Academy, a primary school in Bromley.
Mr Chapleau, who writes in SecEd this week (see http://www.sec-ed.co.uk/blog/we-have-a-chance-to-make-history-standing-by-it-is-clear-will-simply-not-do-1/), has issued his own rallying cry to school leaders across the country. He says that schools “have a chance to make history” and that standing by “will not do”.
Mr Chapleau, who is part of Future Leaders, which develops school leaders to work in challenging schools, said: “I believe in every child’s right to achieve and access equal opportunities. That’s why I joined the Future Leaders network. To my mind that is not just every child in my school, it is every child I can support.
“This includes the thousands of children displaced by the Syrian refugee crisis who may be joining our communities.”
La Fontaine is part of the STEP Academy Trust, which has seven schools in south London, and has written to the mayor of London pledging its support in providing school places.
Mr Chapleau has already held his first Action Meeting and has been contacted by more than 30 parents offering their help.
The school is collecting clothes and food to send to refugees in Calais and is planning assemblies focusing specifically on the crisis and to prepare pupils for the possibility of welcoming refugees. Charity English for Action has also agreed to provide any new arrivals and their families with free English lessons.
Mr Chapleau added: “We have a chance to make history. We all have an opportunity to have a positive impact for refugees by welcoming them into our schools. Standing by, it is clear, will simply not do.”
Future Leaders chief executive Heath Monk is confident that other schools will also step up to the plate.
He said: “Our mission is to raise the achievement of children, regardless of background, and to provide them with equal choices and opportunities in life. That mission does not stop at the UK border: Syrian children deserve similar opportunities.
“There are now more than 120 Future Leaders headteachers across the country who are working to achieve this mission, and I’m sure that they and many others will want to respond to Seb’s call to action.”
Saint Felix School, meanwhile, has a tradition of supporting young people fleeing persecution in their own countries.
During the First World War, head Lucy Silcox was involved in assisting Serbian refugees and at Christmas 1938, the school opened its doors to a group of Kindertransport children escaping Germany. Also, during the Vietnamese Boat people crisis, the head Mary Oakeley offered to take children of desperate families into the school.
Ms D’Alcorn is hoping that the Boarding Schools Association (BSA), Independent Schools’ Council and the independent sector’s professional bodies will be able to work together to assess whether her idea could be a workable scenario.
Robin Fletcher, national director of the BSA, said it would support any school that wants to take in refugees.
He said: “The Boarding Schools’ Association supports Saint Felix School and any other boarding school who wishes to provide places to teenage orphaned Syrian refugees entering the country under the scheme being launched by the prime minister.
“We know educating the next generation is key to the future success of any country, not least a war-torn country such as Syria.
“Our boarding communities can provide a safe haven in which the refugees can have access to a strong network of pastoral support and structure, including counsellors, while continuing their education – arming them with future skills to fight back against the regime within Syria.”