An English teacher whose free online classes have helped thousands of children during lockdown has set up free English classes for Ukrainian children.
Holly King-Mand, 38, from Bedfordshire, said she first offered free tickets to her regular courses for refugees and was “overwhelmed” by interest.
That’s why she set up a tailor-made course to help the refugees listen, speak and write English.
“I hope I can — in a way — help,” she said.
The former secondary school teacher has already registered 55 families, which she estimates could help around 100 children between the ages of five and 15, some of whom have not yet arrived in the UK but want to improve their English before coming here. She said.
Leighton Buzzard’s Ms King-Mand was on maternity leave and had yet to return to the classroom when the first coronavirus lockdown began in March 2020.
She began hosting free 30-minute homeschooling lessons on Facebook to support parents who are homeschooling children around the world.
The popularity of her courses saw her initial 74 Facebook followers grow to around 60,000 across three social media platforms, and that wide reach has continued, leading to her latest reaction.
She now gives one-to-one classes and online workshops, but has always offered free classes to underprivileged children. But the keen interest in her offer to help Ukrainian youth led her to do something else.
“It became clear that I needed to create something special that catered to the needs of children who had just arrived in the country or might be about to,” she said.
The classes, which begin on April 30, will be a “combination of pictures and demonstrations, mostly focused on building confidence and speaking English,” she added.
The teacher said she won’t be using Ukrainian at all because she “wants to create an immersive learning experience,” but the instructions to join will be translated.
“I feel really privileged to be able to attract and help so many people,” she said.
“I’m really looking forward to getting to know the kids and over the past two years I’ve learned that it’s entirely possible to build relationships through online classes.”
Rhianon Lucas and her son Wilfred, 10, are welcoming Natalya and their 10-year-old son Illia, who arrived at their home in Slaithwaite, West Yorkshire, a few weeks ago after a “troublesome” three-week wait for visas from Kyiv via Warsaw and Dublin.
She said she “enrolled Illia straight away” because she found that while her “amazing” local authority had procedures to support adults with English, there was “no specific language training for children”.
“Since we are in an area with very small village primary schools, it becomes very difficult to get much language instruction for Illia at school, so we looked for other types of support,” she said.
“Natalya’s English is excellent and she is very keen on Illia’s English improving quickly – he is due to start high school in September so we want to make sure he has the best possible conditions to get off to a good start there. “
Ms. King-Mand has also hired 10 of her regulars as her English Learning Ambassadors, or ‘teaching assistants’. They are students she has developed a relationship with and “trust them to come into class to help.”
One of them, 12-year-old Eloise, who lives near Letchworth in Hertfordshire, attended Holly’s first ever live lesson on Facebook in March 2020 and continued to learn with her.
She said she was “very proud” to “be able to help people who have been through so much over the past few months”.
“I think these courses are an amazing idea from Holly as they will really help the refugees settle into our country by being better able to communicate with us,” she said.
“It’s incredible that these courses can help them catch up on the important education they must have missed during these terrible months.”
Harriet, 11, from West Chiltington, West Sussex, has also studied with Holly from the beginning and said she is “happy to be helping Ukrainian children” and was also “excited to meet them and talk about our different lives and cultures”. . .
“I’ve seen the hardship that Ukrainian families are going through in the news and sometimes it makes me feel a little helpless,” she said, “so I feel like I can help them in this way, even though it’s not a lot.” , I hope it will make a difference.”
“I think that the lessons will not only serve to learn English, but will also help all children to understand that they are not alone and that British children will welcome them,” she added.
Ms King-Mand said she had not set an end date for the courses but thought they would “certainly run for the rest of the year”.
“I’ll have to see what comes of it because these crazy plans of mine tend to evolve,” she said.
“I want to make sure good things like this keep happening. I accidentally got this platform and while I also weave a business out of it I always want to make sure I use it for things like this.”
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