Mrs Hoar (English Teacher, Challenge and Extend Co-ordinator)

At the start of February, we took some Year 9 girls to the Cecil Higgins’ Museum where they enjoyed several workshops as part of the Anne Frank Memorial Day.

During the visit, we met one of the founders of Friends of Bedford Refugees, Lynne Douglas-Grey. The girls were highly impressed and extremely moved by everything this charity does for victims of persecution from around the world. Last week, Mrs Douglas-Grey joined us to deliver a Year 9 assembly. Emily Armitage, Sophie Forbes-Laird, Alishba Khalid, Willow Cross, Erin Rowe, Tobiloba Apesin and Katie Cochrane spoke with passion and insight about the plight of the refugees and how we could help them by not only raising awareness, but collecting ‘dignity packs’.

The dignity packs contain a range of every day essential items, such as sanitary towels, soap and shower gel - things that we might take for granted, but are invaluable to the refugees.

Mrs Douglas-Grey contacted us to share her thoughts about our assembly, she said: “On behalf of Friends Of Refugees, I would like to thank you very much for the special assembly. The girls were extremely talented and assured in their presentations”.

In fact, Friends of Bedford Refugees were so impressed that they have invited the group of girls to deliver some refugee haikus at the Place Theatre on 20th June, World Refugee Day.