Welcome to our Spring Newsletter!
We hope this finds you well, we have lots of news to share with you and things to celebrate!
What we've been up to...
The lockdown didn't stop us from teaching - our teachers and many of our students have really got to grips with online learning now which meant we were able to continue many of our classes and start some new ones!
The new year saw an increase in demand for online classes, so we started 3 new online classes for the Refugee Council and were approached by Doncaster Council to launch new classes for 6 Syrian Families on the Resettlement Scheme.
In total, during the spring term, we have supported 37 students through online teaching and a further 12 through physical resource packs.
We have also been able to offer tailored support to a newly arrived family in need through the Refugee Council, outside of our group classes.
We're returning to the classroom!
We are delighted to be returning to the classroom this term. Many of our students have struggled to engage online and are as keen as we are to return to 'normal' teaching.
We are also excited to finally be launching our digital skills training course. The initial pilot course is being run in conjunction with the Refugee Council and Snowdrop project and will be kicking off next week. Read more on our website.
We are absolutely delighted to reveal that we have been awarded £8,000 from the National Lottery Community Fund! This money will fund our new, much-needed, digital skills course. A huge thanks to our fabulous fundraising team for all their hard work in applying for this, and many other grants. They make a huge difference.
Say hello to our newest team members!
We have recently welcomed two new members to the Hope English School team!
Tom joins our teaching staff and Georgina has started volunteering in our fundraising team. Welcome Tom and Georgina, it's great to have you with us!
Support us with your shopping!
Good Taste, The Sheffield Fair Trade Shop currently have us as one of their 'Shop Charities', this means that they will donate 5% of the cost of your purchases to our work every time you shop via their online shop. If you visit their shop in Broomhill, you can also support us by donating your loyalty points to us (£5 for each full loyalty card!) at no extra cost to yourself.
Did you know that you can also support our work through your Amazon purchases, by registering Hope English School as your chosen charity on Amazon Smile. It works exactly the same way as usual but Amazon will donate a small percentage of your purchases to us.
Are you interested in becoming a trustee?
We are looking for more volunteers to join our board of trustees, we especially welcome applications from people with lived experience of the asylum-seeking process, either through frontline work or direct personal experience. If you would like to find out more information about this please get in touch!