Spring 2023 Newsletter

Hello!

Spring is a time of change and transition, and that is very much what we are experiencing at Hope English School this Spring! Anna has started her maternity leave and is looking forward to welcoming the youngest member of the HES team very soon! Please join us in wishing Anna all the best for the upcoming birth of her baby, and the weeks and months that follow.

Katy will take over from Anna as acting CEO and will be supported by class   co-ordinator Jane and long standing volunteer Lucy. 

 

Inspirational Stories

We wanted to share the story of one of our students.  As well as being truly inspirational, Afsana’s* story is also a great example of the difference learning English makes to our students.

This is Afsana's* story:
 

Afsana came to the UK from Afghanistan with her two sons aged 13 and 17 in September 2022 and has been living in bridging accommodation since then.  She has been attending HES English classes at the hotel since October 2022 and is one of the most regular attendees.  Her younger son 'P' also attended classes until he was allocated a school place in March and her older son 'S' now has a place at Sheffield College.   

 

Afsana is a sociable person and is keen to interact with others, which helped with her spoken English, however when she first came to class she couldn't read English at all and felt embarrassed about this.  She worked diligently both in and out of class to improve her literacy skills and has made remarkable progress.  She can now read whole paragraphs on a variety of topics and write sentences confidently.  She is always keen to help new arrivals to the hotel and she encourages others to persevere with their learning.  
 
Attending HES English classes has given Afsana the confidence to deal with everyday situations, for example attending medical appointments and helping her sons to integrate into school and college.  In her class feedback, Afsana said that she wanted the classes to continue and "we like learning and laughing together".

*not her real name

It is a true privilege to work with students like Afsana and to witness their resilience, hard work and desire to integrate within their new communities. 

We couldn't do it without support from people like you - so thank you very much!

If you are not yet a regular giver, we would love you would consider giving monthly to support our work. Just a few pounds a month can help change the life of someone like Afsana.

You can find out more about how to give regularly on our website - thank you.

New Class Beginning Soon!

We are starting a new "Open ESOL" class after the Easter holidays. This is a relaxed, mixed ability class which is open to all asylum seekers and refugees.
If you would like to find out more or know someone who would benefit from attending, please visit our website for more information.

 

THANK YOU to everyone who came to our fundraising quiz night in January - we raised an incredible £766! This has allowed us to fund our new "Open ESOL" class.

We are very grateful to those businesses and individuals who provided raffle prizes, The Greystones Pub for hosting us (free of charge!), our wonderful quiz mistress Rachel and of course all our supporters who came along and made it such a successful evening.

 

Coming Soon….

We are looking forward to launching our new fundraising initiative "Baking for HOPE" and look forward to seeing many of our supporters getting involved!
Hold your own charity bake sale or 'bake off' to raise funds for us whilst eating cake! Perfect for the office, staff room or just at home with family and friends. Bring people together over a love of all things sweet!

Keep an eye on our socials for more information coming very soon....

 
 

We are now registered with easyfundraising, which means you can help us for FREE. Over 7,000 brands can donate to us when you use easyfundraising to shop with them – at no extra cost to yourself!

All you need to do is sign up and remember to use easyfundraising whenever you shop online. It’s easy and completely FREE! 

To sign up and/or register us as your cause visit https://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/.../hope-english-school/
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Thank you

We are delighted to welcome Sarah into the Hope English School Team!

 

Sarah has recently joined us as our new digital marketing volunteer. She has been working as a freelance social media creative, and with more than a decade’s experience in creating digital content and building online communities we are thrilled to have her as part of our team! She has worked in both journalism and local government communications, as well as being a CELTA qualified teacher.

Christmas 2022 Newsletter

Season’s Greetings!

We hope this newsletter finds you well - we are finishing up after a busy Autumn term. We are running more classes and teaching more students than ever - thank you for your support in helping us grow!

We're collecting our student feedback and writing end-of-term reports, so thought we would share some lovely feedback from Jonathon, who has been teaching a Digital Skills class this term at the Snowdrop Project.

We were delighted to receive a grant from The National Lottery Community Fund which has allowed us to run THREE fully funded Digital Skills courses for refugees and asylum seekers across South Yorkshire.

The grant paid for:

  • All resources - including laptops, a projector and USB sticks

  • Teaching and administrative staff

  • Venue Hire

  • Creche facilities, which allowed our learners to attend the course free from the distraction of babies and young children.
     

It was amazing to see the students engage with this course and develop key skills which provide both immediate and long-term benefits. The course has given them access to online facilities and services which had previously been closed off to them.

If you need something to look forward to in January, then we have you covered! We will be holding a fundraising quiz on Thursday 26th January. Further details to follow....

Solange is the newest member of our Board of Trustees. Bringing her lived experience of the asylum-seeking/refugee process to the board, she will be involved in the governance of the charity. She works as a cleaner in a special needs school and will soon be embarking on a Health and Social Care course at university. We are delighted to have Solange on our board and look forward to the knowledge and experience she will bring.

 
 

Beth has recently joined us as a volunteer teaching assistant, supporting students during class. Currently studying for an MA in Translation Studies, she completed her CELTA qualification in 2022. Having studied French and German for many years, she enjoys learning about other cultures and strongly believes in the importance of language education to help others access opportunities and to enable inclusion in local communities.

We enjoyed a Christmas team social at the Treehouse board game cafe in Sheffield. We had lots of fun playing games and spending time together, but the highlight of the night was receiving this message from a member of our team:

"This time last year I was in a deep pit of despair and couldn't imagine enjoying an evening out. Hope English School has helped me so much to be more positive about life"

We were humbled and delighted to receive this message and want to thank the entire team for being so welcoming and kind to all those who come our way.

Have you been following our "Advent Calendar of Hope"? Over on the socials we have been bringing daily snippets of hope for every day of Advent. We have been bringing daily snippets of hope on social media for every day of Advent.
 

You can find us on Facebook on @hopeenglishsheffield and on Instagram on @hopeenglishschool

Summer 2022 Newsletter

Welcome to our summer newsletter!

As we reach the summer holidays, we are delighted to be able to look back on such a busy and successful year! It's been so great to have a more normal year, teaching regularly face-to-face and being able to meet together for our admin days too.
We have wonderfully seen both our student and staff numbers grow, moved to a new office, revamped our website and had some successful fundraising campaigns!

Over the past academic year, we have seen real growth in the number of classes we are able to teach as well as the number of students attending them. We have recently employed three new teachers, Viktorija, Jonathon and Josie, as well as volunteer teaching assistants, Craig and Laura, to help meet this demand.
There has been particular demand for our services from local people who are hosting Ukrainian refugees, and as a result started our 'New Arrivals' classes to meet this need.
We were also delighted to see great growth in our Digital Skills provision, from running our pilot course last year, we have run eight 12-week courses across four different locations throughout the year - amazing!

 

We have moved to a new office and now have a space which we are able to use as a classroom! We have been using this space to run our 'New Arrivals' courses which has been attended by Ukrainian refugees. We are pleased to announce that we have been able to secure funding to continue to run these in September.

Our new office address is:

178 Shoreham Street,

Sheffield,

S1 4SQ

 

We walked 2029 miles!!

May saw us complete our Walk a Mile Challenge and raise £1,987 through this event! An amazing achievement, well done and thank you to everyone who took part.

Thank You Lowfield Primary School!

The children at Lowfield Primary School got involved in our 'Walk a Mile' challenge and collectively walked an amazing 545.8 miles and raised a huge £721.47! A massive well done and thank you from all of us!

They invited Anna to celebrate with them at their Jubilee party, where she enjoyed attending as one of their VIPs!

 

Team hellos and goodbyes

We've welcomed some new members to our teaching and volunteering teams!

Viktorija teaches our 'New Arrivals' class and is able to use her own experience of emigration to fully appreciate the importance of language learning for integration, employment, improved quality of life and contribution to society.

With over 8 years experience as a qualified ESOL teacher, Jonathon has joined our team after a period of living and teaching English is the Arab world. He is enthusiastic and absolutely loves hearing and learning about the cultures of the students he’s teaching.

We have also welcomed Craig and Laura into our team as volunteer teaching asistants as well as Isla who is our new admin volunteer!

The end of this year has also been a time for us to say "goodbye and good luck" to two of our wonderful teachers who are moving on to new jobs - Luz and Tom we will miss you and wish you the very best for your futures!

 

New Giving Info

We have recently changed our giving platform to CAF bank. We hope this will make it easier for people to give and for us to claim Gift Aid on donations. If you are a regular giver expect us to get in contact with you to talk about switching your direct debit over. If you do not already support our work financially, and would like to, please visit the give section of our website.

We hope you have a lovely summer and we look forward to sharing more with you in the Autumn term.