Education: Hope for newcomers in Europe
replace the need for more organised and long-term collective learning, turning schools into effective learning communities (Leithwood & Louis, 2000; Mulford & Silins, 2003; Harris & Muijs, 2005; Opfer & Pedder, 2011; Timperley, 2011). Additional resources, organisational support and well-designed strategies are key ingredients for this. Cooperation with universities, also mentioned in the four contributions, is a good foundation for these efforts. The Swedish study highlights an additional practice that should be considered as a promising practice to disseminate to other countries. Initial and well-organised assessment of newly- arrived students’ previous school experiences, literacy, numeracy, and knowledge in academic subjects is absolutely necessary in order to: • Understand a student’s educational needs • His/her challenges and abilities • Assign appropriate support and plan future schooling It is also important for increasing students’ self-confidence, since the pedagogical practices will scaffold them as knowledgeable subjects and recognise them as active educational actors, not as passive victims of circumstances (Ni Raghallaigh & Gilligan, 2010). In all four contributions, a number of promising local projects and initiatives for promoting meaningful and equal education for newly-arrived students are accounted for. Offering additional hours in the second language seems to be a common denominator. Even the role of early education is highlighted as an important practice. Additionally, all four contributions have stressed the importance of providing care for the mental health of refugee children, since many of them have endured traumatic experiences (see also Eide & Hjern, 2013; Fazel & Stein, 2001; Goodman 2005). Students themselves have indicated their strong desire to learn the majority language and become part of the society. They are positive about the future and perceive education as the major vehicle for reaching their dreams. The main conclusions in this section are that schools need to pay more attention to the resources possessed by the refugee children themselves in form of first language(s), previous education, resilience (Masten, 2014) and ambitions to learn. Initial and planned assessment of school and life experiences is therefore a necessary first step upon their admission to school. Schools need to make additional efforts to professionally develop their staff by creating a community of learning in the area of education for migrant students and to improve internal patterns of communication and cooperation between different categories of teachers. Furthermore, schools need to employ bilingual language assistants and ensure their work is supported by sustainable organisational and pedagogical structures. Even if relations with refugee parents have not been explored in 11