Watch more of our videos on Shots!
and live on Freeview channel 276

AN EDUCATION boss is urging schools across the country – including in Portsmouth – to engage with their pupils as they watch ‘terrible’ world events unfold.

The head of Ofsted has addressed headteachers, saying that they will need to help pupils understand complex global issues such as the crisis in Ukraine.

Speaking to the annual conference of the Association of School and College Leaders, Amanda Spielman, Ofsted’s chief inspector, said that ‘children here know what’s going on in the world’ and that ‘they absorb information, not all of it accurate, and they also share their concerns with their friends’.

She added: ‘Once again you will need to help them understand world events that are outside their control, while minimising their anxieties.

Ofsted chief inspector Amanda Spielman. Picture: Ofsted/PA Wire

‘It is sadly something that you are well-practised at doing.’

Hampshire County Council considers school streets trial 'generally successful'

She said that watching the ‘terrible scenes’ unfolding in Ukraine were a ‘stark reminder that Covid has no monopoly on creating fear and concern’.

She condemned ‘the terrible impact of the Russian invasion on the lives of all Ukrainians’, adding that this fell particularly on the children, ‘who suffer so much and whose future is so uncertain’.

On Friday, education secretary Nadhim Zahawi told the ASCL conference that online classroom Oak National would be providing auto-translated versions of its lessons in Ukrainian and Russian for 100,000 newly arrived refugee pupils.

Ms Spielman told heads that the disruption of the last two years had ‘fractured the social contract’ around education.

Help your pupils understand world events such as Ukraine crisis, Ofsted boss urges headteachers