In 2014, the principal of Fairfield Public School, David Smith, decided to change the school bell to a song, because, he says, "We thought that might be a nicer way to start lessons." He bought the rights to a heavily auto-tuned pop song, Go! by Noise International, which seemed, to the average listener, indistinguishable from other heavily auto-tuned pop songs.
"A teacher came up to me and said, 'The kids are getting a bit jittery with that particular song,' " Smith recounts. "One of the kids had said, 'That reminds me of the air raid sirens.' And when I listened to the song again, I went, 'Oh yeah, okay, I can see that.' It does this 'whoop whoop' thing, then it goes from soft to loud. So now we have Justin Timberlake's Trolls song."
Then there was the school barbecue. A few years ago, during a sausage sizzle, one of the kids, "who seemed to be going along really fine", says Smith, told his teacher he hated barbecues. "She said, 'But everyone loves barbecues!' " says Smith. "And the kid says, 'That's what it smelled like when my school was bombed.' "
Smith is a burly 51-year-old from the NSW Central Coast who could not be more Anglo. He looks like he could be manning the bar of a surf club, or checking in guests at Summer Bay Caravan Park. His heavily laden charm bracelet jingles as he gesticulates, which is often, as he sits in a teacher's staff room on a bakingly hot autumn day describing the challenges and joys of educating refugee kids.
Fairfield Public School, an unprepossessing primary school in Sydney's west with a concrete playground, too little grass, a canteen and the usual mix of demountable and legacy buildings, is at Australia's front line in educating kids displaced by Islamic State. It is down the road from Fairfield's main drag, which boasts fruit shops, Islamic boutiques and a boarded-up, out-of-business Bing Lee.
In July 2016, the school experienced an extra influx of enrolments of Syrian and Iraqi children, as the refugees welcomed through Australia's special humanitarian intake of 12,000 extra people displaced by the Syrian war began to trickle through. They added to an already significant refugee contingent in the school's student population – of the 582 children enrolled at Fairfield Public, about 240 of them are refugees, or have parents who are.
The song and barbecue incidents highlight the challenges of educating refugee children, many of whom turn up traumatised, with patchy literacy and poor health, eager to learn but full of shadowy fear. These are children who have seen more air raids and bombings than athletics carnivals or assemblies.
They are children who have lost family members, either to death or diaspora, and in many cases have experienced big gaps in their formal education. They are kids who have never really had any playtime, and therefore haven't learnt the things that play teaches children. "These kids know a lot," says Kim Cootes, Smith's assistant principal, who is highly experienced in refugee students from diverse language backgrounds. "Just not the Australian curriculum."
Even discounting the refugee children, the school's student population is hugely diverse. A stunning 95 per cent come from non-English-speaking backgrounds, and the school also has a handful of Indigenous students. There are kids from Bosnia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria, with first-language backgrounds that include Assyrian, Arabic, Chaldean, Bosnian, Samoan, Tongan, Persian, Khmer and Hindi.
Knowing where the kids have come from is integral to setting them on the right path. "If they are coming into year 5, for example, and they don't speak English, they haven't been to school, and they've got a year and a bit with us before they go to high school, there are a lot of skills they need to develop," says Smith.
"How they do that in the playground and in the classroom is going to vary on what they've experienced in the family. Were the children born in Australia? Is the family still working through trauma? Did the kids see things they shouldn't have?"
As we drink builders' tea ("Sorry about the Winnie-the-Pooh mug!" says Smith gaily) and enjoy the airconditioning, Smith tells me he has only ever worked in disadvantaged schools, starting out as a young man in inner-Sydney Darlington. "I like the dynamic nature of disadvantaged schools," he says. "We have the opportunity to do things other schools don't."
Cootes, 60, is well groomed and softly spoken, with ash-blonde hair and a silk dress. Her professionalism is edged with something quietly maternal, but you sense she has the underlying steel required by all good teachers. Since becoming a teacher in 1978, and a specialist English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher in 1982, Cootes has worked with children from all the different waves of refugees: Vietnamese, Bosnians and Afghans ("Many of the students from Afghanistan hadn't had any education … particularly the girls.") Now it's mostly Syrians and Iraqis, with the occasional Karen (mostly from Myanmar) and Iranian.
Between them, Smith and Cootes have nearly six decades of experience working with disadvantaged students and students from non-English-speaking backgrounds. Smith says his first duty, before he thinks about the children's formal education, is to build their sense of security. "Without the ability to feel safe, you can't be a good learner," he says. "The most immediate need they have is that feeling of safety. The whole school model is about building safety responsibility and attachment."
He is acutely aware that many students are living with parents who have been "constantly stressed", citing the example of one father who enrolled his daughter a few years ago and asked if she would be safe at school. Smith explained that the gates were kept locked and any visitors to the school needed to be signed in.
The father then asked if there was a chance a bomb would be dropped on the school. "I said, 'I can't guarantee the world is safe, but the chances of that happening here in Australia are slim.' "
It turned out that the man's daughter's preschool in Iraq had been bombed, and three children had been killed.
Smith says it's important they support needy students, but they must also provide kids with the "full range of Australianisms through the experiences they have at the school". So, for example, they would never stop having barbecues, even though they triggered a traumatic response in a student. They just provide extra support for that kid. The school has a trauma counsellor who works with vulnerable students two days a week to help them heal. In addition, the charity St Vincent de Paul runs a homework clinic once a week.
Sometimes trauma affects kids' behaviour in other ways. Some students will behave well for the first six or 12 months after being enrolled, only to start misbehaving just as they appear to have settled in. "They have formed an attachment to their teachers and that is the very thing that allows them to act out, because they feel safe," Smith explains.
Other students turn up in poor physical health and need to be seen by the nurse. "Sometimes the kids have unique problems like vitamin D deficiency because they have been kept inside," says Cootes. "Many are very pale when they arrive. They sometimes have terrible teeth due to poor nutrition and a lack of dental care."
Some kids have needs which are even more basic. Cootes recalls briefing the Karen refugee mother of a boy who was due to start in year 2. The mother had spent 15 years in a refugee camp prior to moving to Fairfield.
The school supplies refugee students with a uniform, and Cootes told the boy's mother she just had to buy a pair of black school shoes for her son. He turned up to school in his shoes, but with no socks under them. "I went up the road to Big W and bought him 10 pairs of grey school socks, but I didn't show him how to put them on," says Cootes. "It took him a while to learn to wear socks."
NAPLAN, says Smith, is more an albatross around their neck than an educational opportunity. "While we are very aware of the curriculum requirements and we don't lower our expectations in any way, shape or form, we do have to make adjustments depending on where families are in their journey at that point in time," he says carefully.
"Look, we don't achieve what the national minimum standard is, and it's not for want of trying. But when a child walks into the grounds of the school who has never had schooling, they've come from a war-torn community, and then you start saying, 'We're going to compare you against an English-speaking child born in Australia.' It's like, 'Why am I comparing an apple with a piece of chalk?' "
Nonetheless, students who've been in Australia for more than 12 months have to do the test. Says Cootes, "The research shows us that to learn a language in order to catch up with your peers, if you're literate in your first language it can take five to seven years. If you're a refugee, it can take up to 11 years. And we're asking kids to do a test that is designed for English-speaking kids after a year of being in Australia."
If the children have attended school in their home countries, the style of schooling has often been very different, with more emphasis on rote-learning, recitation and discipline. "Some kids say they'd often get a book on the back of the hand or a hit on the back of a hand," says Smith.
Little about Fairfield Public is rote, and that goes for the annual swimming carnival, made perilous by the fact many of the kids have had minimal contact with open water in their home nations. "Nine out of ten kids will get into the pool and sink to the bottom," says Smith bluntly.
Over the years, the school has honed a system to pull off the carnival with maximum fun and minimum danger. Kids are given different-coloured wristbands according to their swimming ability, then four teachers are stationed in the water while the kids are asked to swim across the pool widthways, to see how they go.
"If the kids can get from one side to the other, we'll stagger it so they can get to swim the full 25 metres," says Smith. "So we can get some kids in the regionals at least."
Smith stands up to stretch, and Cootes shows me a "Welcome" pack given to each new refugee student, prepared by the pupils from nearby Toongabbie Public School. It includes a skipping rope, colouring pencils, a colouring-in book and a tennis ball.
We go outside to the playground, where the kids are on their lunch break. Lunch is early at Fairfield Public – 11am – because a lot of the kids don't get breakfast at home. The school puts on a daily breakfast club. "Some families find it difficult to provide three meals," Smith says.
As we move around the playground, Smith is treated like a celebrity. Kids high-five him and come up to chat. He ties the undone shoelaces of several children, all while keeping a sharp eye out for littering infringements.
He says the kids mix well, and while behaviour management is always an issue – "It is at all schools, and if they tell you it's not, they're lying" – he says they don't encounter any race-related bullying. "They have issues but they're just children issues," he says. "On the whole, the kids are wonderful and they get along very well with each other."
Smith has been quietly observing the agitation of a boy who is arguing with his friends. He points the kid out to Cootes. "He looks a little on the boil at the moment," he says, and Cootes moves in to defuse the situation.
"The kids can go from zero to a million in a short period of time if they get upset," he adds. If they are very naughty the children are sent to the "reflection room".
"We don't call it the detention room," says Cootes, softly. "For obvious reasons."
ANAS SHARRO AND ISHTAR SARKEES WITH CHILDREN MARCELLA, JOLLY AND MARY
From: Syria. Arrived: 2016.
SIX-year-old Jolly is a twin, English is her favourite subject, and she is devoted to Disney princesses. Two years ago, when she and her twin Mary were four, their home in Qamishli, in north-eastern Syria, was bombed by Islamic State.
The girls' parents, Anas Sharro and Ishtar Sarkees, fled to Lebanon, an evacuation that was complicated because Ishtar was seven months pregnant.
Their third daughter, Marcella, was born healthy in Lebanon two years ago. But life in the capital, Beirut, was difficult for this Christian family. The surge of refugees lifted prices, and daily living expenses were hard to meet. They applied for asylum to Australia, arriving in November 2016.
The family now live, like so many other Syrian refugees, in Fairfield. Their home is a simple two-bedroom flat on the second floor of a rust-coloured brick block on a street near the local shopping strip. The building's security intercom is broken and the entry houses a pram and a beaten-up kid's bike.
The family's flat is immaculate, decorated sparingly with baskets.
On a corner table are the girls' hats, which Jolly shows me proudly. Mary has cerebral palsy and triple X syndrome, a rare condition characterised by the presence of an extra X chromosome in each cell, and her disabilities mean she hasn't learnt to speak yet.
When they arrived in Australia, both girls enrolled at Fairfield Public, but Mary now attends the nearby William Stimson School at Wetherill Park, where there is a special class for children with developmental issues.
We communicate haltingly, with the help of a translation tool on Ishtar's phone and the quiet assistance of Jolly, whose English is excellent. Anas works in an aluminium factory and Ishtar is at home caring for Marcella, who romps happily around the flat.
As with many refugee families, Ishtar and Anas have some family in Australia, some in Europe and some still in Syria.
Ishtar wants to study English at TAFE, then become a teacher's aide, but the cost of childcare is prohibitive so she'll have to wait until Marcella is in school.
Ishtar and Anas say they are thankful for the medical care Mary can access in Australia.
When asked what he wants for his family, Anas says, "Every time, the people need a good job, good home."
Before I leave, I go to Jolly's bedroom to say goodbye. She shares the room with Mary: their two beds are pushed together and some plastic toys are stored on top of the cupboard.
Jolly is crouched on the floor writing a story. She lets me read it. It's a re-telling of her favourite tale, Beauty and the Beast, written in slanting script, with the impressive deployment of words such as "sorceress" and "enchantress".
"I'm going to do one story about Belle, one story about Frozen, and then all the princesses," Jolly tells me. "I'm not finished yet."
LUAY AL-KHAMEESI AND RAWAA MEZBAN WITH CHILDREN LAZURDE, SUMA AND HAITHAM
From: Iraq. Arrived: 2016.
HAITHAM Abdulrazzaq, 13, has a long scar which snakes along his upper arm, traverses his elbow and ends close to his wrist. When he was in year 2, in Baghdad, older boys beat him up in the school playground, breaking his arm so badly it required a two-hour operation and 18 months of follow-up physiotherapy.
"They broke my arm because I wasn't Islamic," he says.
Haitham and his family – father Luay Al-Khameesi, 50, mother Rawaa Mezban, 35, and younger sisters Lazurde, 11, and Suma, 7 – are Mandaeans, a minority that follows an ancient gnostic religion. Some estimates suggest about 90 per cent of Mandaeans have been killed or forced to flee Iraq since the US-led invasion of the country in 2003.
When I ask why the family decided to leave their homeland, Haitham corrects me. "We didn't decide. We were forced to," he says.
"There was one choice. To leave or get killed."
A bombing close to the children's school and death threats against the family were also reasons to flee.
In 2007, Rawaa's father was kidnapped and killed by an Islamic terrorist group. They left Iraq in 2014, moving to Jordan's capital, Amman, where they lived in an apartment while they applied for refugee status through the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. They were accepted and then applied to come to Australia.
Luay and I speak through interpreter Norma Fares, who works for Fairfield Public and acts as a go-between with the refugee families. "He wants you to know that everyone who comes out as refugees, comes for this reason or very similar," Norma tells me as Luay talks passionately in Arabic. I ask him how he felt when the family was accepted by Australia.
Luay looks at me and flaps his arms like wings. He says something in Arabic. "He flew," says Haitham. "He flew from happiness."
Luay comes from a long line of jewellers – many Mandaeans are goldsmiths – and the family was well off in Iraq. They had their own shop, car and house. In Fairfield they live in a squat brick block on a quiet cul-de-sac.
Luay is a carer for his wife, who has disabilities. The flat is lovingly kept, with a flat-screen television and spare furnishings.
Haitham is in year 7 at Fairfield High, having graduated from Fairfield Public with a medal for academic excellence, which he shows me proudly. He wants to be a lawyer. His sister Lazurde is in year 6 at Fairfield Public and her favourite subject is maths. She wants to be a doctor.
Haitham struggles to describe how he felt the day he arrived in Australia. Try, I say.
"Like one of the happiest people in the world."
Suma is in year 2, and Norma tells me that the day the children started school was difficult. Haitham refused to go to his class because he knew Suma was scared.
Norma solved the impasse by taking a video of Suma reading a book quietly. She showed it to Haitham to reassure him.
Luay says that when he accompanied the children to school on their first day, "he felt they were nervous, but he tried to be strong". "Then, that nervous feeling seemed to ease."
BASSAM AND RAYA MANSOOR WITH CHILDREN MUHABAH, MARINOS AND MINAS
From: Iraq. Arrived: 2016.
WHEN Bassam and Raya Mansoor fled Iraq in 2014, it was 11pm and they were on foot. Raya was heavily pregnant and they had their two small children with them. The priest of their church told them Islamic State was advancing, so they wasted no time, abandoning their car to join the sea of humanity fleeing east to Kurdistan.
"There were tens of thousands of people walking the one road," says Bassam. "It was a terrible night. Thousands of people left. The Kurdish army closed all the roads."
I meet Bassam, 40, and Raya, 39, at their small flat in Fairfield, where I am plied with sweet pastries and tea. Raya is vivacious and warm, Bassam more reserved.
Their three children sit, in order of age, next to Raya on the red-and-black covered couch. The middle child, Minas, is in his Fairfield Public uniform. Muhabah, 13, the eldest, who has long black hair, helps translate our conversation.
Bassam was a physics lecturer in Iraq. Now he works as a bartender at Blacktown Workers Club.
War intervened in his life early when, at the age of 11, he lost his schoolteacher father to the Iran-Iraq War, which ravaged the region from 1980 to 1988. He and Raya, both Chaldean Catholics, met as university students in Mosul, where he was studying physics and she was studying maths.
They married in 2004 and had Muhabah a year later. But even before the arrival of Islamic State, Mosul wasn't safe for Chaldeans.
Raya had to wear an Islamic headscarf to market, she says. I ask what would happen if she didn't wear a headscarf. "Maybe kill me," she says with a rueful laugh.
In 2006, their church was bombed, killing many of their fellow parishioners, so they moved to Telkepe, a town north of Mosul, which was "a little bit safer", says Raya. (After they left Mosul, in 2007, two of Raya's cousins, one of whom was a church minister, were gunned down outside their church following Mass.)
When Bassam won a job as assistant lecturer at Soran University, the family ended up in Karemlash, east of Mosul. Then, in 2014, Islamic State advanced. By then they had a son, Minas, now 10. They fled to Erbil in Iraq, where, along with many other refugees, they slept on the floor in a school. From there, they moved to Amman, Jordan, where Marinos, now four, was born.
Raya remembers the day they were accepted as refugees to Australia: September 30, 2016. They arrived six weeks later. Bassam says he likes Australia because, "there is law".
"It is safe place and nice people. It's a good future for our kids. They accept anyone living here, all different."
Bassam is unsure if he will be able to retrain as a physics lecturer.
For his children, though, there is no question. He wants them all to attend university in Australia. Minas is 10 and in year 4 at Fairfield Public, while Muhabah left the school last year to start high school at a local Catholic college. Marinos will start at Fairfield Public next year.
When she grows up, Muhabah would like to qualify as a dentist. Why dentistry? I ask. "Because I like teeth," she says simply.
By Jacqueline Maley
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