When is Refugee Week?
Next year Refugee Week will take place from 15 to 21 June 2026.
Each year a new theme is announced, which will be updated here when available. In 2025, the theme was Community as a Superpower.
Why mark Refugee Week?
Refugee Week is a UK-wide festival celebrating the contributions, creativity and resilience of refugees and people seeking sanctuary.
Community is the incredible everyday. Ordinary and extraordinary. Simple acts of shared generosity. Kindness multiplied to become an unstoppable force!
Refugee Week 2025
Refugee Week resources and events 2026
In 2026, we'll be delivering new resources and events that will help pupils use key literacy skills to explore important themes during - and beyond - Refugee Week.
Read on for a taster of activities from 2025.
Refugee Week 2025
For Refugee Week 2025, we aimed to help pupils aged 3 to 14 explore the theme of Community as a Superpower and consider how they can use their pens and their voices to build bridges and come together. Using key literacy skills, exploring high-quality texts, and interacting with skilled and professional writers, we supported teachers in guiding pupils through this challenging but important issue and finding out how even the smallest acts can work together to build a strong and powerful community.
These resources aim to enrich writing, reading and oracy skills. All resources link to all National Curricula, details of which are available within the resource downloads.
Please explore the outline of classroom resources and our exciting schedule of free, online author events.
Pupils aged 3 to 5 (Early years)
Practitioners will be supported to explore Refugee Week with a carefully curated book list to support them in exploring this challenging topic with their children. The resource will include a range of prompts, tips, and links to support the children identify 'small acts' they can do.
(Download relevant resource from the selection below)
Pupils aged 5 to 8 (years 1 to 3, P2 to P4)
Pupils were inspired by Patricia McCormick and Mevan Babakar's The Bicycle. This resource focuses on creating a class poem inspired by the book and ask pupils what they can do to make others feel 'big', through reading, writing, and oracy.
What's included
- Teacher guide with four-part learning sequence (download relevant resource from the selection below)
- An extract from The Bicycle by Patricia McCormick and Mevan Babakar to support the learning sequence
- A live, online event with Mevan Babakar took place on Friday 20 June. This event is available to watch back on YouTube.
Pupils aged 8 to 11 (KS2, P4-7)
Pupils focused on creating a class pledge inspired by the work and writing of A.M. Dassu and others who write about the refugee experience. Pupils will utilise reading, writing, and oracy to explore how their small acts of kindness can contribute to others feeling welcome.
What's included
- Teacher guide with four-part learning sequence (download relevant resource from the selection below)
- A live, online event with A.M. Dassu and guest, Lina Fadel, took place on Tuesday 17 June. This event is available to watch back on YouTube.
Students aged 11 to 14 (KS3, S1-3)
Students were asked to consider the responsibility of the storyteller when discussing and writing about the refugee experience, inspire by Sita Brahmachari's new book Phoenix Brothers. Three standalone sessions explore the theme of 'Community as a Superpower' through reading, writing, and oracy, and ask pupils to think about how their words can be a powerful tool to bring people together.
What's included
- Teacher guide with three standalone sessions linked to the theme (download relevant resource from the selection below)
- Extracts from Sita Brahmachari's new book Phoenix Brothers and A.M.Dassu's book Kicked Out to support the teacher guide
- A live, online event with Sita Brahmachari and guest, Lina Fadel, took place on Friday 20 June. Access the recording of this KS3 event on YouTube.
Word Board
The image below shows the collection of words and phrases shared by participants at the live event.
For updates about future events and classroom resources, including Refugee Week 2026, register for our Training and Resources newsletter: sign up here!