Learning empathy for

n a quiet suburban school in northwest London, young children are asked to imagine that they need to leave their homes because Britain is at war.

As they close their eyes and sit in silence, their teacher Teri-Louise O’Brien explains that there are 60 million displaced people in the world right now.

“Time to reflect: how would you feel if you had no home? Take a pen, and write your feelings on the paper.”

One child scribbles, “I would feel heartbroken and sad” while another writes, “I would feel sad and neglected because I wouldn’t have a warm place to sleep in”.

The children, aged between six and 11, spend time discussing the differences between a refugee, an asylum seeker, a migrant and a displaced person.

O’Brien then switches off the lights before playing a short video of Syrian refugees living in camps in Lebanon and Jordan. It’s not a typical classroom lesson for students at Norbury School, but it’s one that some of the children are grateful for.

“It feels good to know what’s happening in the news because I hate not knowing,” said 10-year-old Naavya. Since learning about the refugee crisis, she said she no longer finds her classmate, a Syrian refugee, “annoying”.

“I do learn that it can be really hard for him,” Naavya told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “I didn’t even know it (the Syrian war) was happening when he first came. I kind of feel sad for him because he had to leave (his country).”

Britain is home to 126,000 refugees, according to the British Red Cross, and received nearly 40,000 asylum applications last year of which 45 per cent were approved.

The largest numbers of asylum seekers were from Eritrea, Pakistan then Syria.

In Norbury School, there are around 25 children with