There are currently over 30 Ukrainian pupils in the upper and lower secondary at the NMS, about half of whom have enough English to be able to follow normal lessons at our school and who are being taught in regular classes. 14 have joined the 11e and 11d, for example, and are being prepared for the IB. We, the staff, have to work on the basis that they will be in Berlin for years, while, naturally, they and their parents or guardians hope to return to Ukraine as soon as possible. “We hope to be back in Kharkov by the summer, maybe sooner. We live week by week. I cannot imagine staying here for years,” said Ms. Svitlana Brehel, a Ukrainian English teacher now volunteering at the NMS, whose daughter has joined the school in year 9. Svitlana uses the Russian pronunciation of the city known as Kharkiv in Ukrainian. She was born in Russia before moving to Ukraine as a very young child and is fully bilingual. “Everyone speaks Russian in Kharkov,” she notes. Her husband drove her and their daughter to the border and then returned to Kharkiv. He delivers supplies in their city to the elderly and those unwilling or unable to flee the missiles and bombs. His and Svitlana’s 22-year old son is in the Ukrainian Army, location unknown.
