With Russia’s full-scale invasion now in its fifth year, rushing to bomb shelters has become routine for schoolchildren across Ukraine.
“In general, children have already become accustomed to the alerts,” said Natalia Efremova, deputy principal of Kyiv’s school No 5 in the city centre. The school educates some 400 pupils aged between six and 18 years old.
When air raid alerts blare and pupils become stressed, teachers or the school psychologist use techniques – including breathing exercises and physical activities – to calm them down, she explained.
“By now everyone knows what works best for whom,” she said.
The techniques employed by teachers and staff at Efremova’s school were in part developed with assistance from their Israeli counterparts, who are required to comfort their pupils during air raid alerts amid incoming attacks from Israel’s regional adversaries.
“In 2022, a week before the war began, we started preparing on our own,” Efremova said.
“By now almost all the teachers at our school have completed training and received support from Israeli psychologists.
“They learned methods for working with children during air raid alerts in shelters. This prepared us for when the first alarm sounded — and it happened on 1 September [2022].”
Natalia Efremova inside the bomb shelter at Kyiv’s school No 5 (Photo: Marcus Adamakis/The i Paper)Asked about how pupils had coped with the rise in Russian drone and missile attacks across the Ukrainian capital this year, Efremova said: “Children often reflect the views of adults. We do not believe that there is currently an escalation of the war. On the contrary, we all follow the strikes on Russia.
“Middle school students have access to the internet and can often share news even faster than we learn about it ourselves.
“As for air raid alerts, there are different situations. We can already predict whether an alert is likely to be long or short.
“This spring, on one occasion, we saw notifications on Telegram channels that many launches had taken place during the day, so we warned the children in advance to take everything they might need into the shelter: lunch boxes, water, their school backpacks, and their emergency bags.
“In general, children have already become accustomed to the alerts. They can become exhausted when the alerts are long or when they hear the work of the air defence systems.”
Efremova explained that air raid alerts in the school did not sound on loudspeakers, however, “in order not to traumatise the children’s psyche even more”.
For some pupils, the trauma is personal: Efremova estimated that approximately 50 families of pupils had relatives on the front lines, while five had lost loved ones in battle.
When The i Paper visited Kyiv’s school No 5 in February, in the midst of Ukraine’s coldest winter since the war began, sub-zero temperatures and regular power cuts as a result of Russian attacks on energy infrastructure forced teachers and pupils to carry out their lessons remotely.
Snow coated the sandbags covering the windows leading to the bomb shelter, while the water in coolers across the school had begun freezing up.
Sandbags covered in snow besides boarded windows leading to the school’s bomb shelter (Photo: Marcus Adamakis/The i Paper)Schools across Ukraine partly cope with the regular power cuts by using panels that include batteries and inverters storing electricity which is diverted to the grid during blackouts.
The three panels at Kyiv’s school No 5 had been donated by the Kew Gardens branch of the Rotary Club charity in London. Among its donors is the former mayor of the borough of Richmond, Robin Jowit, who has travelled across Ukraine three times since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, visiting locations such as schools and charities, despite being 88 years old.
“It’s difficult to explain the pleasure that you get out of feeling that you’re helping people,” he told The i Paper from his home in Teddington, south-west London. “I’m getting a bit old and I have a few issues, but this shouldn’t stop you doing what you want to do.
“If you want to do something, my view is you should get off your backside and go do it.”
Asked about the challenges of travelling to Ukraine at his age, and the courage it took, Jowit said: “I’m not brave, but it doesn’t worry me. I feel if there are people there who are surviving there, then I can survive there. And they’re the brave ones. I can leave, they have to stay.
“So they are tough people and obviously having to cope with the situation as they find it. But in my mind, the heroes are the teachers.
“The teachers are people who might have a husband or member of their family away fighting. They have to worry about their family member. But in addition, they’re having to look after children and staff who have got their own personal worries and issues.”
Robin Jowit visiting a memorial site in UkraineDespite the hardship endured by Kyiv’s pupils and educational staff, schools across Ukraine became safe-havens following nights of constant bombardment, Efremova suggested.
“At night, everything is much worse. The most recent alerts have meant endless explosions and the constant buzzing of Shahed drones. If you are reading Telegram channels and see on the map the huge number of things heading toward Kyiv, it becomes frightening.
“We do not react much to the launch of the Oreshnik missile,” she said, referring to the nuclear-capable hypersonic missile that Russia has launched at Ukraine three times during the war, twice this year already.
“You can tell from the sound – which is different in different situations – whether the air defences are intercepting them or whether everything is reaching its target.
“Broken windows are no longer a tragedy. You wait for morning like never before.
“If, God forbid, people and children are killed – especially classmates, students, or neighbours – it becomes a psychological trauma and a tragedy that stays with everyone for life.
“But then morning comes, and we all go to school.”
The i Paper visited Kyiv’s school No 5 with the assistance of the Rotary Club and the Ukrainian Social Club in London.
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