Recently, I have gathered some of the opinions of our pupils, however this time they were all Polish. I thought that what they have to say would be quite important as Brexit will impact their life, as well as other EU Nationals.
I have decided to gather various of different pupils, either born in this country, or who lived here for only few years, to see what are their views and how much they really know about Brexit and the consequences it will bring to their lives.
The first pupil I spoke to was Emil, an S2 pupil. When asked if he knows anything about Brexit, he responded “Yes, I do know quite a bit about Brexit”. I also asked the same question another S2 pupil, Wiktor Buszka, who said “I don’t know much about Brexit, just a small amount”.
Moving on to the upper years, when I asked Dawid, who is currently in S3, he replied “I have no clue what Brexit really is. I try to avoid worrying about it as much as possible” while a S4 student, Julia Matusik said “I don’t really know much, just that it’s something to do with the immigrants”. I went back to see what someone in first year of high school knew about Brexit, just to see if there was much knowledge about Brexit there and Wiktor recommended his younger sister Nicola Buszka who commented “Well Brexit is basically UK wanting to leave the EU and get rid of the immigrants”.
Finally moving onto the seniors, I’ve asked Wiktoria Wywalec, from S5, what she knew about Brexit and her response was “I only really know that UK wants to leave the European Union” while Kornelia Sokolowska in S6 had the most knowledge of Brexit by saying “Well, UK wants to leave the EU, and by doing that, we as immigrants, will have to go through an application process to stay here”.
Kornelia mentioned the application form that all immigrants will have to fill in to apply, in order to stay in the UK. When I asked each of them if they knew that there was an application process, only 2 out of 7 pupils knew. This result really concerns me, as that means there is a huge amount of immigrants, that do not know there is going to be something that could save them from leaving.
Many of the pupils I’ve spoken to do not wish to go back. They have built their life here, and having to leave would destroy the future they have planned for themselves. Nicola has been here since she was born, meaning that if she were to go back, the education there would hugely differ and create much difficulty for her.
Knowing that so many people will be hugely affected by this, and the fact that people who have been here for years, people who were born here, who grew up here, all of them being affected by something like Brexit, makes my blood boil.
Finally, when I asked each of them if they would like an information day on Brexit, to educate them about the process, what exactly is Brexit and how will it affect each of them, and what to do when it happens, each one of them said they would benefit from going to this, which is why I took it upon myself to gather people who have strong knowledge of Brexit and Politics behind it all, to create an information day once Brexit happens, to inform everyone and hopefully try spread this knowledge to others on a larger scale.
