Councillors met with pupils from a Finsbury primary school to celebrate a commitment to resettle 100 asylum-seeking children over the next 10 years.

Islington councillors and a holocaust survivor visited Hugh Myddelton Primary School to reaffirm the pledge to welcome more refugee kids today – but this promise depends on central government funding.

The Safe Passage Our Turn campaign urges the government to create a ‘children at risk’ resettlement scheme to bring 10,000 refugee kids to the UK over the next 10 years. Kids from the Myddelton Street school successfully petitioned the council to back it.

The effort is led by Lord Alfred Dubs, a longtime refugee advocate who was one of 10,000 Jewish and other children rescued by the Kindertransport in the two years before the Second World War started.

Elsa Shamash, Holocaust survivor, said: “We arrived in Britain as child refugees, alone and separated from our families.

“Now we believe the UK government should give more children the same life-saving opportunity that we had.”

Cllr Sue Lukes, Islington Council’s migrant champion, whose father was a Kindertransport Child, said: “It’s wonderful to be able to sign this pledge in the same year that we are commemorating the 80th anniversary of the start of the Kindertransport, which was both a massive rescue operation and a collective decision to shelter and protect thousands of innocent children who were fleeing for their lives.”

Islington Council currently cares for 25 unaccompanied asylum seeking young people in foster care, and supports a further 77 young care leavers over 18 who arrived in Britain alone and as children.