Participatory research is recognised as a tool to foreground the 'voices' of marginalised groups (Reason and Bradbury 2008). The context of migrant learners in South Africa's schools is often surrounded by regressive stereotypes about race, poverty and otherness, with xenophobia against foreigners a current concern (Ruedin 2019), but it is telling that the children's own narratives and experiences of being 'new' at school are rarely considered. It was with this in mind that this research project with migrant learners at a primary school in Cape Town took shape. Helen, a university researcher on migration and visual methods, led the initial stages of research by working with a small group of migrant learners aged 9 and 10 years. Over five 90-minute sessions, Helen explored with them their experiences of school through participatory visual methods and tools such as the picturebook "The Arrival" (by Shaun Tan), photo walks around school and lots of discussion (inspired by Arizpe, Colomer, and Martínez-Roldán 2014; Pyrry 2015; Hanna 2020 (building on her previous work in England)). Stefan, a specialist in creative literacy and a former teacher, led the final stage of the process and supported the children over two 90-minute sessions to turn the ideas from the research into a film. It was important to the children that the film should reflect what it was like to be new at school, some of the scenarios somebody new might face, how they might feel and what could be done to help them. For Helen, as the research grant recipient, this film was envisaged as an important output of the project, with the aim of sharing it to encourage schools to rethink how inclusive they are of learners from migration backgrounds.