KNOWING ME KNOWING YOU

1. KNOWING ME KNOWING YOU PROJECT LAUNCH Aylesford Priory Friday 9th January 2009

2. SUPPORTING EAL LEARNERSIN THE CLASSROOMHow the KMKY project and theuse of ICT can enhance learning Marion Aglony and Tracy Crute Specialist Teachers - Bilingual and Minority Ethnic Achievement Ashford LCSPs and Maidstone & Malling LCSPs marion.aglony@kent.gov.uktracy.crute@kent.gov.uk

3. AIMS • Raising achievement • Equality of opportunity • Removing barriers • Improving access to the curriculum • Sharing cultures • Preparing pupils for life in a diverse society • Promoting Community Cohesion

4. In the classroom • Use of visuals to support understanding and language acquisition. • Key words are displayed and explained. • Listening and speaking underpin reading and writing. • The use of first language supports learning. • EAL learners draw on prior knowledge. • EAL learners placed in high ability groups with good language models. • New language planned for alongside content. • Collaborative activities provide a rich environment for language modelling, acquisition and practice –particularly of academic language.

5. Inclusive practice • Removing barriers to learning. • Valuing the variety of cultures and languages within the school community and wider community. • Providing equality of opportunity. • Celebrating similarities and differences. • Building strong links with parents and community groups of all backgrounds. • Reflecting diversity through the curriculum. • Promoting understanding of self and others. • Providing opportunities across the curriculum to challenge prejudice,discrimination and stereotyping. • Promoting shared values.

6. LEARNING LANGUAGE Language is learned through meaningful activities in a contextualised situation supported by visual cues.

7. A supportive environment • “Learning a new language is a creative, risk-taking process that inevitably involves making errors. The environment, therefore, should be supportive and stress free.” • “Learners need encouragement to make meaning in the new language; to feel that others genuinely want to know what they have to say; to feel that they have important knowledge and insights to communicate and to have recurring experiences of successful communication.” ‘Aiming High: Understanding the Educational Needs of Minority Ethnic Pupils in Mainly White Schools” p7. DfES May2004

8. EVERY CHILD MATTERS “No pupil should be expected to leave behind their language or culture when they cross over the school threshold.”

9. STRATEGIES Opportunities to use first language. Pupils can use their first language to work collaboratively in small groups in a safe, stress free environment. Key words in first languages can be shared, practised and learnt by all children.

10. Newly arrived EAL learners • “It is important to remember that new arrivals add to the richness of the school’s ethos, culture and curriculum and to recognise and value the positive contribution that newly arrived children can make.” • “New arrivals need to be able to see themselves, their languages, culture and identity reflected not only in the classrooms but also in the wider school and through an inclusive curriculum.” • “Children support each other’s learning and development, as well as their own, through working together in pairs and groups…planned speaking and listening opportunities alongside collaborative learning opportunities will support and accelerate the acquisition of English.” ‘New Arrivals Excellence Programme’DCSF September 2007

11. Planned opportunities for speaking and listening. (Best practice would be to place EAL learners in high ability groups with children who provide good English language models). Video conferencing as well as publishing and editing work will provide meaningful opportunities for pupils to be grouped with speakers of their first and second languages. Listening and speaking skills underpin reading and writing – video conferencing is a perfect tool for developing this feature of good practice. STRATEGIES

12. Modelling and scaffolding target language. Video conferencing is a great tool. Target language will be shared, modelled and practised in a visual context with the back up of typed text at the bottom of the screen. Also sections of the conference can be replayed to further aid comprehension. STRATEGIES

13. STRATEGIES Learning language through context. This ICT project facilitates a themed approach – food, art, dance, my locality, special days. New vocabulary will be learned in context. Shared experiences are created using film, DVDs, video clips, audio clips and cameras to view and record.

14. Identity and belonging • “Language is part of a person’s sense of identity and closely linked to their personal, academic, social and emotional development….It is essential that schools show respect for pupils’ home and community languages and for the narratives and culture in which the languages are embedded.” • “It is important that all pupils should feel that they belong…belonging involves shared stories and symbols…a sense that one is able and encouraged to participate and contribute.” ‘Aiming High: Understanding the Educational Needs of Minority EthnicPupils in Mainly White Schools p4, p6. DfES May 2004

15. STRATEGIES Bring the child’s culture into the classroom. The children will be sharing aspects of their culture and language with children from a variety of other cultures. This learning will draw on their previous experiences and prior knowledge. KMKY will encompass the diversity of experience that children have, whether the school has significant numbers of EAL learners, only one or two isolated EAL learners or no bilingual children at all.

16. Community Cohesion • “As a starting point, schools build community cohesion by promoting equality of opportunity and inclusion for different groups of pupils within a school. • But alongside this focus on equalities and a strong respect for diversity, they also have a role in promoting shared values and encouraging their pupils to actively engage with others to understand what they all hold in common….” • “For some schools where the pupils population is less diverse or predominantly of one socio-economic, ethnic, religious or non-religious background, more will need to be done to provide opportunities for interaction between children and young people from different backgrounds.” ‘Guidance on the duty to promote community cohesion’ p7 DCSF September 2007

17. Permeation : themes across the curriculum • Shared humanity : similarity, sameness and universality. • Difference and diversity : contrasting stories and interpretations. • Interdependence : borrowing, mingling and mutual influence. • Identity and belonging • Race, ethnicity and justice. ‘Aiming High : Understanding the Educational Needs of Minority Ethnic Pupils in Mainly White Schools’ p20-21 DfES May 2004

18. STRATEGIES Cross-curricular work linked to the global curriculum, helping to prepare children for life in a diverse society and promote community cohesion. Common themes such as food and stories will be open to all children and exclude no-one. This will promote an understanding of similarities between cultures – something common to all. Children in schools where there are no bilingual learners will have the opportunity to get to know children who are from a minority ethnic background, through the KMKY project work between schools. This will help to promote greater interaction and increase understanding between people from different backgrounds.

19. STRATEGIES Facilitating access to the curriculum. Pupils will have the chance to work in specific curriculum areas and be able to revisit their work afterwards. Visual cues, use of first languages and topics reflecting children’s cultures enable greater access to the curriculum. The ICT facilities which underpin the KMKY project – video conferencing, publishing and editing work, filming, access to microsites – will help to ensure that the curriculum reflects all children’s cultures, with examples of success and achievement drawn from a global perspective and not only the west.

20. STRATEGIES Support learning with visuals. ICT can provide visual media to back up learning – digital images, video, DVD, web – cams, cameras. Pupils will see and share their work, as well as their languages.

21. Working together : home-school relations • “Schools that are most successful in working with new arrivals are those that foster a high level of parental participation…schools can encourage parental involvement by: • Making all parents feel that they are welcome and have a positive role to play in the life of the school. • Demonstrating that parent’s linguistic, cultural and religious backgrounds are valued and respected. • Promoting family learning projects. • Inviting parents/carers to use their skills to contribute to the work of the school, eg. In Black History Month, in assemblies, at International evenings and multicultural weeks. ‘New Arrivals Excellence Programme Guidance’ DCSF September 2007

22. STRATEGIES Build bridges between parents and the school. Parents can be involved in the project by providing recipes, helping with food-based activities, telling stories, lending artefacts, providing key words and phrases in first languages, assisting with dance and songs, etc. Parents can be invited into school to see the presentations, films and displays that their children have made.

23. KNOWING ME KNOWING YOU This project promotes good practice for supporting EAL learners in the classroom. It supports the aim of raising the achievement of EAL learners and children from a minority ethnic background. It addresses the duty to promote community cohesion and facilitates greater interaction and consequently better understanding between people from different backgrounds.

24. AND FINALLY… Sir Jim Rose, senior government education advisor, in his recent report places computer-based learning at the centre of his review. He suggests that: ‘Children are so computer literate at such a young age that ICT skills usually taught in secondary schools should be taught in primary schools.’ The Times 8th December 2008.