Are you a community organisation working with Ethnic Minority families?
Do you support them with their children’s learning and school matters?
Would your organisation like to develop greater confidence in supporting parents with these issues?
Then Gathered Together’s Action Learning Set could be for you!
For the past two years Gathered Together has been supporting parents from ethnic minorities to become more involved in their children’s learning and school communities and have been working directly with schools, Parent Councils and parents from ethnic minorities. You can read about our work with EM parents and the good practice that’s going on in schools and Parent Councils here.
We know how important it is that these parents are supported to be able to help their children’s learning and be part of the school community. From our experience in the last two years, we are aware that EM parents often feel isolated when it comes to approaching schools for support for their children and prefer to seek help and advice from community organisations. We recognise that the Scottish education system is changing rapidly and organisations not working directly within education can struggle to know how best to support these families and where to signpost parents for help and information.
Gathered Together is offering a unique opportunity to community organisations to join an Action Learning Set to develop their skills and knowledge to better support families.The Action Learning Set will give community practitioners the opportunity to:
The Action Learning set will meet fortnightly on a Tuesday from 9.30-12.30pm (Centrum Building, 38 Queen Street, Glasgow, G1 3DX) as follows:
Following the Learning Set, we will provide further bespoke support for community organisations, as required.
Places are extremely limited and will be confirmed on a first come first serve basis. Therefore, if you would like to participate in this Action Learning, please respond to this invitation as soon as possible.
To book a place email gtevents@bemis.org.uk
The deadline for applications is 15 September 2015.
If you have any questions about this invitation please email judy.wasige@bemis.org.uk or phone 0141 548 8047.
For the past two years Gathered Together has been supporting parents from ethnic minorities to become more involved in their children’s learning and school communities. We’ve been working directly with schools, Parent Councils and parents from ethnic minorities (you can read about our work with EM parents and the good practice that’s going on in schools and Parent Councils here). We know that engaging with parents who are new to Scotland can be a challenge and also how important it is that these parents are supported to be able to help their children’s learning and be part of the school community. We also know how much parents from other cultures can bring to schools- helping children learn about other cultures, religions and languages and to become responsible citizens
This term we are planning to support six schools or Parent Councils, providing bespoke support to meet the needs of the individual school/ Parent Council to engage more effectively with families from ethnic minorities. Our support is up to 10 contact hours and the bulk of the support would need to take place by December 2015
The support will include:
If you have any questions please email richard.bloodworth@bemis.org.uk or phone 0141 548 8047.
Complete this form Bespoke-support-application-form (3)
The deadline for applications is 14 September 2015 (applications to be sent to richard.bloodworth@bemis.org.uk)
We asked 164 parents from ethnic minorities about the Scottish Education system and their children’s school – 73% did not know what the Curriculum for Excellence was.
Gathered Together are putting together a series of workshops to help parents understand and be more involved in their children’s education and what happens in schools.
We will work with the experts in each field to help those parents who are new to Scotland or those who have grown up in a different education system to help explain different stages and aspects of education.
Our partners will include:
Each of the six workshops will be run in both Edinburgh and Glasgow from 10.30-12.30pm. (For details about individual sessions go to our events page)
Places are limited so please book your place as soon as possible by filling out the registration form at the link below:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/JC5PRV9
| Workshop | Glasgow Adelphi Centre |
Edinburgh Quaker Meeting House |
|---|---|---|
| Primary School Information | 30 September | 1 October |
| Secondary School Information | 7 October | 8 October |
| Post 16 Education and Choices | 21 October | 22 October |
| Parental involvement and engagement | 28 October | 29 October |
| Mother tongue- at home and school | 4 November | 5 November |
| Children’s Rights in Scotland | 11 November | 12 November |
Lorna Anderson, an English as an Additional Language teacher based in Glasgow, has taken time out from her dissertation writing and written a blog for us about her work with the families of the children she supports.
I have recently completed the Post Graduate Certificate in Supporting Bilingual Learners in the Mainstream Classroom. We had to carry out a project that addressed concerns we had around supporting EAL learners. Where I worked at the time, parents with limited English language rarely engaged with the school. I talked to these parents at parents’ night and found that they lacked confidence and didn’t believe they could be involved in their child’s learning due to the language barrier. Supporting their children with homework was the biggest issue, as it was generally the traditional tasks such as spelling and writing sentences. Parents prioritised their child’s ability to use English and placed little value on their own first language. I decided to run a series of workshops, with help from interpreters, for these parents on supporting their children with homework. I focused very much on the positives, what parents could do to help.
Firstly, we looked at the reading books that went home and the types of literacy skills they could develop with them using the visuals – regardless of what language the words were written in; skills such as making predictions, recounting the story, speculating and sequencing. I emphasised that developing the ability to make reasoned predictions, for example, is the same skill no matter what language it is in, and that research had proven that you can transfer concepts to a second language effectively if they are embedded in the first. We practiced asking good questions, and the children had the opportunity to come and work with their parent(s) on the aspect we had been looking at that day.
Secondly, it was important to emphasise the value of maintaining first language at home. I made up a series of story packs, which contained a dual language story with supporting games and props. Parents could use these in the same way as the homework reading books to develop literacy skills, plus use the dual language text to share stories and talk about them together at home. These were loaned out weekly and swapped for a new one the following. They were a great success, and very popular with both parents and children!
The parents all said they felt much more confident at the end of the project and were very grateful for the support. Some of them came into school later that year to read stories in their own languages to different classes – something they said they wouldn’t have even considered before. That was the best outcome I could have hoped for!
Today we were invited to the world premier of “Our children’s future- learning in Glasgow” at Annette Street School in Govanhill. The schools and nursery in Govanhill (Annette Street, St Brides, Cuthbertson, Holy Cross and Govanhill nursery) had been working together to make a short film for new parents, explaining, in their own words the important information about schools in Scotland. It was generously funded by Eurocities and the Scottish Traveller Education Programme, particularly to help the Roma population in the area. Govanhill has always been a diverse area with families from Ireland, Pakistan, Poland, Slovakia and Romania making their homes here. Parents who are new to Scotland are often unaware of the differences between here and their home country- the right to get a place in nursery for 3-4 year olds, the fact that primary school education starts when children are 5 and what children should bring for gym class.
All this information, and more, was covered in the film- but more importantly it was given by parents who have already gone through the system and were talking in their mother tongue. Hearing from another mother in your language what happens in school is far more reassuring and easy to understand- hearing it from the “horse’s mouth”. The film also had children from the schools talking about what happens in school- from showing off the “bug hotel” in the school play ground to demonstrating what to wear for gym class.
It was a real pleasure to attend, all the film stars looked so pleased and a real effort was made to make the event special- red carpet, bouquets of flowers for the mothers who appeared in the film and huge slices of cake served after the premier. Events like this help families feel a part of the school, giving a sense of belonging and the film has a far more lasting legacy- helping new families understand their children’ school.
You can see the film on the STEP website here