Related Posts
Advancing Equality Across Greater Manchester (GM) 28.11.18
Our First Primary Free School Consultation Event on November 23rd, 2018
Primary School with Early Years and Nursery
MEaP Open Day on August 30th at Brooks Building, Manchester Metropolitan University
Our Manchester, Our Supplementary Schools Conference, December 9th, 2017
Attended by Ornette D Clennon
Just at the Oldham International Arrivals Conference. Just having coffee and a chat @MEaPSchools @critracemmu pic.twitter.com/h7siERBQcy
— Revelation Kollektiv (@revkollektiv) October 18, 2018
A welcome and address from Councillor Paul Jean Jacques
Contents
-
Morning Presentations
- Natalie Downs talking about the Harmony Trust and Oldham’s demographics
- Jessica Hainsworth talking about the Harmony Trust Teaching School Alliance and EAL Champions
- Dr Sofia Ali talking about Academic Literacy
- A presentation about Safeguarding in the context of registering New International Arrivals introduced by Helen Hampson, Chair of Oldham Alliance of Primary Headteachers and Principals
- Afternoon Workshops
Councillor Paul Jakes (Failsworth) his portfolio Education EY Culture: Talking about his challenging and satisfying career working with Int Arrivals. Love of learning.
— Revelation Kollektiv (@revkollektiv) October 18, 2018
More information about Councillor Paul Jean Jacques, here.
Paul Jakes: It is a privilege working with children with EAL and Int Arrivals. We can create a culture. Teachers make a difference @MEaPSchools @critracemmu
— Revelation Kollektiv (@revkollektiv) October 18, 2018
Paul Jakes: 90 children a month-internat arrivals into Oldham mainly from Eastern Europe. They have EAL champions. He wants to see the work we do in our schools. He said he is available. @MEaPSchools @GIFT_UK @critracemmu
— Revelation Kollektiv (@revkollektiv) October 18, 2018
Paul Jakes: “What we’re about in Oldham is social mobility” Major challenges for the borough e.g. 66% children in poverty in Coldhurst whilst Saddleworth is affluent. He has hopes for outstanding schools everywhere. @MEaPSchools @GIFT_UK @critracemmu
— Revelation Kollektiv (@revkollektiv) October 18, 2018
Morning Presentations
Natalie Downs talking about the Harmony Trust and Oldham’s demographics
Will be looking at EAL through the Harmony Trust. Just going to be looking at some demographic info with Natalie Downs Oldham Council: Counter terrorism and int arrivals @MEaPSchools @critracemmu
— Revelation Kollektiv (@revkollektiv) October 18, 2018
Natalie Downs: 2018: 982 int arrivals. Bangladeshi and Pakistan form majority. EU immigration is decreasing. 2018:34%, EAL. EAL: Highest proportion from Bangladesh and Pakistan. @MEaPSchools @GIFT_UK @critracemmu
— Revelation Kollektiv (@revkollektiv) October 18, 2018
Natalie Downs: Assylum seekers concentrated in central Oldham. Can have some tensions im communities. Assylum seekers managed by serco. 850 currently awaiting decision. London and Manchester, placing their refugees in properties in Oldham @MEaPSchools @critracemmu @GIFT_UK
— Revelation Kollektiv (@revkollektiv) October 18, 2018
Natalie Downs: Stronger together project- Hathershaw ward, mainly EU arrivals. Have assembled new team. They also have a an African Outreach officer. Romania &Czech officer’s. 82 different langs, not all interpreters can cope. Major impact on primary sch @MEaPSchools @GIFT_UK
— Revelation Kollektiv (@revkollektiv) October 18, 2018
More information about the Stronger Together Project, here.
Natalie Downs: Growing number of African young people in town centre. Comm tensions. Cultural differences. Looking at basic English speaking classes and listening classes and after school English classes for pupils in community settings @MEaPSchools @GIFT_UK @critracemmu
— Revelation Kollektiv (@revkollektiv) October 18, 2018
Commentary: The fact that there are community tensions in the town centre, where the change in demographic is being felt, points to the need for greater community cohesion initiatives and deeper grassroots partnerships. Supplementary schools specialise in these activities, yet seem to be undervalued by Local Authorities (with a notable few exceptions). See here (NRCSE/LMU organised Community in Education conference) for an example of this.
Natalie Downs: Looking at community language ambassadors they can go onto become community translators @MEaPSchools @GIFT_UK @critracemmu
— Revelation Kollektiv (@revkollektiv) October 18, 2018
Natalie Downs: Family learning e.g. Comm cooking bringing people together during the holidays. (youth residency- Dynamo Project secondary school mentorship and employment activities) @MEaPSchools @GIFT_UK @critracemmu
— Revelation Kollektiv (@revkollektiv) October 18, 2018
More information about the Dynamix Project, here.
Me: @GIFT_UK we seem to be harmonised and will be able to tap into their services.
— Revelation Kollektiv (@revkollektiv) October 18, 2018
Commentary: As supplementary schools serving the community, we are already plugged into large community networks, where cultural heritage and mother tongue language teaching is widespread and relatively common place. This means embedding EAL pedagogy will be organic for us, as we already have our mother tongue experts in our community networks.
Jessica Hainsworth talking about the Harmony Trust Teaching School Alliance and EAL Champions
Jessica Hainsworth. Harmony Trust Teaching School Alliance. Sharing good practice. EAL champions. Looking different contexts e.g. Richmond, 24 langs spoken, predom Bangladeshi heritage. Major demographic changes esp4 newly arrived children @MEaPSchools @GIFT_UK @critracemmu pic.twitter.com/GLriG1ASIi
— Revelation Kollektiv (@revkollektiv) October 18, 2018
More information about the Harmony Trust Teaching School Alliance, here.
Jessica Hainsworth: Northmoor Academy high transition for EAL pupils. Missing assessment data upon transfer and learning set backs. EAL Champions external partners. @MEaPSchools @GIFT_UK @critracemmu
— Revelation Kollektiv (@revkollektiv) October 18, 2018
Jessica Hainsworth: SSIF. A programme for assistance for schools strategies to improve learning outcomes, CPD around EAL. EAL Champions. Working closely with Sheffield Council bc they’ve been here. EAL Ambassadors. Looking at action research/learning model @MEaPSchools @GIFT_UK
— Revelation Kollektiv (@revkollektiv) October 18, 2018
More information about the Strategic School Improvement Fund (SSIF), here.
Commentary: This fund will be potentially extremely useful for us because it will enable us to run our Mother Tongue and Cultural Heritage teaching as a core subject, assist us with our cultural competency and teacher training and also help us to share learning with other schools.
Jessica Hainsworth: Support for schools, CPD probs for teachers and TAs and best practice networks. Including lang software, consultancy support. Whole school approach @MEaPSchools @GIFT_UK @critracemmu
— Revelation Kollektiv (@revkollektiv) October 18, 2018
Jessica Hainsworth: What is meant by a whole school approach to EAL? Harmony Trust has produced a guide. Scaffold for lang, vocab, culture needs2 be sorted, strategies4 dev talking to writing, assessment strategies, specific interventions, parental engagement @MEaPSchools
— Revelation Kollektiv (@revkollektiv) October 18, 2018
Jessica Hainsworth: Not always rely on EAL specialists, school leadership needed, mainstream teachers need to be trained to be given confidence. @MEaPSchools @GIFT_UK @critracemmu
— Revelation Kollektiv (@revkollektiv) October 18, 2018
Jessica Hainsworth: The use of existing whole school curriculum to enable access EAL access. Good EAL practice will benefit ALL children. @MEaPSchools
— Revelation Kollektiv (@revkollektiv) October 18, 2018
Jessica Downs: Heritage and Culture highly valued, translation tools, children’s wellbeing. NASSEA assessment tools to help EAL learning; tracking and attainment and progress @MEaPSchools @GIFT_UK @critracemmu
— Revelation Kollektiv (@revkollektiv) October 18, 2018
More information about NASSEA assessment for EAL, here.
Commentary: Heritage and culture might be highly valued but in using EAL teaching strategies purely for academic attainment purposes, the cultural context within which the language exists, goes largely ignored. This aspect of culture is especially important for children whose first language is English but whose families’ native cultures are not British. How are these children catered for in the sense of using their cultural backgrounds as tools for educational engagement? I would view this issue as an overarching ‘Britishness as an Additional Culture (BAC)‘ that needs to be taken as seriously as its subset ‘English as an Additional Language (EAL)’. See here, here (NRCSE-partnered Bradford conference) and here (MSSN policy briefing) for examples of its importance. For a full scholarly discussion about BAC within education, see here (book publication). Of course, this is about time and resources and what is deemed a priority in a school curriculum, as well as touching on aspects of staff ethnic diversity (in terms of the wider cultural ethos in the school)
Jessica Downs: Need to also focus on academic lang use as well as social lang use i.e. Cummins’ iceberg theory (BICS v CALP) @GIFT_UK @MEaPSchools @critracemmu pic.twitter.com/Jxlhp1jrxR
— Revelation Kollektiv (@revkollektiv) October 18, 2018
More information on Jim Cummins’ Ice berg theory of bilingualism, here.
Jessica Downs: EAL Champions going back TALK programme, Language Rich Learning Environment need to start in EYS. Reception to year 6. Need to improve learning environment @MEaPSchools @GIFT_UK @critracemmu pic.twitter.com/HubITG8UsI
— Revelation Kollektiv (@revkollektiv) October 18, 2018
Jessica Downs: EAL Teaching Tools. E.g. Google “inprint3”. Me: I’ve not heard very much about cultural competency training as lang sits in culture and culture is not an add-on. Diversity of staff? @MEaPSchools @GIFT_UK @critracemmu
— Revelation Kollektiv (@revkollektiv) October 18, 2018
More information about InPrint 3, here.
Dr Sofia Ali talking about Academic Literacy
Sofia Ali: Academic literacy- Raising the Bar-closing the gap academic literacy for all. Looking at implications of Ks2/Ks3 learning outcomes. Looking at emphasis on academic writing. We need to prepare our children more thoroughly @MEaPSchools @GIFT_UK @critracemmu
— Revelation Kollektiv (@revkollektiv) October 18, 2018
Sofia Ali: Is this a whole school.commitment? How are EAL going to capacity within their schools? @critracemmu @MEaPSchools @GIFT_UK
— Revelation Kollektiv (@revkollektiv) October 18, 2018
Commentary: This is a difficult question to answer if EAL staff are considered only additional and not intrinsic (reflecting the curriculum).
Sofia Ali: What is literacy? Breakout groups. Effective communication, competence in lang, in any language, range of purposes of audiences. @MEaPSchools @critracemmu @GIFT_UK Me: Shouldn’t just be for exam success
— Revelation Kollektiv (@revkollektiv) October 18, 2018
Sofia Ali: What is academic literacy? Critical and reflective thinking skills, functioning language. Me: How do we use social literacy to academic literacy? @MEaPSchools @GIFT_UK @critracemmu TAP, text, audience, purpose. Building the field, building vocab for purpose
— Revelation Kollektiv (@revkollektiv) October 18, 2018
Sofia Ali: Each subject has their own code i.e. Think like historians, think like scientists etc. Subject specific language. Using lang aware pedagogy, making lang structures explicit. Context before content. Multiple approaches to reading. De/construction of text @MEaPSchools
— Revelation Kollektiv (@revkollektiv) October 18, 2018
Sofia Ali: Developing talk to write. Developing talk as we want them to write. Using 1st lang as a teaching tool. Modelling lang for each subject @critracemmu @GIFT_UK @MEaPSchools We need to focus on joint construction (talk to writing). Teachers need2 present in this process.
— Revelation Kollektiv (@revkollektiv) October 18, 2018
Sofia Ali: Building the field (giving context) developing the talk (need to dev lang for specific subject) , use talk to build bridges to writing. Now giving examples @MEaPSchools @GIFT_UK @critracemmu pic.twitter.com/0jMy5dtTyo
— Revelation Kollektiv (@revkollektiv) October 18, 2018
Commentary: The activity of “building a field” is a perfect application of developmental bilingualism where this activity could be carried out in the Mother Tongue as preparation for the session in English. Its potential application within developmental bilingualism only serves to highlight the extreme importance of making sure that comprehension keeps up with linguist fluency to avoid parrot-fashion use of academic phrases designed for maximum grading. See Li Wei’s (2017) Translanguaging as a Practical Theory of Language that describes the concept of multilingualism as an integrated form of a single linguist practice rather than a plurality of separate monolingualisms added together (and kept separate, by inference). This has direct relevance for the application of “building the field” where the comprehension skills of L1 (mother tongue) are used to prepare specific written or oral skills of L2 (English). See John Searle’s (1980) Chinese Room argument that illustrates the potential and inherent dangers of this approach if the principles of translanguaging are not followed. Also see below:
Sofia Ali: Google School 21 and the oracy project. @MEaPSchools @GIFT_UK @critracemmu Also need to use 1st lang to check and reinforce learning. pic.twitter.com/UaRj0S5eLK
— Revelation Kollektiv (@revkollektiv) October 18, 2018
More information about the Oracy Project, here.
Sofia Ali: Modelling lang. Challenging the talk to guide them academic lang. Getting them to travel the continuum. Group work (talk), presentation(bridge to writing), writing. @MEaPSchools @GIFT_UK @critracemmu pic.twitter.com/EK0BAf4ivK
— Revelation Kollektiv (@revkollektiv) October 18, 2018
Sofia Ali: Using mode continuum to organise the terms that describe the picture (maths, denominator, numerator, equation etc) to develop quality talk @MEaPSchools @critracemmu @GIFT_UK pic.twitter.com/1lLoV9ZDPW
— Revelation Kollektiv (@revkollektiv) October 18, 2018
Sofia Ali: APE. Group nominals. Using language to build around key noun in the sentence. Ex pic.twitter.com/1RkpEFcfcb
— Revelation Kollektiv (@revkollektiv) October 18, 2018
Sofia Ali: Nominalisation. Turning verbs into nouns&turning adjectives in2 nouns. Me: We need2build the field 1st because nominalising word4 word is not how Lang works. E.g. “Turning his friends over to murderers”= “Betrayal”. Not sure, would need context. @MEaPSchools @GIFT_UK
— Revelation Kollektiv (@revkollektiv) October 18, 2018
Sofia Ali: Cohesion and Coherence: deconstructing and reconstructing. Joint construction of text. @MEaPSchools @GIFT_UK @critracemmu
— Revelation Kollektiv (@revkollektiv) October 18, 2018
Sofia Ali: Good practice e.g. MFL- context of food, giving them vocab about the food, gave them vocab to be able to speak about the subject @MEaPSchools @GIFT_UK @critracemmu
— Revelation Kollektiv (@revkollektiv) October 18, 2018
Sofia Ali: Critical literacy. Questioning what you see in a text. Ask questions around the image (agenda, perspective, power dynamics etc). Me: Very good basic training for critical thinking in HE where these skills are enhanced by textual comparison @MEaPSchools @GIFT_UK
— Revelation Kollektiv (@revkollektiv) October 18, 2018
Sofia Ali: We just deconstructed a text about a Spanish enclave in Morocco. (I was more interested in political ramifications.of Spanish refugee camps in Morocco, rather than a man possibly trying to escape in front of a guard) @MEaPSchools @GIFT_UK
— Revelation Kollektiv (@revkollektiv) October 18, 2018
A presentation about Safeguarding in the context of registering New International Arrivals introduced by Helen Hampson, Chair of Oldham Alliance of Primary Headteachers and Principals
A presentation about Quality First Teaching and safeguarding. Procedures for admissions of international arrivals. How do we go about inducting children? Flow chart with embedded docs. Need to consider an interpreter in the induction meeting before admission day. @GIFT_UK
— Revelation Kollektiv (@revkollektiv) October 18, 2018
Making sure your children are who they say they are. There’s a govt check list. Ask about who is in the fam from beginning2guard against modern slavery (someone suddenly added to domestic list). Challenges around culture e.g. African punishment practices(?) @MEaPSchools @GIFT_UK
— Revelation Kollektiv (@revkollektiv) October 18, 2018
Commentary: The need for cultural competency training for these issues around safeguarding within multicultural communities is acute:
Me: We need cultural competency training to guard against social bias (implicit) when talking about FGM, cultural discipline practices etc. Real relationships need to be built with communities to do this properly @GIFT_UK @MEaPSchools
— Revelation Kollektiv (@revkollektiv) October 18, 2018
Afternoon Workshops
Practical Examples of Teaching Academic Literacy – Dr Sofia Ali
Sofia Ali workshop: Understanding how Lang works. Genre (making genre explicit TAP e.g introducing a text.) register, grammar
— Revelation Kollektiv (@revkollektiv) October 18, 2018
Sofia Ali: Key features of academic writing. Collocation(words that sit together) nominal groups, nominalisation, passive voice modality, level of abstract, appropriate register @MEaPSchools @GIFT_UK need to teach these explicitly.
— Revelation Kollektiv (@revkollektiv) October 18, 2018
Activity 1
Sophia Ali. We ordered words along the continuum. Informal to formal. Me: Implicit bias in terms of assumptions behind ordering. Need to be wary. @MEaPSchools @GIFT_UK
— Revelation Kollektiv (@revkollektiv) October 18, 2018
Commentary: Without cultural competency training in terms of curriculum delivery and overarching pedagogical practice, the use of the “mode continuum” can unintentionally perpetuate hierarchies of cultures by degree of “acceptable-ness” (code for White British). For an example that came out of our activity; a variation of the phrase “bigging up” potentially being (unquestioningly) classed as less formal than the phrase “cheers!” on the mode continuum. This is significant because children from particular social groups might tend to only use one expression, more frequently rather than the other, which means any hierarchical judgment about these expressions becomes a direct judgement on the cultures (themselves), within which these phrases sit. This lack of cultural awareness can often lead to the historical and contemporaneous classroom cultures of ‘low expectation’ for some pupils. For scholarship and research on this matter, see here. This point also illustrates the dangers of taking too literal (narrow) a approach to language and lingusitic acquisition, which translanguaging avoids because “it highlights the importance of feeling, experience, history, memory, subjectivity, and culture”.
Activity 2
Sophia Ali: Arranging pictures in order of rep of water. We discussed the order. An observer observed our collab language. A reporter using more formal language to report.
— Revelation Kollektiv (@revkollektiv) October 18, 2018
Activity 3
Sophia Ali: We were given an image of a farm ad. We had to TAP it to create diff types of writing. @GIFT_UK @MEaPSchools
— Revelation Kollektiv (@revkollektiv) October 18, 2018
Activity 4
Sofia Ali: Writing sensational sentences @MEaPSchools @GIFT_UK
— Revelation Kollektiv (@revkollektiv) October 18, 2018
Commentary: We had to write “sensational sentences” for images that were provided
Using Play to Teach EAL Children – Natasha Nield
Natasha Nield: Ethnic Diversity Service. Providing bilingual assistants to school. They showcase their cultures in schools. pic.twitter.com/QEpBKeqE91
— Revelation Kollektiv (@revkollektiv) October 18, 2018
Natasha Nield pic.twitter.com/gFiRevaVCm
— Revelation Kollektiv (@revkollektiv) October 18, 2018
Natasha Nield. Need to make language structure more explicit @MEaPSchools @GIFT_UK pic.twitter.com/BfLNDSOIul
— Revelation Kollektiv (@revkollektiv) October 18, 2018
Activity 1
Natasha Nield: Playing with objects and getting them to talk about the objects.
— Revelation Kollektiv (@revkollektiv) October 18, 2018
Natasha Nield: Make up a story using the objects as a starter pic.twitter.com/mpMeBwxHIX
— Revelation Kollektiv (@revkollektiv) October 18, 2018
Natasha Nield: Our objects pic.twitter.com/Wxq6eFkYdx
— Revelation Kollektiv (@revkollektiv) October 18, 2018
Natasha Nield: We are writing a story map for our objects. @MEaPSchools @GIFT_UK pic.twitter.com/f8n9S4VsXL
— Revelation Kollektiv (@revkollektiv) October 18, 2018
Natasha Nield: We can layer up the map to generate more description. We can label objects but also can fine tune the labelling for greater descriptive detail @MEaPSchools @GIFT_UK
— Revelation Kollektiv (@revkollektiv) October 18, 2018
Commentary: This, below can be used to either prepare for the activity or to assess it:
Natasha Neild: Speaking the story, being observed then assessing language function of each child. Then decide what language needs of each child. We are using the below pic.twitter.com/3Qdn14rxXC
— Revelation Kollektiv (@revkollektiv) October 18, 2018
More information about Tower Hamlets “Progression in Language Structures”, here.
Natasha Nield: pic.twitter.com/GGql8H2HCm
— Revelation Kollektiv (@revkollektiv) October 18, 2018
More information about Development Matters in the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS), here.