NASSEA
 Northern Association of Support Services for Equality & Achievement  

  

NEWS and EVENTS

 

 Manchester Ethnic Minority Achievement Conference 09 (MEMAC 09)

  Date         7th July 09
Venue         Chancellors Hotel and Conference centre
Keynote speakers        Jean Conteh - Leeds University & Milton Brown CEO Parents of Black Children Association
Workshops                1. Collaborative teaching for Bilingual Children -Stuart Scott. (Collaborative Partnership)
                2 Teaching International New Arrivals in Primary Schools - Jenny Patterson ( INA/Traveller team)
                3. Black Children Achievement Programme - Mamta Naik (Learning Strategy Officer, Manchester)
                        4. Community cohesion and the Schools Linking network - MM/JF

Cost £150 ( M/c Schools £140 and free to EMA partnership schools). 10% early booking discount.

Fancy flyer to follow

 

 

SHARED FUTURES

Supporting the integration of refugee children and young people and other international new arrivals 

SHARED Futures is a new DVD and resource pack for teachers, youth and community workers, that supports the welcome and inclusion of refugees and other international new arrivals. The DVD showcases effective practice from across the UK, including Bolton. The resource pack provides guidance and training workshop activities linked to the DVD.                       

 

   


EMAONLINE newsletter:  

   EAL and ICT Vodcasts Feb 2009 
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In a new initiative, the National Association for Language Development in the Curriculum (NALDIC) is creating a series of vodcasts which will demonstrate how you can use ICT to support the learning and teaching of EAL. Each week a new vodcast will be released via the association's  news page or you may subscribe to NALDIC's  YouTube Channel to receive a weekly alert. The first vodcast outlines the topics to come. The next vodcast shows how you can Use Google Earth particularly with newly arrived EAL learners.

The Google Earth vodcast can be viewed at http://www.naldic.org.uk/docs/news/archive/news_item.cfm?newsid=433&Pp=1 or on NALDIC's YouTube Channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/NALDICvideo

Subscribing to NALDIC's YouTube Channel will mean you can get alerts when each new programme is launched.

SEAL Resources available in community languages

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The Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) publishes on the Standards Site the resources written for schools on Social and Emotional aspects of learning... improving behaviourý improving learning (SEAL).

EMA Online subscribers may be interested to hear that the primary SEAL materials now feature a number of translated resources. The Gold Set of family activities are now available to download in Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, Gujarati, Punjabi, Somali, Urdu, Vietnamese and Welsh. The range of materials is extensive and allow support to be offered using the community language speaking assistants that support work in many school. Full details can be found at

http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/primary/publications/banda/seal/

The extensive range of materials is published in the form of ZIP (compressed) files that may be downloaded from the page link above.. Full information on the software needed to download Winzip files is available at

 

 


A new website has been launched to share practice in using dual language books with bilingual children. The website 'Using and Researching Dual Language Books for Children is designed to encourage the use of dual language books by teachers and to stimulate action research into their use in schools. The extensive site, hosted by the University of East London, is packed full of ideas and dual language resources for teachers. The site can be found at

http://www.uel.ac.uk/education/research/duallanguagebooks/index.htm

 

Raising achievement of bilingual learners in primary schools

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The Department for Children, Schools and Families has recently released Raising the Achievement of Bilingual Learners in Primary Schools: Statistical Analysis. The research was conducted by a team at NFER between 2004 and 2006 and summarises the key findings from the statistical aspects of the research. It also draws upon findings from case-study visits and interviews carried out in 21 schools and seven local authorities previously published by the DfES. The aim of the statistical phase of the research was to assess the impact of the pilot on the attainment of bilingual pupils in participating primary schools.

Schools involved in the EAL programme made more progress than similar schools not involved in the programme in their Key Stage 2 English results between 2004 and 2006 but there were no significant differences in mathematics and science. There were also no significant differences in the rates of improvement for EAL and non-EAL learners in programme schools in mathematics and science nor, with one exception, in English. The one exception was English results for schools involved in cohort 2 of the programme (those that joined in 2005/06). In these schools, EAL learners made LESS progress than their monolingual counterparts ie EAL pupils' KS2 English results improved by a smaller margin than results for similar non-EAL pupils.

A news article published by the National Association for Language Development in the Curriculum (NALDIC) on the website, argues that 'The disparity in attainment between EAL and non-EAL students indicates that whilst good practice for EAL students is good practice for all, the reverse is not always true. It is perhaps unsurprising that the pilot appears to have benefited non-EAL learners and had most impact in English rather than achievement across the curriculum, given that comments by participants in the first phase of the research suggested that many particularly valued 'good practice' literacy based strategies such as the use of curricular/layered targets to plan for language development and curriculum access, planned opportunities for speaking and listening, using 'talk partners', talk frames and role play and prioritising speaking and listening as a prelude to writing. It should also be noted that the phase 1 research report highlighted the significant difficulties in cohort 1 due to the short project lead time and the resulting difficulties in appointing consultants and providing them with support and professional development materials.

Overall, the findings appear to demonstrate that the crucial factors are quality EAL interventions across the curriculum, supported by well qualified EAL specialists with the full commitment of senior managers in schools.'

More information can be found at

http://www.uel.ac.uk/education/research/duallanguagebooks/index.htm

The full report can be downloaded from

http://www.dfes.gov.uk/research/data/uploadfiles/DCSF-RR006.pdf

 
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