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Community support for (language) education of young migrants

“It takes a whole village to raise a child” (African proverb)

In order to close the achievement gap between native and migrant students, the OECD recommends a whole school approach which develops new ways of communicating and collaborating to support parental and community involvement in schools with a diverse student intake and which supports migrant students in an integrated way across the curriculum and throughout all school- and after-school activities.
The need to support and encourage migrant parents to participate more actively in their children’s education, while encouraging educators to develop a better understanding of the migrant communities has been well documented.
Being aware that education needs community and vice-versa, this training and consultancy has the purpose of promoting collective activities involving different members of the educational community.

Objectives

The main objective is to raise awareness of the importance of the community for students’ learning, especially in multicultural and multilingual settings by:

attracting students’ families and helping them to feel comfortable at the school site
encouraging parents to become more involved in education projects
promoting teacher participation in events organised outside school by (migrant) community organisations (such as complementary schools and community celebrations, events offered by local museums and libraries)
supporting teachers in co-constructing dynamic interactive activities in cooperation with parents and community members, in and out of the classroom

Target groups

teachers operating in multilingual settings
decision makers of national/regional/local school authorities
school heads and head-teachers
complementary school/mother tongue teachers
classroom assistants
community associations
librarians
parents

Envisaged result and impact of the ECML training and consultancy

improved access to and achievement in the majority language for migrant children
development of bi- and multi-literacies promoted and enhanced
structured networks established between education administrators, parents, complementary teachers and mainstream teachers
migrant children’s plurilingual repertoires recognised and developed and linguistic and cultural diversity viewed as a resource rather than a problem
improved home-school-community relations with members of the community given a more visible profile in mainstream education
sustainable on-line resources provided which will outlive the training and consultancy programme and continue to support other teachers, parents and educators to improve the educational achievement of migrant children in their communities

LEADING TO: enhanced quality and efficiency in language education, enhanced social cohesion and economic progress.