Welcome to the April NRCSE E-Bulletin – for daily updates and opportunities ‘like’ our Facebook page
News Training Funding Events
It has been a very busy month, with events, training, supplementary school visits, and partnership meetings almost seven days a week throughout March, we’re all looking forward to the long bank holiday weekend at the end of the month. If you have events, activities to occupy children over the school break, to celebrate Easter, to support GCSE revision, or any other reason – let us know and we’ll add you to our Facebook daily updates, or write an article for the May E-Bulletin. We’re always pleased to hear from you!
1. NEWS
Celebrating the academic achievement of Nigerian and Ghanaian pupils in Camden Schools
On 25 March 2014, the CarAf Centre presented the findings of a long-term research project exploring why certain groups of pupils have been getting consistently excellent results in their mainstream academic performance. Peter Okoye, Education Officer at the CarAf Centre, spoke of many years of frustration seeing young people of African and African Caribbean heritage bunched together as underachieving when there was clear evidence that some were outperforming the vast majority of all young people in the borough. The research is an in-depth study of the reasons why young people are achieving and what can be learned from their experiences and shared positively with others.
The motivation of parents, the importance of strong community bonds, belief in themselves and their potential and the high aspirations of the parents and the wider community were all important factors: low economic status was not seen to have a significant impact with the children of single parents and those with low incomes seen to be supported by the wider community. It was particularly children from low income families that benefited from supplementary schools. A finding that is mirrored in the research NRCSE undertook for John Lyon’s Charity in 2011.
Peter gave us a tantalising overview of the research findings, the full report will be available soon and we will be highlighting it again on our website. For more information visit the CarAf website www.thecarafcentre.org.uk/
Supplementary Schools and family Activity Weekend, Exploring Identities at the British Museum
On the 22nd and 23rd March, around 400 supplementary school teachers, students and their families attended the Supplementary Schools & family Activity Weekend taking part in a range of free workshops and performances which explored the theme of identity through the British Museum’s permanent collections.
Supplementary School students took part in a poetry workshop led by poet Dean Atta and inspired by the British Museum’s Medieval European collection.
The next Supplementary Schools and family Activity Weekend will take place in Autumn 2014. We are also planning to run a number of teacher training sessions for supplementary school teachers in the coming year.
For more information about the Supplementary School programme at the British Museum please contact Sian Hunter Dodsworth on 0207 323 8398 and shunterdodsworth@britishmuseum.org
Ten more supplementary schools completed Quality Framework Awards this month – congratulations!
Funded by Paul Hamlyn Foundation, Shpresa Programme has been supporting eight new and emerging supplementary schools to develop their management structures, policies and procedures. Six of those schools achieved their Bronze Quality Framework Awards this term.
The Bronze Quality Framework Award demonstrates that you have all the necessary policies and procedures in place to run a safe and effective learning environment. It demonstrates that you have proper links to statutory services, that you check the credentials and suitability of your staff and volunteers, that you support them to develop their practice and provide the learning environment and resources that are need to deliver excellent supplementary education.
But don’t stop there! Join Charismata, Rauf Denktas Turkish School, Sofale and Cardinal Wyszynski Polish Saturday School who all received Silver Quality Framework Awards this month! The higher level awards help you to develop and promote the teaching and learning that is actually taking place. Your Quality Framework mentors have lots of experience and skills in the field of community education, they can provide you with ideas, examples of good practice, opportunities to share with other supplementary schools. Their role is to act as a critical friend to support your development and to champion your work both locally and nationally through the NRCSE and other platforms.We have a Gold Recognition meeting planned for 8 May 2014 and a Silver Recognition meeting planned for 5 June 2014 . If you feel you’re ready for peer recognition – get in touch with our QDA team.
If more schools are ready we can arrange more, so get in touch, we’d love to hear from you, email the Quality Development Advice Team on QDA@supplementaryeducation.org.uk or call them 020 7697 4053
Pan London Network Meeting, 17 March 2014
Over 40 delegates from 16 local authorities, the Department for Education, the Metropolitan Police, 6 supplementary schools and 5 charities and universities came together at Resource for London to discuss safeguarding and quality assurance in the supplementary school sector.
Maurice Irfan Coles, the CoED Foundation, opened the day with a thought-provoking and inspiring presentation on the importance of faith-based supplementary schools. The teaching of faith, and culture, is an important aspect of supplementary education and although the majority of NRCSEs members focus on core curriculum and language teaching the voluntary nature of many supplementary schools inevitably means that many are inspired from within a faith context.
Maurice developed this theme and emphasised the important role that supplementary schools can and should be playing in the promotion of SMSC (spiritual, moral, social and cultural) teaching withing mainstream schools. The CoED Foundation was officially launched in the House of Lords on 12 March 2014 with the aim of galvanising ideas around the championing of a central role for compassion in education.
For more information about the work of the CoED Foundation go to their website www.coedfoundation.org.uk
The meeting was an Engage London partnership event between Children England and the NRCSE, the success of this event will be built on with regular, termly meetings. If you’d like to attend future meetings of the Pan London Network for Supplementary Education – get in touch.
Borough Networking Event for John Lyon’s Charity project
The second cross-borough networking event hosted by the NRCSE was a great success. Supplementary Schools from John Lyon’s Charity funded boroughs of Barnet, Brent, Camden and Westminster came together on 25th February to share good practice workshops with each other.
This was the second in a series of seminars which focused on teaching and learning in community schools. Prof Jim Anderson (Title) from Goldsmith’s University was the keynote speaker and highlighted the challenges and opportunities for teaching community languages in Key Stage 2. Changes in the National Curriculum from September 2014 could be seen as a major opportunity for supplementary schools already teaching community languages and stressed the importance of working in collaboration with mainstream schools as a way forward in developing teaching programmes and resources.
After the main speaker the supplementary schools contributed fully to the 3 workshops which they also facilitated themselves. Shahla White from Rustam led the workshop on Tracking Pupil Progress, Emily Beckwith from Paiwand led on Supporting Teachers and Jihan Salah from Al-Ola Arabic School held an interactive session on Using Innovative Resources. They all shared good practice, exchanged ideas and talked about they work they do reflecting the high standards that is a key feature of so many supplementary schools.
Tower Hamlets International Language Day, 24 February 2014
Once again the London Borough of Tower Hamlets hosted hundred’s of children, their schools and parents to celebrate International Language Day in style at York Hall.
With speeches from local dignitaries, beautiful performances from supplementary schools, prizes for essay writing and posters celebrating the diversity of languages spoken in the borough, and a Silver Quality Framework Award for EC Lighthouse Lithuanian School. The event was yet again a marvellous example of the talents and enthusiasm of children and young people for learning.
Congratulations to Jamal Uddin, Head of Community Languages in Tower Hamlets, his team and all the supplementary school pupils, staff, parents and management committees!
2. TRAINING
NRCSE OCN-accredited courses: Effective Teaching Skills & Effective Management Skills in Supplementary Schools
These courses are run over 7-9 sessions with learner completing a portfolio of evidence of learning and a practice file showing how their learning is applied in their own supplementary school. The courses have run 9 times in the last 12 months (Leicester, Milton Keynes, Ealing, Tower Hamlets, Haringey, Westminster, Camden) with a total 106 staff and volunteers completing 30-60 hours of learning each. Well done to you all!
If you would like to gain nationally-recognised accreditation in teaching and/or managing your supplementary schools get together with other schools in your area and book NRCSE to come and deliver the training in your area, or let us know and once we have sufficient independent requests we can run the course at Resource for London.
Teach with NRCSE: Train to deliver the NRCSEs accredited ETS and EMS courses: join the train-the-trainer programme running Monday 28 to Wednesday 30 April at Resource for London, with tutor Angela Bell.
Criteria: Trainers should have prior experience of training adults, preferably holding PTLLS/DTLLS or equivalent, and a basic understanding of the work of supplementary schools
Cost: £450 for 3 days including refreshments and full set of resources. Those trainers who have completed a train-the-trainer for EITHER the Effective Management Skills OR the Effective Teaching Skills course can opt to do two days, cost £300.
NRCSE open training
If you are interested in attending any of our courses on the open training programme please let us know. We are currently planning the summer training for May/June. The course can run in the evenings, at weekends or on a week day – but we do need a minimum of 10 learners to enable us to run these courses. For details of course content check the pages below.
Development and management of your supplementary school
Safeguarding for supplementary schools
Quality assurance for supplementary schools
Behaviour and classroom management
Lesson planning and special educational needs
Book us in for a full day training course on your site
On 2 March 2014 we delivered four workshops for the Association of Muslim Supplementary Schools‘ teacher training day. NRCSE consultant trainer, Sarvat Ujra, delivered two sessions on ‘Lesson planning, learning styles and resource development’ and NRCSE director, Pascale Vassie, delivered ‘Safeguarding: policies and procedures’ and a joint child protection and safeguarding session with Saleha Islam CEO of Muslim Youth Helpline. Over 200 women benefited from the training which was very well received.
We see the delivery of full day training sessions, tailored to schools individual needs very much the way forward. In April – we will be delivering the Safeguarding for Supplementary Schools course for the Polish School in Kent, Rustam School and Elbistan School; the Development and Management of Supplementary Schools for the Polish Educational Society Conference.
Booking a full training day on your own site enables us to tailor the course to your specific needs and means that you can get all your staff trained on one day. If you’re interested in commissioning please take a look at our training pages and get in touch to discuss your needs.
3. FUNDING
BASLAs 2014: Do you want recognition of the learning taking place in your supplementary school?
Do you want to see more students taking a language to a higher level?
Do you want more of them to go on to A level or to study a language at university?
How would you use £4,000 to make that a reality?
Visit the website for more information on how to enter this year £4,000 each for seven supplementary schools, what are you waiting for?!
Deadline for applications: 30 June 2014
Follow the link to find out more about the seven supplementary schools from around Britain that received £4,000 in the 2013 BASLAs. British Academy Schools Language Awards – British Academy
www.britac.ac.uk
Awards for All
Awards for All gives groups a quick and easy way to get small Lottery grants of between £300 and £10,000.
We want to fund projects which address the issues, needs and aspirations of local communities and people. We will fund a wide range of community projects aimed at developing skills, improving health, revitalising the local environment and enabling people to become more active citizens.
Go to the Awards for All website and download an application form, the forms are quite straight forward, once you’ve put in all the required information about your organisation and your project, give it to someone external to read. If you’d like to send it to us for advice, ring first to make sure someone is available. Then…
- Email the completed form to englandapplications@awardsforall.org.uk at least 3 months before you want your project to start.
- They’ll let you know their decision in six weeks.
If you need more information please email general.enquiries@awardsforall.org.uk or call the Awards for All team for advice on 0845 4 10 20 30
BBC Children in Need
For those of you that got your applications in for the 1 April deadline, let us know if you’re successful! We’ve already received some reference requests and if we’ve visited your project and/or you have a QF Award we’re always happy to act as referee.
The next deadline is 1 June, so download a small grants (up to £10,000) application form now. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b008dk4b/features/cin-grants-small-shouldiapply
Funding Central
opportunities for a specific project or item? Our Guided search:
- Takes you through a series of questions to return the most appropriate funding opportunities.
- Identifies helpful advice and relevant resources.
4. EVENTS
Polish Educational Society
There are over 120 Polish Saturday Schools registered with the Society, that celebrated its 60th anniversary in 2013, and the number is constantly growing. The Society runs an Examination Centre where students are able to sit Polish Language examinations at GCSE and A Level. They also:
- prepare conferences and professional training for teachers.
- run workshops to help prepare students for exams.
- organise a series of events which bring together Polish pupils and students, such as our regular Laxton Hall Fun Day and frequent competitions.
- help facilitate communications between Polish Language Saturday Schools and other organisations.
- run a Bookshop which offers a wide selection of text books and Polish literature.
- gather and collate information about all aspects of teaching ‘mother tongue subjects’ in Great Britain with the aim of supporting all interested parties: parents, students, headteachers, teachers.
On 12 April 2014 , NRCSE director Pascale Vassie, will be presenting a workshop for Polish Supplementary Schools managers and administrators on what to consider when setting up a new supplementary school.
For more information visit their website www.polskamacierz.org/en/about-us/
NABSS Monthly Workshop
University Square, 1 Salway Place, Stratford, London E15 1NN 3pm – 6pm (unless otherwise stated)
Please find listed below the events lined up by the National Association of Black Supplementary Schools and Birkbeck University. If you would like to participate with a workshop or be a guest speaker on the listed themes then please send an expression of interest to info@nabss.org.uk
ALL EVENTS WILL BE FREE TO THE PUBLIC BUT DONATIONS WOULD BE VERY MUCH APPRECIATED.
All Monthly events will be on a Saturday 3-6pm and open to all.
- Starting Up A Supplementary School with the National Resource Centre Saturday 26th April
- Home Education Workshop Saturday 24th May
- Pioneers of BME Supplementary Schools Saturday 28th June
- Black Super Heroes That Are Not Shown with Tony Warner Saturday July 26th
To stay up to date with the latest in supplementary education, subscribe to the NRCSE E-Bulletin
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.