Community in Education Conference

Would you like to deliver a workshop on some aspect of community in education at the conference on 3rd July?

Send your workshop proposal to h.joshi@londonmet.ac.uk

The workshop can be on
– how you involve your community in your supplementary school,
– how you teach a language that is not taught in mainstream school,
– why you run a supplementary school – what the benefits are to children and adults,
– your successful partnership with a mainstream school, etc.

Centre for Multilingualism in Education: Community in Education Conference

Friday 3 July 2015

9.30 – 4.30

Venue: London Metropolitan University

Department for Education’s current funding policy on the communities is driven by raising standards in maths, science and English agenda. This reflects only a fraction of the work undertaken by the community organisations: Quality framework in supplementary schools, provision in the home language, arts, music and drama sessions, partnership projects with schools and other mainstream organisations and parental involvement are just some of the dynamic and innovative practices undertaken by such organisations.

Complementary schools are voluntary institutions. Also called community or supplementary schools, each one serves specific linguistic, religious or cultural community (Martin, et al, 2003). These dynamic voluntary institutions serve the specific needs of various communities and their multiplicity of functions. The key issue for ethnic minority communities is their children’s attainment and this is what characterises the schools. Conference examines the role of community organisations in affecting pupils’ learning and the way they contribute to children’s academic achievement.

To this end the Centre for Multilingualism in Education (CMU) at London Metropolitan University in collaboration with the National Resource Centre for Supplementary Education (NRCSE) is planning one day conference to promote and disseminate the work of community organisations in the UK.

With the proposed conference we aim to promote and disseminate:

• Work of community groups and their partnerships with mainstream organisations relating to ethnic minority children’s educational attainment.
• Research into community groups particularly those related to practice in supplementary schools
• Partnership models between mainstream and community organisations for wider audience to achieve maximum impact
• Establish sustainable network belonging to community organisations and promoting their interests

The conference is of interest to:

• Practitioners in mainstream and supplementary schools
• Policy makers (Local and DfE and the Home Office)
• Project managers previously or currently involved in project management
• Project workers
• Academics, researchers including undergraduate and postgraduate students
• Community representatives

We particularly welcome applications from:

• Community organisations to run workshops on innovative projects.
• Researchers who wish to present their ongoing or recently completed work on community organisations as paper or poster presentations
• Practitioners from mainstream or supplementary schools sharing innovative pedagogic practices in their schools either as paper, workshop or poster presentation.
• Those involved in academic work, pedagogic practices or wish to reflect on aspects of their work are to send abstracts to be considered for paper or poster presentations
• Students – undergraduate or postgraduate – who have undertaken studies (e.g. final year dissertation, project work, MA thesis) to present their work as paper or poster presentation.

Keynote speakers:

Gail Tolley, Director, Children’s Services at Brent Council

Prof. Li Wei, Chair of Applied Linguistics UCL institute of Education

Please send a 250 words abstract outlining your presentation and which category you would like it to be considered (paper, workshop, poster) and send to the following email address no later than Friday 27 March 2015:

Hema Joshi: h.joshi@londonmet.ac.uk

Conference attendance fee: £50

Community organisations: £20

Students: £10

Conference presenters: Free

To register for attendance at the conference go to our eventbrite listing.

If you have any queries or would like to discuss your proposal you can get in touch with:

Dr. Tözün Issa: t.issa@londonmet.ac.uk

020 7133 4591