Communities in Education

Do put this conference in your diaries and if you’d like to present a paper or lead a workshop – get in touch asap

DfE’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: provision in the home language; arts; music and drama sessions; partnership projects with schools and other mainstream organisations; parental involvement are just some of the dynamic and innovative practices undertaken by such organisations. Complementary schools are voluntary institutions. Also known as supplementary schools, they generally serve a specific linguistic, religious or cultural community. These dynamic voluntary institutions serve the specific needs of various communities and their multiplicity of functions. A key issue for Black, Asian, ethnic minority and migrant communities is their children’s attainment and this is what characterises the schools.

To this end the Centre for Multilingualism in Education (CMU), London Metropolitan University in collaboration with the National Resource Centre for Supplementary Education (NRCSE) is planning one day conference which will: examine the role of community organisations in affecting pupils’ learning and the way they contribute to children’s academic achievement.

With the conference we aim also 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.

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 and 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
• 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 poste

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 mail address not later than:

Friday 20^th March 2015

to: Hema Joshi

h.joshi@londonmet.ac.uk