The vice-chancellor, Professor John Raftery opened the day with a warm welcome to the 100 plus delegates from local authorities, supplementary schools and universities from across England.
The first keynote presentation was given by Gail Tolley, Director of Children’s Services in the London Borough of Brent.
The conference report and videos of both keynotes can be accessed on the London Metropolitan University website
Supplementary schools’ own experience of teaching and of educational policy was a valuable feature with a thought-provoking panel discussion chaired by NRCSE director, Pascale Vassie with an expert panel comprising Hassan (Hülya Turkish School), James (Axis Educational Trust), Luljeta (Shpresa Albanian Programme), Mirjeta (Edith Durham School), Nilufar (Shishu Kishor Club) and Kausar (Elmwood Community Centre).
Parallel sessions included Digital Storytelling; local authority/supplementary school partnerships and community consortia in the morning. In the afternoon, 12 academics presented papers, with the afternoon session led by our second stimulating keynote presentation by Professor Li Wei, Chair of Applied Linguistics at UCL Institute of Education. Translanguaging Community Language Education in the after lunch slot, could’ve been difficult to follow but Prof. Li Wei led us all to rethink the notions of ‘community language’ and ‘community language education’ by reflecting on the purposes and benefits in the era of globalisation and super diversity. Everyone was buzzing with ideas and reflection and the only regret delegates seemed to have was which of the parallel sessions to chose.
Dr OrnetteClennon @ManMetUni how do we perceive education, are our children just a commodity? Making visible the invisible mechanisms of oppression’ eduction, more than market transaction.
It is with great sadness that I look back at the photos of this wonderful event our colleague the wonderful, Dr Tözün Issa, invited us to co-produce with him at the Centre for Multilingualism, London Met Uni. Our colleague and friend, Tözün, died suddenly on 17 November 2015 after a few weeks illness. We miss him greatly and feel such sorrow for his family to lose him so soon.