Training opportunities
Vocabulary is one of the key building blocks in learning a new language and EAL learners of all ages and at all stages of English language proficiency need additional support to increase their vocabulary. Bilinguals will have different strategies and needs to English as a first language children, so join us to find out more. This workshop is aimed at supporting children in KS2 and KS3.
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Inset day CPD
We have devised training opportunities that fall on key school inset training days.
These are hour-long webinars, that are being delivered to schools throughout staff training days, as a whole school approach to improving staff's awareness of:
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Equality, diversity and inclusion
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Supporting EAL writers
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Gypsy, Roma, Traveller and Showmen
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Bullying, prejudice and racism incidents
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Closing the EAL word gap
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Improving EAL support
- Supporting EAL children in the Early Years
These are fully funded for maintained schools and early year settings (attached to maintained schools) in Devon, excluding Plymouth.
Can you say ‘please’ or ‘thank you’ in Polish, Arabic, Russian, Chinese, Greek, Japanese, Italian, Spanish, German and/or Turkish? Many children across Devon can say much more than two words and they were brave enough to prove it by taking a GCSE exam to gain an extra qualification. The Home Language GCSE window for the speaking test has come to an end and our team supported 15 schools, 10 languages and 59 pupils in year 10 and 11.
We offered a 2hr preparation session via Teams, and we supported with the actual speaking exam. The children got to know the structure of the exam and felt much more prepared and confident at the end of the preparation session. The sessions were very successful as the children had the chance to practise their home language skills and meet other students across Devon.
It is such a great opportunity for children who speak these languages at home to have their skill recognised by an official qualification, that they can use for further studies in their chosen field. Any child that speaks a foreign language can take this exam.
Both AQA and Pearson exam boards offer a variety of Modern Foreign Languages for children that either use these languages as their first language or are passionate about a particular language and they study it in their own time. Some popular languages for the latter are Italian, Japanese, and Spanish which proves that speaking another language is a valuable quality.
The languages with the highest demand this year were: Polish, Chinese (both Cantonese and Mandarin), Arabic and Russian.
Children still have three more exams to complete - Listening, Reading, and Writing. With these exams being completed in their school. We wish them the best of luck.
Thank you to all exam officers who worked closely with our teachers and their EAL children.
Thank you! Dziękuję, شكرا, Спасибо, 谢, Ευχαριστώ, ありがとうございました, Grazie, Gracias, Vielen Dank, Teşekkürle.
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Refugee Week is the world’s largest arts & culture festival celebrating the contributions, creativity and resilience of refugees and people seeking sanctuary. Founded in 1998 in the UK and held every year around World Refugee Day on the 20 June, Refugee Week 2023 will be it’s 25th anniversary and held from the 19th to the 25th of June.
The theme this year is to celebrate what compassion looks like in action. Together we can create a shared understanding of compassion to ensure we are extending it widely to all.
“Our task must be to free ourselves – by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”- Albert Einstein
Schools should be reporting all incidents of bullying, prejudice and racism to the local authority. This includes incidents of
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Bullying alone, without prejudice or racism
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Sexual orientation prejudice
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Gender identity prejudice
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Religion and belief prejudice
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Disability prejudice
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Sexism and sexual harassment
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Perceived characteristics
- Racism
We have received over 830 BPRIs this academic year so far and all reports have been reviewed to ensure the correct steps have been taken as a response to the incident and also to provide advice and support where it has been needed.
Currently 48% of incidents were of a racist nature and 23% had a focus of bullying.
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EDI Pupil forums
We have started collecting children’s voices around equality, diversity, and inclusion, through EDI pupil forums. Our children have shared their suggestions of what they would like to see happen in their schools:
- Assemblies designed by children and delivered by children
- More cultural celebrations
- Ensuring homework is accessible
- Designing ‘pupil voice’ surveys with children
- Education on ‘invisible’ disabilities
- More resources on school’s websites for parents/guardians
- Make school toilets a safe place
If you would like your school to take part in the EDI pupil forum workshops, please contact Cary-Anne.Ginns@devon.gov.uk
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Current bilingual support - We are still providing funded bilingual support to all Ukrainian children in schools this year. There is still time to receive this support before the end of the academic year.
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Year 7 support - We know that current year 6 Ukrainian children will experience a lot of new changes and challenges when they move to secondary school. From September we will be providing intensive funded bilingual support for year 7s as well as interpretation support for the induction meeting with parents and guardians. If you have a year 6 child in your school or you know that your secondary school will have year 7 Ukrainian children, then please inform us.
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Core offer – In September we will begin to support EMTAS’s usual core offer for Ukrainian children, other than the year 7 programme. This includes long term bilingual support for identified children, interpreter support and advice. This is fully funded for maintained schools, with academies and independent schools having the option to purchase this support.
To access and request any Ukrainian support, such as bilingual support, advice, interpreter support for meetings or to inform us of a year 6 child moving to year 7, please complete our referral form
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GRTHM was established in Britain in 2008 as a way of raising awareness of these communities and their contributions to society, and to offset negative stereotyping and prejudices. The aims of the GRTHM are to:
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Promote knowledge of the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller History, Cultural and Heritage
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Disseminate information on positive Gypsy, Roma and Traveller contributions to British Society
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Heighten the confidence and awareness of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people to their cultural heritage
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Celebrate Gypsy, Roma and Traveller culture and heritage
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A national survey, released in April, has found that Romany Gypsy, Roma, Irish Traveller and travelling communities experience some of the highest levels of racially motivated abuse, social and economic deprivation, and poor access to health and employment.
Led by the Centre on the Dynamics of Diversity, and supported by Friends, Families and Travellers, the survey had the largest number of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller participants in any national survey to date.
The research showed that:
- 62% of Gypsies and Travellers had experienced racial abuse, which was the highest out of all minority ethnic groups surveyed;
- One in three experienced a physical racist attack.
- 47% of Roma people had been racially assaulted; and
- 37% of Roma people have been physically attacked.
The wider effects of discrimination led to Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people experiencing the highest levels of social and economic deprivation, with:
- More than half of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people having no educational qualifications;
- 85% of Gypsy or Traveller men and 65% of Roma men were in precarious employment, compared with 19% of white British men.
The survey also highlighted stark health inequalities across health outcomes and access to services:
- Gypsy, Roma and Traveller men were over 12 times more likely to suffer with more than two physical health conditions than white British men; and
- Roma people had the highest risk of not being able to access health and social care services.
National survey exposes racism and discrimination faced by Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people - Friends, Families and Travellers (gypsy-traveller.org)
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