Theme: Autumn RIG Meeting: Unpacking Young Migrant Support & Bell Foundation Assessment Framework
Convenor/s: Anna Tsakalaki
Host: NALDIC Zoom
NALDIC’s Regional Interest Groups help teachers and other education professionals working with EAL learners to get together, stay informed about developments in the EAL field and share best practice.
Speakers/Agenda
Join us for the Autumn RIG Meeting, featuring insightful discussions on interdisciplinary community-root projects. The meeting will consist of two engaging sessions, each lasting 30 minutes, followed by a 15-minute plenary session.
1st Half:
We are delighted to have Robert Sharples as our guest speaker. Robert will share his team’s collaborative project, which involves professionals from diverse fields and focuses on understanding the challenges faced by young migrants in Bristol. The project’s report highlights the barriers these professionals encounter and proposes innovative solutions. Robert will provide an exciting overview of their findings, offering valuable insights for those interested in refugee populations.
Project Outline:
The project’s goal is to improve early intervention and tailored educational support for young migrants in the UK. It addresses the lack of coordination among professionals in education, legal representation, social care, healthcare, and housing, which hinders effective support. This project aims to identify specific challenges and utilises a two-round Delphi process, along with stakeholder interviews, to shape its findings.
Key Research Questions:
- What constitutes effective early intervention for newly arrived migrant learners?
- What factors support effective inter-professional working to support newly arrived migrant learners?
- What factors prevent effective inter-professional working to support newly arrived migrant learners?
- What are the most promising opportunities to address the challenges faced by professionals working with newly arrived migrant learners?
2nd Half:
We are pleased to host Jo Martin, an educator with dual roles in Local Authority (LA) and a school in Swansea. Together, we will share our experiences from a longitudinal study involving a cluster of schools in Wales. Our focus will be on using the Bell Foundation Assessment Framework over the past two school years. We will discuss the Framework’s implementation by teachers, the moderation process, and our efforts to create a website with accessible resources for educators based on this community-led project.
Project Outline:
Seven schools in Wales collaborated to collect work samples from fourteen newly arrived students in their first and second year of primary or secondary education. The Bell Foundation Assessment Framework was used to gather information on each student’s learning profile in English across four language skills in T1 (Summer 2022) and T2 (Summer 2023). We will reflect on our collaborative experience at various stages of this project and share valuable lessons learned.
While these projects extend beyond our local area, they promise to spark thought-provoking discussions on local practices. We warmly invite you to join us for this enriching event.
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Berkshire & Hampshire RIG Convenors
Karen Thomas, Anna Tsakalaki & Sarah Coles
BerksHantsRIG@naldic.org.uk