Intercultural Education in the Post-Primary School - National Council ...

• providing information to parents in away which takes account of the existenceof a diversity of literacy levels as well ascultural and linguistic diversity. Forexample, parent-teacher meetings, schoolhandbook, inviting parents in to theschool for special events• providing opportunities for informalmeetings of staff and parents andestablishing parent—teacher contact thatoffers opportunities to discuss andunderstand each other’s points of view• addressing parental fears and concerns• inviting parents to become involved inextra-curricular activities or interculturalevents• identifying opportunities where parentsand other members of the community cansupport the school, for example, languagesupport, translation, homework clubs• developing strategies to involve the widercommunity in an intercultural approach,for example, inviting individuals orcommunity groups that may have aparticular area of expertise.SCHOOL PLANNING FOR AN INTERCULTURALSCHOOLSchool planning for an intercultural schoolcan be incorporated into school planningwork which is being started in schools or isalready underway. Each school communitywill be at a different stage in the schooldevelopment planning process and will alsohave different conceptions of the mostappropriate way of developing an inclusiveand intercultural school. These differenceswill affect the way in which each schoolcommunity engages in the planning process.In the Department of Education andScience’s School Planning: Developing aSchool Plan-Guidelines for Second LevelSchools, it is suggested that there are fourmain stages that might be considered byschools: review of current practice andprovision, design of a plan, implementationand evaluation. These stages form acyclical process, which continuallyunderpin the work of the school. Furtherdetails on the review, design,implementation and evaluation process canbe accessed in the support materialsprovided by the School DevelopmentPlanning Initiative (www.sdpi.ie).There are many approaches to schooldevelopment planning and it is importantthat the school community adopts anapproach that suits its particular situation.However, sometimes it can be difficult toknow where to start. The followingguidelines may give some ideas about howa school might include an interculturalperspective in school planning.The planning process should assist all themembers of the school community indeveloping an inclusive and interculturalschool that addresses the needs of all itsstudents. The planning process shouldinclude the following:• conducting an intercultural schoolreview• including an intercultural awareness inthe school mission, policy and actionplan• implementing the school plan• monitoring and evaluating the actionplan.The school reviewAs an initial step in the planning process itis useful to engage in a review of where theschool is positioned at the moment inrelation to being inclusive andintercultural. To this end the schoolcommunity could engage in anintercultural school review. The SchoolReview Checklist (Figure 2) could be usedas a model for planning this review.24Intercultural Education in the Post-Primary School