Teaching Approaches to Promote Consistent ... - Learning Wales

A common pattern, noted by a subject co-ordinator’s interview with a class teacher atthe only school with a significant number of refugee children was:“Small groups (are) facilitated by a TA. Where appropriate children arewithdrawn, but we try to incorporate them within a lesson so they can hearlanguage.”(Y3 teacher, school G, group Co, on ALS)At some schools, though, the TA would work with the whole class while the classteacher attended to pupils with SEN.5.2.10 Contacts with parentsFinding 30: Schools’ views on the role of parents as partners in their children’seducation varied.Over the last few years a clear change has developed nationally in classrooms, from aposition where the only extra help available to the teacher was a parent, to a positionwhere there is a range of trained help available. Thus the position of the parent helperhas changed. Nonetheless, the dominant perception in this research was of parentshaving a role to play but that it needed careful management. No head teachers,subject co-ordinators or teachers explicitly saw them as a barrier to children’s learningOn the other hand only one head teacher referred their school enjoying good supportfrom parents (school C, group Co) and only one class teacher mentioned “…(parentsposing) no difficulties.”One class teacher said:“Parents are supportive but can’t help academically.”(Y4, school B, group Co)In this school, homework was seen as a way of involving parents in their children’seducation. This involved setting tasks in which children could reasonably seek theirparents’ support. Across the sample there was some evidence of this occasionallyoccurring in Year 3 and Year 4. By Year 5 and Year 6 the dominant model was torevise or practise work covered in class. While a few teachers mentionedmathematical language as an issue, language did not appear to be seen as a greaterproblem in mathematics than in English.65