Excellence and Enjoyment: learning and teaching for ... - NALDIC

Partnership role with parents, carers, familiesand communitiesDeveloping partnerships, including:• advising the school on a range of ways to make sure that parentsand carers from diverse cultural, linguistic and religious backgroundsfeel welcome and respected, and to ensure effective two-waycommunicationappendix 2• devising and enacting strategies to ensure that parents and carersunderstand the school’s approach to learning and teaching and canparticipate as key partners, e.g. organising Better ReadingPartnership training• providing children with learning activities and ideas, including useof e-mail and the Internet, when they go on extended visits toheritage countries, and working with subject coordinators to makesure that their experiences are incorporated into the curriculum ontheir return• supporting the development of links with supplementary andcommunity schools including madrasahs• ensuring that parents and carers from minority communities knowthat the first language has a significant and continuing role in theirchild’s learning, that the school values bilingualism and considers itto be an advantage.Our school nowcelebrates diversity ina much more meaningfulway … we take pride inall our children’sheritage languagesSharing research findingswith parents has created new andvaried opportunities for talking aboutlearning. Many of our parents who previouslywanted their children to just speak English atschool, now understand how important it is fora child to learn through his or her firstlanguage alongside developing theirproficiency in EnglishPrimary National Strategy | 0013-2006DCL-EN | © Crown copyright 2006Excellence and Enjoyment: learning and teaching for bilingual children in the primary yearsIntroductory guide 33