Family Learning for Migrants at School Erasmus Project

Project Title

Family Learning for Migrants at School

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for school education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Inclusion – equity; Intercultural/intergenerational education and (lifelong)learning; Migrants’ issues

Project Summary

Children in migrant families are key actors in the process of integration, as they are frequently called upon to bridge language and cultural gaps in understanding between members of the host community and their own families. Both teachers and migrant families are deeply concerned by migrant students ́ success at school. The more their parents understand the school system in the host country, the better they are equipped to support their children at school as underlined by PISA studies.
Even though migrant parents have high expectations for their children, they are faced with many obstacles – mainly language and social barriers or low understanding of the host country’s system of schooling. Lack of time or money to invest in their child’s education may be a major issue in disadvantaged areas even though alternative solutions, based on voluntary initiatives (e.g. supplementary schools) are offered by many associations, with community volunteers who endeavor to support children.
In addition, there are various degrees of public support within school- many EU projects have underlined this point especially in the School education field. The MiFamily approach presents a win-win situation:
1- for professionals – an opportunity to involve migrant parents in the ‘formal’ education of their children;
2- for migrant families – a means of becoming better equipped to support their children’s progress through the host country’s education system, thanks to the innovative approach of the family learning process
The Mifamily programme is designed to provide educators/parent ambassadors/ESOL teachers with the skills, knowledge and competences needed to be able to apply Family Learning methods within a programme of additional language skills for adults and children newly-arrived in EU states The programme is designed for teachers/educators and is mainly focused on developing own knowledge and skills.
The complete Blended Learning course corresponds to 5 ECVET points (125 hours of learning) and is set at EQF Level 4 (corresponding to RQF/NVQ L3 in UK). It is available online through the https://MiFamilyProject.com website via the ELearning tab and is best delivered, as detailed in the curriculum guide, through a series of five practical group train-the-trainer sessions accompanied by 61 hours of self-study using the research resource online. As part of the course trainers are expected to complete up to 14 x 3hr sessions with migrant families, these can be offered as seven full or 14 half days.
The training programme prepares teachers/educators for working with newly-arrived migrant families through carefully planned sessions on cultural sensitivity and interculturality, assessment of language proficiency and integration needs in the country using the MiFamily Project tools and a practical, interactive session on values.
Family Learning methods including: learning through play; the importance of communication skills (speaking, listening and positive praise); story-telling including making props, games and activities; sharing books, rhymes and songs; making books and reading with children, are introduced. The innovative use of Family Learning techniques to strengthen and accelerate language acquisition is presented and the online database provides a comprehensive catalogue of research to enable each person taking the course to deepen their learning as required.
The MiFamily project outlines possible additional Family Learning sessions on understanding secondary school and becoming more involved in our child’s education; organising a school-based celebration, these are to be further developed by the teachers/educators in response to the practical needs in their own countries and settings.
The multi-national dimension of the MiFamily Project has proved key in highlighting with participants across all partner countries the tremendous value of involving migrant family members in their children’s education. The methodologies of Family Learning were new to some partners while well-established within the British education system. The use of Family Learning methods to facilitate integration, acquisition of host country language as well as to support the engagement of parents in their children’s educational journey is new. This became increasingly evident throughout the project and is highlighted in the National Advisory Groups’ reports, the qualitative feedback forms from pilot sessions and the evaluation forms from each of the multiplier events.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 283928 Eur

Project Coordinator

National Resource Centre for Supplementary Education & Country: UK

Project Partners

• Asociación La Bien Pagá Espacio Escénico
• INSTITUTO PARA EL FOMENTO DEL DESARROLLO Y LA FORMACION SL
• Fundatia ICAR
• HALBA BENEDICTE
• INNOQUALITY SYSTEMS LIMITED
• Aspire Education Group Ltd