Raising Achievement in Migrant Pupils Erasmus Project

Project Title

Raising Achievement in Migrant Pupils

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 2016

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Migrants’ issues; Inclusion – equity; Key Competences (incl. mathematics and literacy) – basic skills

Project Summary

Three primary schools participated in the project; Green Park Primary School, Dover, Istituto Comprensivo Paolo Emiliani Giudici, Mussomeli, Sicily, and Santiago Ramon y Cajal, Hospitalet de Llobregat, Barcelona.We collaborated to achieve a shared objective – to raise achievement in Migrant Pupils (RAMP). Each school had rising numbers of migrant pupils and had pupils from social and economically impoverished backgrounds. Pupils face low employability futures and many families rely on benefits. Each school had rising numbers of pupils who do not speak the local language and was seeking to provide innovative ways to support those pupils, parents and teachers.
Our objectives were to raise attainment and integration of migrant pupils, improve assessment and tracking and provide effective intervention programmes. We aimed to review and improve our use of ICT and provide effective home/nursery to primary school and primary to secondary school transitions. We wished to develop a school culture which valued diversity, to increase positive migrant parental involvement in school and enhance teacher knowledge of potential barriers to learning faced by migrant pupils.
Europe’s migrant crisis places has a significant impact on Barcelona, Sicily and Dover which all face additional problems due their locality. The Catalan speaking Spanish school had 20% pupils speaking neither Catalan or Spanish and both the British and Italian school were seeing numbers of non-national language speaking pupils rising steadily.
Main activities undertaken were six Learning, Teaching and Training weeks, two organised by each partner. These gave carefully selected staff the opportunity to learn from and share good practice in the following core project areas; valuing diversity, teaching methodologies, transition practices, parental involvement, use of IT and learning environments. In each location, staff visited a range of teaching establishments, including centres of expertise in working with migrant pupils. We also visited community based migrant help projects. In each location, staff met with migrant parents and pupils too. In the UK, migrant charities provided visiting speakers and workshops for all pupils, awarding Green Park a ‘School of Sanctuary’ status in recognition of our work with migrant families. Whole school annual diversity celebration weeks were held in each of the 3 schools, celebrating diversity through a wide range of cross-curricular activities based on a joint theme.

Staff report that travel has widened their experience, giving a better understanding of migrant pupils – their needs on entering school, home backgrounds, possible previous school experiences. Staff now feel happier to approach parents and build a relationship with them. Staff feel more positive towards migrant pupils, seeing their different culture as an asset to enhance our own understanding.
Teachers felt that the opportunity to exchange ideas and good practices with other schools was very positive, e.g. In Spain we witnessed ‘reception classes’ for pupils without Catalan or Spanish to learn through real life experiences. This approach is now being used by some teachers of EAL pupils in the UK .
After observing multilingual displays in Spain and Italy, the staff in the UK have improved our own multilingual signage.
The teaching of French in the UK was enhanced when a teacher from our partner school in Spain visited, helping teachers prepare themed French activity boxes, to enable a new approach to class teaching of French. This used rotating groups, with each focusing on a different aspect of the language i.e. listening, speaking, communicating for a purpose, writing.

Staff in the UK felt that although we already used intervention programs for EAL pupils before the RAMP project, now, the school has a more holistic approach to inclusion. Now prior to intervention sessions, pupils complete gap analysis assessments, and intervention sessions are closely targeted to individual needs. More able English speaking pupils are used as mentors to continue to model new vocabulary in the classroom or playground.

All pupils have loved our cultural days. All felt included and the migrant pupils loved the opportunity to shine, leading classroom sessions, imparting knowledge, sharing their cultures and languages. They felt proud of themselves and gained confidence through having their parents in the class.
Staff report that local pupils are now more aware of the needs of migrant pupils, they are more helpful and welcoming.

Parents feel more positive about school and more able to approach staff, There is better attendance at parent – teacher events.

Green Park has collaborated with a migrant charity ‘Samphire’. We have attended their Dover Multi Cultural day and they have provided workshops to pupils, awarding us with ‘School of Sancturary’ status.

The above impacts are all considered to have long term benefit.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 50400 Eur

Project Coordinator

Green Park Community Primary School & Country: UK

Project Partners

• ISTITUTO COMPRENSIVO “PAOLO EMILIANI GIUDICI”
• Santiago Ramón y Cajal