To meet its aims the school meets the educational needs of all the children by providing opportunities for differentiated learning. The Foundation stage curriculum in our school is based on “Learning through play”. According to Siraj-Blatchford and Clarke (2000 :68)) this curriculum is grounded in principles lent from Te Whariki, the New Zealand curriculum for the early years, this framework emphasises the need to achieve quality provision for children of different abilities, personalities and talents. I agree with them “the context assumed is a diverse need of a multicultural, multilingual and multifaith society”. Practitioners observe play and plan the curriculum which meets pupils’ needs, particularly in terms of language development which effects the achievements of the pupil at the end of key stage one SATS (standard assessment task). The activities are reinforced through visual support, movement and appropriate use of home language with the help of bilingual assistance. Children’s work, books in home language, displays and labels in Urdu language also reflect the diversities in society. Planned play also allows the teachers to understand pupil’s progress for their development record and identify any special educational needs.
The school seek out help from its neighbouring secondary schools. A German speaking child in the reception class was supported by local secondary school’s sixth form students who were studying German language. The students helped on rota basis according to their free periods.
‘Froebel (1782-1852) cited in Sadek and Sadek (2001 :73) also sees play as child’s work and stresses the need for structured play which allows great flexibility and ‘children’s active planning, doing and reviewing advocated by the High scope researchers in America was readily compatible with the public sector school’s curriculum and has become widely used since it was first introduced in the late sixties and seventies in the UK’.
Practitioners in the foundation stage are obliged by law to promote the Early Learning Goals in each of the six areas of learning described in “Curriculum Guidance for the Foundation Stage”. This framework also reminds that
“Practitioners should plan to meet the needs of boys and girls, children with special needs, children who are more able, children with disabilities, children from all cultural and religious backgrounds, children of different ethnic groups including travellers, refugees and asylum seekers, and children from diverse linguistic backgrounds.(:17)
Under The Race Relations Act (Amendment) 2000 the government has published a document “Aiming High for Raising the Achievement of Minority Ethnic Pupil” which places a new statutory duty on schools to assess the impact of their policies on minority ethnic pupils, staff and parents and to monitor the attainment of minority ethnic pupils (DfEs 0183/2003). “Aiming High” was produced after the new data of pupils performance in GCSE from the annual pupil’s census was published in 2002. This has confirmed that the children from Black Caribbean and Pakistani backgrounds do significantly worse compared to the white, Indian and Chinese pupil. This is one of the many external factors which allow the school to identify the diverse needs and to target help where it is needed.
This ‘Aiming High’ allows the school to receive funding to address equality and diversity. The funding is received from two main resources, general school funding and the “Ethnic Minority Achievement Grant”. (In 2002 the Government launched two pilots across 15 LEAs to promote a joined-up approach to narrowing the achievement gap for Pakistani children). The EAG Funding was cut by half in 2003 as a result of shortfall in government funds to LEA and more cuts are under consideration. The School works closely with the “Language Base” set up through EMAG. To develop the ethnic minority parental involvement, school participates in its Family Learning Project. Aim of this project is to support the parents in developing their own strategies to help their children.
Serving the community with EAL is quite a challenging job for the school. The government initiatives such as Numeracy and Literacy strategies reinforce the needs of appropriately high expectation of the pupils in key stage 1. These strategies sets out the teaching objectives for the reception class teachers that most children should achieve the Early learning Goals by end of the Foundation stage.
Despite all the internal bilingual assistance and support from the EMAG, meeting the objectives is not always possible. The School was last inspected by LEA in March 2004. The nursery class performance was found excellent but the inspectors found many areas in the foundation Stage needed to be developed. Aims of these inspections in the foundation stage are to assess, whether the education programme provided is likely to promote the Early Learning Goals. Inspection is also based upon examination of the planning, content, delivery and educational programme and not upon individual children’s achievements. It is important to be aware of that these inspections take place regardless of different types of settings.
Comparing to the similar schools in Hertfordshire County, the achievements of the pupils were below average. The Reception class did not perform as well as Nursery was a result of many factors including the shortage of senior staff. We had a temporary Head teacher for the whole year of 2003 -2004. Deputy head‘s place was also vacant for this period. Two different supply teachers covered for the reception class through out this period. The areas needing development which were highlighted by the inspectors were; to review the planning in the foundation stage and focus on speaking, listening, reading, writing and also parents and community.
In the primary strategy “Excellence and Enjoyment” (1) the way to support schools by the government is: ‘To ensure that schools are properly accountable for their performance, there is decisive intervention and support where standards are at risk’ DfES/0377/2003. Therefore to meet the standards expected in the foundation stage LEA supported the school and especially the reception teachers. Advanced Skilled Teacher from the LEA was sent to the school to observe the reception class. She noted the problem areas where the development and change was needed. Since then the AST paid regular visits to the reception class where she observed the implications of the change and how it makes the difference to teaching and learning. This change affected my role as well. During the whole class teaching I now sit next to the group of children who need most bilingual help and this prevents the disruptions to other children. LEA inspector revisited the reception class after two months and produced a positive report which confirmed the influence of “Excellence and Enjoyment”.
The Head teacher who was appointed in January 2004 also reviewed the whole school’s improvement plan. To raise the standard, development of reading, writing, leadership and parental involvement are the main priorities she is working towards. All targets set for these areas have been met or exceeded. The School has an advantage of its new Head teacher who herself is from the Indian background. As she shares the common language of the community it is obvious that she has a personal insight into needs of minority ethnic parents. She tries more to develop the home school link. As an Asian mother and experience of my service for last 4 years in this school, I often observe that the children whose parents take an active involvement in their education achieve more. To raise the standard of the school, it is very important for the school to develop parental involvement. In the second part of this assignment I will explain in details the need of this development and my suggestions for how to implement this.
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