How does a language aware school community build relationships with new students and their families?

In the final teaching practice core competence areas are: Ethical, scientific as well as societal and community competence. The language aware task is intended to complement the goals of this practice:

• Able to more broadly plan, realise and evaluate learning processes
• Able to give theoretical grounds for pedagogical action as a teacher and educator
• Able to work with other teacher professionals according to professional principles, to recognise professional autonomy and responsibilities as part of the school community and in relation to wider society
• Able to discern resources for professional growth and needs as a teacher and educator and to able to pursue further development

Orientation:
This is the final step of the language aware pathway. The earlier steps have focused on language in the classroom, how teachers and students use and develop language within education. This step looks at building a relationship with the wider community and in particular collaboration between home and school. The aim of this step is to help you to look again at school through the eyes of newcomers in order to be able to strengthen collaboration between home and school by making the tacit knowledge of the community available to others. 

Food for thought:
Moate, J. (2021) Koulun kohtaaminen toisesta nakokulmasta katsottuna
Moate, J. (2017). Living between two educational systems. Teoksessa A. Raiker & M. Rautiainen (toim.) Educating for democracy in England and Finland: principlesand culture,17-26, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. And as a reminder for good practices: Perusperiaatteita heterogeenisen ryhmän opetukseen [Principles for teaching heterogenious groups]

Important questions to consider:

What routines, assumptions and habits are part of school in Finland?
What might be obvious to someone from the inside and challenging to someone from the outside?
What can students and parents expect from teachers and the school?
What do teachers and the school expect from students and parents?
How are children and parents socialised into education in Finland from early childhood education onwards?
How does the wider environment - geographical, social, cultural, political - affect how school works in Finland?

LANGUAGE AWARENESS TASK:

As a class teacher new students will join your class sometimes at the start of a new year and sometimes in the middle of the year. Many of these students will have attended a preparatory class for 9 months already and will hopefully have started to speak Finnish in everyday situations and know something about school in Finland. Moving to a new class, however, is a big change. There will be more students, more Finnish, more tasks, more subjects. To help with this transition it would be good to consider beforehand how to support this transition. The key questions at the heart of the task are: What would be good to share with the family and student to help them make sense of the new classroom community? What would it be good to know about the student?

The readings below are intended to help you with this task, but you can of course draw on your own experience and understanding. This is also an opportunity for you as teacher professionals to collaborate, to share the task and your expertise, and to develop material that is useful for the wider community. Please do the task as follows:

- divide the readings (below) between the small group members. Each reading has a different focus, although the overall aim is the same - to support the integration of students with diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds. Highlight important points as you read.
- come together as a group and using the key points you have identified develop a mindmap. Discuss together what the different points mean and how they connect with one another. Each student should have a copy of this mindmap and submit a copy as part of the task.
- using the mindmap, decide what to include in the welcome pack for newcomer families (2 pages) and what to include in a short teacher guide (1-2).
- finally write a short explanation (font 12, 1.5 line spacing) of why you have included these particular points. This text should outline the principles you have drawn on.

Ensure the work is fairly shared by all group members and that everyone knows what is included in the final products.

Readings & resources:
- Pages 34-44 of the eNorssi guide describe the role of preparatory education and the kind of activities students (ideally) encounter. This should provide an idea of the previous experience a student has of Finnish education. As you read through this information, consider what kind of practices might also be useful in mainstream classrooms. What kind of practices can be continued and how would this benefit many different students?

- Pages 45-49 of the eNorssi guide include important information on how to support collaboration between home and school to support learning. Carefully read through these guidelines and consider how you could put these principles into practice.

- Voipio-Huovinen, S. 2016. Maahanmuuttajataustaisten oppilaiden kotoutumisen ja osallistumisen mahdollisuuksia perusopetuksessa. Soveltavan kielentutkimuksen keskus, Jyväskylän yliopisto; Kielikoulutuspolitiikan verkosto.

Final reflection:

In the final session, the different welcome packs and teacher guides will be shared with the whole group. Hopefully these will provide a good basis for welcoming newcomers to the school communities you are part of in the future. You will also have the opportunity to carefully consider some real-life scenarios from schools in Finland. These scenarios illustrate how important it is for teachers to be aware of how actions and inaction can both have a significant impact of the school experiences of students, their opportunities for participation and development.