BUILDING LINKS ACROSS COMMUNITIES
| Published: 19th July 2007 21:50 |
Schools Minister Jim Knight today renewed the Government's commitment to ensuring schools play a key role in bringing communities together.
From 1st September 2007 all schools in England will have a duty to promote community cohesion. Guidance published today for the first time sets out what schools will have to do.
Jim Knight said:
"Every school, whatever its intake and location, is responsible for ensuring that our children and young people are educated about the diverse make up of British society and in particular its diversity in terms of socio-economic backgrounds, cultures, ethnicities, religions and beliefs. And from this September schools will be required, for the first time, to show real evidence of what they are doing to promote community cohesion.
"Most schools are already actively involved in their community, working with parents, families and local representatives and building up links with different schools and groups. Where this might mean a new focus for a school, the guidance is clear that there are a multitude of ways that a school can get involved.
"The impact of this duty will mean that schools can become real dynamos of change within their communities inside and outside the school gates, supporting all pupils to achieve their potential and bringing different groups of people closer together. We need to build firmer foundations for community cohesion and the best approach is to start early, from primary schools onwards.
"Educating our young people about the world we live in is key to ensuring they develop into tolerant and informed adults, suitably equipped to live and work in our increasingly diverse society."
Schools can promote community cohesion in a number of different ways, including through examples such as:
• Learning through citizenship education about the diverse national, regional, ethnic and religious cultures, groups and communities in the UK, the connections between them and between the UK and the wider world;
• Engaging parents through parent and pupil classes, curriculum evenings and other family liaison work;
• Extended services, such as adult learning, ICT and English language classes for the wider community; and
• Linking with other schools and organisations locally, regionally or internationally.
Many primary and secondary schools are already leading the way in building community cohesion.
• Two primary schools in Huddersfield, one 98 per cent minority ethnic and one 100 per cent white, have come together for joint projects where children work and play together, with parents also invited to attend.
• An all-white rural primary school in Cumbria has developed joint drama, dance and music workshops with other primary schools in the area, inviting a range of different artists to perform and work with pupils. The school has also established video conferencing facilities that link the school with different schools in their network and outside the area to broaden the pupils' understanding and experience.
• Special parent evenings are organised by a primary school in Ealing which has pupils from at least 15 ethnic groups spread across a large geographical area, to help build greater cultural understanding and knit the school community closer together.
• A Tower Hamlets project to reduce violence and vandalism led by a Catholic school has built better relations in the local community and built bridges with pupils at neighbouring schools, for example by opening up school facilities to the community, offering a programme of youth activities to encourage those from different backgrounds to meet together and a series of inter-faith initiatives with nearby schools. Violence and vandalism have gone down and the school received a local authority contract to offer youth services to the local area.
• A primary school near Slough has adopted a three-step approach to community cohesion. Firstly, building cohesion with the school and then working with parents and the wider community. The final step involves broadening pupils' experiences through collaborative learning in an international context, linking each class to a school in a different European country. The parents and local community are now engaged in the school and the pupils are able to learn with and from each other in a positive way and to recognise cultural diversity.
Ofsted will include promoting community cohesion as part of its inspection criteria from September 2008. This formative guidance is a first step and between now and spring 2008 the DCSF will continue to work with schools to share best practice so that every school is able to fulfil the new duty. This will include a series of regional conferences in the autumn to be run in conjunction with the Runnymede Trust, the Institute of Community Cohesion and the ADCS.
