Case Study

Introduction

Dr Fazil Kucuk Turkish School was established in 1984 by volunteer parents in the London Borough of Lewisham. As Turkish parents, they were worried that children who were born in the UK were becoming increasingly rootless, not knowing much about their culture. The aim of the school is to help children in the Turkish community get in touch with their cultural heritage and learn their mother tongue. They offer courses alongside the National Curriculum leading to qualifications in GCSE, AS and A2 Level Turkish which are taken in addition to mainstream school examinations. The school has around 150 students and 5 teachers teaching Turkish and Turkish cultural studies. The school is open on Friday evenings and Saturday day time.

They have recently set up a crèche for children aged 18 months - 4 years and have a fully qualified Nursery Nurse and two Nursery Assistants who are all CRB checked.

They also offer traditional Turkish folk dancing lessons and currently have four groups (4-7, 7-13, 14+ & adult group) and they have taken part in many different community and cultural events in London as well as International Folk Dance Festivals.

The partnership

Dr Fazil Kucuk has used the premises at Catford High School since 2001. The partnership started off when the Turkish School approached Lewisham City Council for help with finding new premises. The school rent is now paid by grants from Lewisham City Council. Catford High School’s hallway is full of notice boards showing the activities taking place in the school. One of the notice boards belongs to Dr Fazil Kucuk School and shows photos and information for the activities taking place in the supplementary school. About 10 children from the supplementary school attend Catford High School.

Turkish folk dancing as a way of learning Turkish

Meeting Akjen Havali, Head teacher of the Turkish supplementary school since February 2007, is a pleasure. It’s a Friday evening and the main hall in Catford High School is slowly filling up with children and youth eager to meet friends and to take part in the Turkish folk dancing classes given each Friday evening. Akjen believes that learning must be made fun, which is why the school arranges Turkish singing and folk dancing lessons.

'Listening to music and taking instructions while dancing is a great way to learn Turkish, even if you only learn a few words. Coming to the school is also a way to meet new Turkish friends, so it’s a good opportunity to mix and to learn new skills. It’s important to make the children feel proud of their Turkish culture and language but it is equally important for future studies at university and their future careers,' says Akjen.

Responding to the needs of the pupils

Dr Fazil Kucuk has recently started to put more emphasis on celebrating student achievement as they believe it is vital to keep the students motivated.

'Acknowledging student achievements and hard work is important to keep the students motivated, says Akjen. We have just recently started to really celebrate pupil achievement as we had noticed a bit of disinterest from the students. We think it might have been because the school had new teachers, and the students struggled to understand the lessons as they have not yet fully mastered the Turkish language.', says Akjen.

To make learning more enjoyable, Akjen called a meeting with all pupils to hear their views on what the ideal Turkish supplementary school would look like. They were helped by a volunteer from the Learning and Skills Council who ran a workshop session with the students to look into their views on the ideal Turkish supplementary school. One outcome of the workshop was to recruit Teaching Assistants to help with the lessons. The Teaching Assistants could help by focusing on those pupils who struggle most. A second outcome was to recruit a teaching coordinator to work together with the Turkish teachers.

Celebrating pupil achievement

Dr Fazil Kucuk Turkish School celebrates commemorative days such as Dr Fazil Kucuk day and Mustafa Kemal Ataturk day, when students are asked to research a piece of homework, in Turkish. First, second and third prize certificates are given to students in each class. The children go up on stage where a ceremony is held and certificates are handed out and photos taken. The ceremony is important to make the children feel special and appreciated and to keep them motivated.

Last year the school organised for 28 pupils to travel to Seoul in South Korea to participate in a folk-dancing contest at the World Performing Arts festival to represent Northern Cyprus, the first time a North Cypriot school was represented so far East.

'Going away on a school trip is a great way for the children to bond and to interact with each other and to make new friends within the group. It’s fantastic to see how they go away as mini groups within the group, and how they come back as one group, to see how united they have become. Seeing this makes all the hard work organising a trip like this worthwhile.'

Sports days are organised regularly where students are divided into different groups. Within each group three awards were given: bronze, silver and gold. Medals with the school name had been sourced and bought and all the students in the school got a medal for participating.

A handbook to keep parents informed

The school is working on a Turkish/English handbook for the pupils. The book will contains facts about Turkey and Northern Cyprus, in Turkish, as well as the alphabet, days, months and commemorative days in both English and in Turkish. The book has a diary and a contact section where teachers can write notes to parents about homework and performance and ask for the book to be signed by the parents. The handbook is a new initiative by the school as parents were complaining that they were not given enough information about the different activities in the school or updates about student progress.

'The problem was that the letters and notes we sent home to parents about children and their activities never got to the parents as they got lost by the students, or they forgot to give them to the parents. With the new handbook, we can keep all the information in one place.'

About the School