Case Study

School background

Plashet is a popular girls' secondary school. There are 1,350 students on roll, with a nine form entry in each year group. There are approximately 90 full time teachers with a team of English as a Second Language teachers, Special Needs teachers and classroom assistants.

Plashet became a Leading Edge School in September 2004. Prior to this, from 2000-2004, it was designated by the DfES (now DCSF) as a Beacon School. In 2007, it became a Specialist Science College.

Arrangement for community language classes

The main community language provision is Urdu and Bengali, taught during the day as mainstream subjects along with French. All students must choose a language at GCSE level, with French currently being the most popular choice.

Students already proficient in a language such as German, Russian or Turkish may also be entered for a GCSE exam. The school will ensure an assessment is carried out, an examiner is provided and candidates are entered through the school.

Students may also choose Panjabi or Gujarati to be studied in “twilight” classes with an option to study for GCSE. The twilight classes take place once a week for 2 hours. Classes are only open to Plashet students and as take up is not huge – the largest group size is 10 with 2-3 candidates entering for GCSE each year – it has been necessary to teach mixed level classes to assure viability. Some funding for the twilight classes is provided by Newham Community Education.

This year Arabic has been added to the options for twilight classes with an aim to offer GCSE. Classes are run by an outside teacher and some funding has been provided from Jack Petchy, an entrepreneur contributing to his local community. Parents and family members linked to the school are welcomed into the Arabic classes. Thanks to the Jack Petchy fund, the school is also able to offer an after-school Master Class in A Level Urdu to those Plashet students who had previously studied up to GCSE. A level Bengali is available as part of the mainstream curriculum during the day.

The Head of Community Languages oversees the whole management of the school’s twilight sessions, including the hiring of teachers, course planning and monitoring of attendance. On Saturdays, Plashet opens its facilities to the local Tamil community which runs a Tamil language school for over 100 students, aged 5-18. Plashet asks for a minimal charge for hire of the classrooms. Tamil classes also operate in the summer holidays.

History of the project

Mrs Nasir has been Head for 14 years and before her arrival, the school had already offered GCSE Urdu as a mainstream subject. There was then a push from a school governor to introduce Panjabi into the curriculum, and the school decided to consult parents on their preferred community language for their daughters to learn. This survey was also an opportunity for Mrs Nasir, a Muslim of Pakistani background, to demonstrate her commitment to a language provision that fairly represented the needs and wishes of the whole community.

As a result of the survey, Panjabi and Gujarati were offered, but as twilight classes only, reflecting the smaller numbers requesting them. Bengali and Urdu were the most popular languages and were established as mainstream subjects in the modern foreign languages curriculum with the same status as French.

Collaborative work

The main area of collaboration with outside supplementary schools is with the Tamil community. Not all the students are attending Plashet as some attend other local schools.

In addition to Tamil language classes, Mrs Nasir is keen to support Science as well as English, Maths and ICT for Tamil speaking students. Since September 07, Plashet has become a Science Specialist College and Mrs Nasir aims to establish definite links between the main curriculum and the Tamil community school. The plan is to offer funding and the use of labs and classrooms for Saturday and potentially Sunday classes commencing this summer. This will allow local community Tamil-speaking students extra academic support at the weekend.

Furthermore, the school offers support to other local schools teaching community languages. Teachers are welcome to observe classes, view resources and schemes of work and learn from good practice including exam board training and how to conduct oral exams. With its status as a Leading Edge school, Plashet demonstrates ways to promote achievement and one particular aspect has been the use of ICT in community language teaching and learning.

Positive impact on students

The success of mainstream and twilight community language classes has brought a steady stream of visitors. This in itself has built confidence in the students who are encouraged to talk freely about their experiences with adult visitors from outside.

Learning a community language has seen an increase in students’ self-confidence. They now demonstrate their skills to parents and relatives and show an interest in community language literature and heritage.

The popularity of the mainstream community language programme has meant that some students ask to be able to take an additional language by studying Urdu or Bengali as a twilight class which could mean taking an 11th GCSE subject. This is often the case for those taking French.

The fact that Plashet offers community languages is also a major reason for parents wanting to send their children to the school, making a definite contribution to its position as a much sought after school.

Challenges

Take up numbers for Panjabi twilight classes have been low. The teacher has had to discontinue and there has been difficulty finding a replacement. Finding suitably qualified teachers for most of the community languages has been one of the biggest challenges for Plashet, although good Urdu teachers are less difficult to find.

It has also been difficult to find good resource materials which has led to teachers having to create and produce their own.

The future

Mrs Nasir plans to continue with the community language programme at Plashet. For example, if the community requested it, she would introduce Somali.

About the School