Case Study

Introduction

Shpresa, which means 'hope' in Albanian, was set up in 2003 to meet the needs of the Albanian speaking community in East London. They organise Albanian language classes and a range of dance, drama, sporting and cultural activities for children and young people aged 5 to 14 in after-school, weekend and holiday programmes. In total, about 300 children attend these classes. They also provide opportunities for young people to perform in public at cultural events to a range of audiences. They carry out these activities not only on their own premises but, significantly, in close partnership with the 9 different maintained schools with which they work.

The project aims to:

• Improve children’s language and literacy skills in Albanian
• Improve children’s attainment in their mainstream school
• Improve parent/child communication within the family
• Improve parent/teacher communication
• Raise awareness of Albanian culture in the community

Identifying partner schools

Partner schools have been identified in different ways. Shpresa may become aware of schools with numbers of Albanian speaking children through discussion with people who attend centre-based activities. In some cases, the school has heard of Shpresa and approached them. The partnership involves an arrangement between Shpresa and the school, which generally involves a written agreement of terms and conditions for use of school premises, but not normally a formal contract.

A file is maintained in the Shpresa office for each school. This includes a Health and Safety General Risk Assessment for use of the premises, a record of the school’s conditions of hire and/or use, any relevant documents or correspondence and membership/information forms for all children who attend classes in that particular school.

All schools currently in partnership provide the use of their premises and facilities free in exchange for which Shpresa provides teaching and cultural activities in Albanian for children, young people and women according to the need identified from within the Albanian community. It will also provide an input into assemblies, free performances in the school for festivals or for Refugee Week and other special events. Schools may offer the use of premises at week-ends, on week-day evenings, or for lunch-time clubs.

Gascoigne Primary School

As mentioned, Shpresa works in partnership with 9 different maintained schools, but in this case study, we focus on one of them: Gascoigne Primary School in the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham. When Shpresa approached Gascoigne to offer its services to the 100 Albanian speaking children on roll, the head, Bob Garton, was cautious. He explains,

‘I was very wary in the beginning because I had lots of parents’ groups in the past. The idea is always very good, I am very positive, but it can mean an awful lot of work for the school. Parent groups often come with good ideas but they want the school to do an awful lot, which is rather hard after a day’s teaching.’

Bob agreed to work in partnership with Shpresa for a trial period of three months and the first thing he found out was that the organisation is extremely competent.

He says, ‘I understood straight away that they knew what they were doing; they had all the CRB checks. I knew it was an organisation that had done this before, that knew exactly what to do and that I wouldn’t have to spend a lot of time going through that sort of thing with them.’

He is enthusiastic about the benefits of the partnership and hopes to expand the joint activities.

While there is no formal written agreement between Shpresa and the school, the rules of the partnership are very clear. In return for free use of the premises and facilities on one day a week after school until 7pm, Shpresa runs an after school club for 50 children. This includes lessons in Albanian and classes in traditional dancing. Non-Albanian speaking children are also welcome.

In addition Shpresa will work with parents to enable them to support their children more effectively and to get more closely involved with the life of the school. They will organise special events and prepare the children for performances in assembly and in front of wider audiences on occasions such as Refugee Week. Another part of the agreement is that Shpresa ensures that school property is respected at all times and that everything is put back and left clean. The Headteacher confirms that there is no evidence on the next day of the group’s presence the night before and that he has had no complaints from staff.

Impact on the Albanian children of Gascoigne School

Sonia Walker, the Ethnic Minority Achievement co-ordinator in the school, reports the change that Shpresa has made to the children’s pride in their cultural identity.

‘They talk about the club and the things that they have done and they really love going out to perform in other schools. The children talk about Albania, dancing, and their culture and wanting to fit in to the community here.’

The Headteacher confirms the very positive effect on the children’s self-esteem of experiencing their culture valued in school. He hopes that the value parents place on the partnership may encourage families to avoid moving away and thus reduce some of the school’s considerable pupil mobility problem.

Sonia Walker has also noted that the parents are now very keen to support their children as much as they can and several attend an after-school support club to get advice.

While the evidence of impact on self-esteem and parental involvement is strong, the school is seeking to provide evidence of the impact of participating in Shpresa activities and learning Albanian on the academic achievement of the children. A formal study is in planning, in collaboration with the School of Education at the University of East London.

Bob Garton comments about his partnership with Shpresa,

‘All I have got for them is praise. As a model of how things work, it’s a very good model. I could convince other schools as well. All I get is really good pay-back for it, in community relations, parental relations and during an Ofsted inspection, for example. I am more than happy. There are no disadvantages.’

Additional Information

The director of Shpresa will be joining Gascoigne School’s Board of Governors as a community representative. In addition to the complementary school classes, Shpresa has three other main programmes; a youth project, a women’s project and a resettlement project which works to develop the skills of volunteers and to deploy them in the community.

About the Schools