Case Study

Introduction

The Aayatiin Foundation, a member led community organisation, was established in July 2005 with the aim of improving educational opportunities for the Southwest London Somali community. It serves a total of 80 children and operates 5 days a week, including weekends. When the foundation was established it focused on providing study support, homework clubs, religious, cultural and youth development initiatives, using the Somali language, for children between the ages of 6-16 years old. Over the years the Foundation has developed to serve the whole Somali community, advising on education, training, employment, mentoring and helping recently arrived members to integrate into British society.

Raising awareness of community languages

With the aim of enhancing the profile and raising awareness of community languages teaching and learning and to promote partnerships between supplementary and mainstream schools, the Aayatiin Foundation has undertaken a survey. Two questionnaires were drawn up and distributed across a number of different geographical areas and included mainstream schools, supplementary schools and community centres.

The first questionnaire aimed to collect general information such as the pupils' names, the name of mainstream schools they attend, the locality of the mainstream school and which key stages the students were in. It also asked about which community languages were spoken by students.

Mainstream schools were also asked about their provision for community languages, as part of the core curriculum, and students were asked how important they thought it was to be able to read, write and speak their heritage language or to be able to access history, culture and/or religious knowledge in their own language.

The questionnaire asked students to prioritise items on a ‘wish list’ of different forms of support. A number of possible forms of support were given including:

• focused study support
• homework clubs using community languages
• strengthening community language skills & cultural heritage
• a culturally sensitive national curriculum reflecting diversity
• challenging racism and bullying
• mentoring, confidence and self-esteem building activities,
• parental awareness (how parents and children could support one another)
• role models
• ways of tackling school exclusion

A similar survey is currently being developed to establish parents’ and carers’ views on the community language. The over-riding objective is to raise the profile of the project within the community.

Outcome

About 113 respondents, mainly from the Somali community took part in the survey and the analysis, which at the time of writing, is still being undertaken. However, the preliminary findings establish that over 87% of the children value their community language. Over 67% of the children said they may study and subsequently take exams in the language in the future. The most popular languages that respondents stated taking in schools were French, Spanish and Arabic.

Two focus groups were put together, with the intention of raising and strengthening the profile of the Somali language. The focus groups targeted parents who were anxious about maintaining heritage language skills, gaps in cultural knowledge of the heritage country and the low attainment of their children. They also addressed issues such as the role supplementary schools can play in raising the overall level of achievement among pupils, in supporting community language teaching and in developing strategies to strengthen and support the use of community languages. Most of the participants stated the need for a balance between languages and the inclusion of less advocated commonly taught community languages in the national curriculum.

About the School