• To tell the story of the BLTA

• To share some examples of our bilingual approaches

• To discuss issues and possibilities for the future.

Family involvement in education in the Basque Country

• Changing communities – a new Roma community, and refugee families from Burma

Children and young people from ‘A8’ countries on roll in Bradford Schools in June 2009:

• Primary 719• Secondary 470• Special 12• Total 1201

• The majority of the migrant worker families originally came from from Poland, Czech Republic and Slovakia.

• Many of the families originally from the Czech Republic and Slovakia with school age children and young people are from a Roma background.

• Of the families originally from Poland there is a higher proportion of Non – Roma.

• Educational discrimination is nothing new for the Roma. Human rights groups here and abroad have harshly criticized Czech policies that once sent the majority of Romany children to “special” schools for mentally and physically disabled children.

• In 1999, the Budapest-based European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC) issued a report that concluded 75 percent of Czech Romany children were sent to these special schools, versus only 4 percent of non-Romany Czech children.

• “Romany kids were sent there because they were considered handicapped because of their skin colour,” says SOŠSP Vice Principal Tulejová. (Prague Post 23.5.07)

• Changing communities – Roma community, refugee families from Burma

• Working with parents – our Partners in Innovation project

• Mainstream teacher awareness and education – our research (funded by PHF and parallel with Goldsmith’s), also developments in ITT for ‘EAL’ learners

• Making links across for the children as well as parents and teachers