Project Summary
Volunteers from the Home Office worked with Primary School children to create welcome books in several languages for new children and parents who join the school.
Background
Many children arrive in Westminster schools with little or no English, in strange surroundings, overawed by the change in their lives. Children can feel like an 'outsider', which can lead to more serious issues. The 'Welcome to My School' project was developed so that a volunteer team could have a rewarding and moving experience whilst helping to create an environment where EAL (English as Second Language) children will feel that their mother-tongue is celebrated by adults within their school environment.
Project details
The Home Office’s General Executive Board (GEB), a team of eight, was invited to work in pairs, with three children each. Each team was assigned to create a hand-made book in a specific language – Portuguese, Albanian and Arabic.
They began by going around the school with the children, taking photographs. Then, together they planned the layout of the book, putting together printed photos, drawings and texts (the texts had been prepared by parents beforehand in the particular language) to produce the final book.
Time & Talents for Westminster brought together Home Office Volunteers, Primary School staff, children and parents as well as the expertise of Community Service Volunteers in order to deliver this project.
This project has been replicated a number of times in different schools with other employer partners involved.
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° Home Office General Executive Board had unique team building experience working with one another in new environment
° Skill development: communication skills developed through collaborating with children, school staff and other organisations to a tight deadline
° Legacy: volunteers gained experience-based insight into relevant policy issues
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° Primary School students had an incredible creative experience working together with adults on a serious project
° Parents had the opportunity to get involved with the school activity, and using their mother-tongue
° Legacy: Three heart-warming, hand-made welcome-books were produced for newcomer children and parents |
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Quotes
Home Office volunteer: "The highlight was being organised by the children and getting a result!"
Home Office volunteer: "Realising I found 1.5 children for 1.5 hours really hard work – and teachers have to do it all the time with far more children for far more hours – it really tested my negotiating skills!"
Home Office volunteer: "Good to spend time together in a completely different context building our team working skills"
School Arts Coordinator: “Being an inner city school we have many challenging children in classes with emotional and behavioural problems. For them it is a very special chance to have someone with them who is not an authority figure; someone listening to them and encouraging them, giving them positive attention and raising their self-esteem.”
Opp ID: WST 3337 |
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"The project has great potential for the future, for other groups to work on in other languages in the same school or in different schools"
Volunteer, Home Office |
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Get involved
Get in touch with us; we can help you organise a similar project in a local Westminster school
Sir John Gieve, Home Office, designs the book in the school computer IT lab together with his team of students. Click here to see full photo set
The books are multi-lingual and designed as Welcome Books for new students in the school for whom English is not their first language.
Skills Shared
- Inter-organisational, cross-sector joint project development
- Negotiating skills for both adults and children
- Creative skills
- Cultural symbols and significances shared
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Challenges
- Getting so many things done in a short space of time
- Planning groupings/teams
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