Two BA Childhood Practice (BACP) students, Jennifer Walker and Siobhan Douglas, presented at the School of Education KINDIMI conference last year. They were given the opportunity to visit the final event of the project in Uppsala, Sweden in October and as a result of this were then invited to present at a national event organised by the SSSC on 6 June.
Jennfier and Siobhan noted, ‘While at the conference in October we met some wonderful people and could identify what inclusion means to everyone within the team. We both agree that the passion and enthusiasm shown from these professionals really made an impact on our outlook.
The conference has changed our practice in different ways but one thing we both identified and have shared with our settings is how it must feel to be surrounded by people who are speaking in a different language. Why not put yourself in someone else’s shoes….. Try this, gather your colleagues at the next staff meeting and play a video to them in a language that no one knows. Then ask them how they felt?
From our experience of being in another country we are able to say that we felt distracted, a little scared and not very knowledgeable. This then gave us the realisation of how children and families who use our settings who don’t speak English must feel when we are perhaps reading a story, playing a game, or when speaking to parents about their child’s learning and development.
Furthermore, we have learned so much about inclusion and how to support migrant families in our communities and we just want to say thank you to everyone for allowing us to extend our learning. We hope we can continue to support others in how to include children and their families.’
Their presentation is now available to view as a Webinar on the official KINDINMI Blog.