On Friday, 9 February, twenty-four educators from a range of organisations including St Mary’s University College, Conway Education Centre, the Falls Women’s Centre, the West Belfast Partnership Board and Whiterock Children’s Centre, participated in a professional development workshop entitled “Working with Newcomer Pupils” at the College. The event was organised by the Full Service Community Network in partnership with International House Belfast.

The overall aim of the workshop was to provide educators with a toolkit for helping newcomer pupils to develop their English-language skills to be better equipped to participate fully in the Northern Ireland school curriculum. An interactive approach provided participants with practical teaching ideas that could be introduced into the classroom. The following topics were covered:

• developing reading and writing skills for newcomer pupils who have experienced different scripts
• grading language
• checking understanding
• asking questions

Overall, this was a very successful event which participants described as “thoroughly enjoyable”, “thought provoking” and “practical and very relevant to teaching in our changing multicultural community”.