Renaisi is working with Children England to run a half-day conference in Islington on 31 March 2014, which will look at innovative ways in which schools can work with their local communities in order to encourage parental engagement and raise attainment. Book here: http://subscribercrm.childrenengland.org.uk/Event-Booking/EventId/1048

1. London Schools Conference: Programme
13.00-13.30 Arrival and Registration
13.30-13.40 Welcome and House-Keeping
Emma Brech, Development Manager, Renaisi
13.40-13.50 Opening Address: Barrie O’Shea, Head Teacher & Chair of Islington Schools’ Forum
13.50-15.00 Speakers:
1. Integration, Education and Welfare: Overview of Current Challenges
Alessio D’Angelo – Senior Lecturer in Social Sciences, SPRC, Middlesex University
2. Creative Approaches to Raising the Achievement of Pupils with English as an
Additional Language (EAL)
Kate Birch - Assistant Headteacher, IAMS Secondary School
Diana Sutton - Director, The Bell Foundation
3. Meeting Community Needs and Engaging Parents: What Works?
Mustapha Jama and Reba Rahman – Renaisi Bilingual Parent Support Advisers
15.00-15.20 BREAK Tea, coffee and community-made snacks are available in the canteen area
15.20-16.00 Workshops: Please decide on 1 from the following 3 options and fill in the attached form.
o Welfare reform: understanding impact, signposting to advice
Advising Islington Together
This workshop looks at current welfare reform and asks how this is impacting upon migrant parents.
What services are there to help, how can parents access advice and what do we do about language?
o Engaging parents across cultures and languages
Renaisi
How do schools engage parents who are newly arrived and/or don’t speak English? What skills are
needed to invite parents in and what do we mean by ‘cross-cultural awareness?’ What role do
community organizations and supplementary schools play in supporting and empowering parents?
o EAL: classroom strategies and professional development for teachers
Bell Foundation
This workshop looks at EAL strategies within the classroom. What skills are needed to ensure that EAL
pupils fulfil their potential, and do teachers feel confident in meeting their needs?
16.00-16.10 Plenary Feedback from workshops
16.10-16.30 Closing Speaker:
Innovation and Commissioning: Challenges and Opportunities in Creating a Community Hub
Sharon Long – Regional Manager, Children England
16.30 Close

2. Speaker Biographies
Alessio D’Angelo
Alessio D’Angelo (http://alessiodangelo.wordpress.com/) is a Senior Lecturer in Social Sciences at Middlesex University.
He has extensive experience in conducting research on a wide range of areas, including migration studies, ethnic
diversity and identity, community organisations, service provision and social exclusion. Recent research projects include
large grants from the European Commission, The Big Lottery Fund, the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), the
Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), as well as research commissioned by Local Authorities, public bodies and
charitable organisations. He is experienced in both quantitative and qualitative research methods, with particular
expertise on social statistics, data mapping and spatial analysis. In the last few years Alessio has been working on a
number of projects focusing on the experiences of migrant and minority ethnic pupils in schools, including two projects
on ‘Polish Children in London Primary Schools’, one on ‘Newly arrived migrant and refugee children in the British
educational system’, the production of a ‘Guide to Schooling in England for Newly Arrived Migrant Parents’ and, most
recently, a series of London based studies on supplementary education services provided by community organisations.
He has also been actively involved in organising dissemination, knowledge exchange and networking opportunities for
practitioners, including several initiatives with teachers and educationalists. Alessio is currently working on a EU project
on 'Reducing Early School Leaving' (www.resl-eu.org<http://www.resl-eu.org/>) coordinating a large scale survey with
secondary school pupils across 7 European countries.
Diana Sutton
Diana Sutton is Director of The Bell Foundation based in Cambridge, a role which she started in September 2011. The
Bell Foundation works to change lives and overcome exclusion through language education in the UK and is working in
two thematic areas, children with English as an additional language and offenders. The Foundation has a number of
partnerships with schools and universities working at both a practical level and on academic research. Find out more at
www.bell-foundation.org.uk. Diana has worked for over 25 years in UK and international charities in different senior
management, policy, public affairs and campaigning roles which included as Head of Policy and Public Affairs for the
NSPCC and previously as Head of Save the Children’s office in Brussels. Diana was a Trustee of the Children's Rights
Alliance for England from 2006-2013.
Sharon Long
Sharon Long is the London Regional Manager for Children England managing both the Engage London
programme http://www.childrenengland.org.uk/engagelondon/ also Safe
Network http://www.safenetwork.org.uk/Pages/default.aspx delivery across the region. As part of this role, Sharon has
co-ordinated a national and region programme of work to support the voluntary and community engage with school
more effectively, this has covered policy group meetings and also training programmes on understanding the context for
schools, through this work Children England via Engage London have produced a resource called School
Daze http://www.childrenengland.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/School-Daze-A-guide-to-creating-effective-
partnerships-with-schools.pdf. Sharon is also chair of governors at a Lewisham primary school which was recently rated
as Outstanding by Ofsted
Advising Islington Together
Advising Islington Together is a Big Lottery funded project that aims to help advice organisations collaborate
effectively with each other and to improve outcomes for those seeking advice in the borough. Through this initiative
we want to ensure that local advice organisations can share expertise and to make quick and effective referrals. A
key objective is to support the development of new funding streams at a time of unprecedented cuts in public
spending.

3. Islington has a strong advice services for residents and we want Advising Islington Together to build on this. The
project offers a unique opportunity to allow agencies to review current provision, to think from a client’s perspective
about how it can be improved, and to develop and evaluate new ways of working.
The three main project partners for Advising Islington Together are:
Reba Rahman – Bilingual Parent Support Adviser (Bengali)
Reba started her work in schools as a Special Educational Needs Teaching Assistant at Highbury Quadrant Primary School
where she provided bi-lingual community support work involving Bengali parents in their child’s education.
She joined Cambridge Education @Islington as a Bilingual Parent Support Advisor in 2006 and has organized many
different workshops to benefit parents and communities, (see below). Significantly, she was involved in the
development and co-ordination of the first Bangladeshi conference organised by Ethnic Minority Achievement Service
(EMAS), recruiting parents and ensuring the conference was a success.
Reba’s skills as BPSA include 1-1 advice and support, early years work parents and children new to the school, running
coffee mornings , cooking sessions and sewing clubs, as well as several very popular Bollywood Dance groups, which
perform regularly within International Evenings and at local community events.
Mustapha Jama – Bilingual Parent Support Adviser (Somali)
Mustapha is a Bilingual Parent Support Adviser at Elizabeth Garret Anderson secondary school and Gillespie, Ambler , Highbury
Quadrant and Duncombe Primary Schools in Islington. He has 6 years’ experience as a BPSA supporting parents and children to
engage in school. He is also a qualified facilitator on the Strengthening Families, Strengthening Communities (SFSC) parenting
programme and has run a number of successful programmes within schools.
With a passion for football he is a qualified FA level 1 football coach and runs a lunchtime football club for children and young people.
Most recently, Mustapha has been involved in the Bilingual Storytelling Project, working across his four primary schools to make create
community stories with parents and children.