UK Boarding schools – gearing up to meet international students’ cultural needs.
Moving half away around the world to study or work at any age is a daunting experience, but for boarding school pupils leaving home for the first time, the experience must often be utterly bewildering.
Therefore, schools that go the extra mile to try to make pupils feel welcome and to help make home feel is not quite so far away deserve credit.
The role of the agent is also crucial, right at the start of the school selection process, finding the right school or college for each young person. Only the agent has the detailed knowledge of each family to understand what cultural issues are important and to understand that each family is different and has unique requirements.
Making sure the schools shortlisted for consideration by each family fully match the cultural and more broadly, therefore, the child’s future pastoral needs are arguably the most important considerations for any reputable agent.
Pat Moores, Director of UK Education Guide.
So, what are the important cultural issues to consider? I’ll highlight some key issues with examples provided by schools around the UK.
Making sure nothing is lost in translation…
Kingsley School has a dozen or so South Korean pupils who benefit from having a Korean national working as a student support worker. Key work involves being very visible in the boarding houses and teaching some EAL to ensure regular contact with all the Korean pupils. As Pete Last, Headmaster at Kingsley, says, “She [the student support worker] also acts as a wonderful conduit for the transmission of information from home to school and vice-versa to ensure that we keep fully up to date on any issues the children are having that they may struggle to explain to us in their second language.”
Celebrating different cultures
Of course, most schools support the major religious festivals of Diwali, Ramadan and Chinese New Year, but it is important for all nationalities to feel welcome and that their unique cultures are celebrated.
Kings Education Group: their Oxford College last year arranged festivities around Nowruz, the Iranian New Year. The college asked their Iranian students to come up with some ideas about how they would like to celebrate the occasion, with activities including decorating the cafeteria, having the New Year count down live on a big screen, and enjoying Persian music and dancing, which all students were encouraged to take part in.
One of Kings’ Iranian students, Maryam Aghaei, commented, “As an Iranian, Norooz and Persian New Year are very important for me and it was really great that Kings let us celebrate our new year at school and share our happiness with other international students. Although I was far from my family, it was such a good new year celebration with my friends.”
D’Overbroeck’s: One strand of d’Overbroeck’s CPD for staff across the school is focused specifically on cultural awareness and as part of this, students from different regions around the world run workshops for staff. It is extraordinarily useful for staff to hear first-hand of the challenges for some students – for example to hear how daunting it can be speaking up in class (especially in a second language) for the first time and of being asked to evaluate ideas and challenge their own understanding.
A taste of home…
Brooke House College Principal, Mike Oliver: “We have an international day each year where pupils perform songs and/or dances from their own country, dressed in their national costumes After the show, we then meet up to eat food from all over the world, mostly cooked by the pupils themselves. It is a great day and allows every pupil to remember their home, culture and to share it with the other pupils in the school.”
Celebrating and valuing the ‘first language’ of international students
Cardiff Sixth Form College Principal, Gareth Collier: “Often the requirement to use English as the language of education and our constant reminders to use it at every opportunity can make it seem as if students’ own languages need to be used in secrecy or privacy.
Creating ‘home language zones’ and ‘cultural conversation times’ in the boarding houses has allowed students to speak openly and freely in their own languages and discuss things culturally which are difficult to do in English. The use of English in the classroom and for academic purposes is actually enhanced rather than diluted, as there is a clear outlet for their own language away from the academic zone.”
BAISIS (British Association of Independent Schools with International Students) General Secretary, Caroline Nixon: “In the past, international parents expected and wanted a child going to a British boarding school to become immersed in British culture. This attitude is changing and parents understand that the future is international and global. It is important that international children not only retain their cultural identity but also their native language, otherwise that language will fossilise at the point that they came to the UK. Parents are starting to aim for additive bilingualism.”
Felsted School pairs up newly arrived students, who need to develop their English competency, with an older student whose first language is the same as their own, to provide help and support. The motivation to join in with their peers encourages fluency and the supportive school environment means that linguistic errors are viewed simply as an opportunity for learning, not humiliation.
Decoding English culture and language
King’s School Canterbury Joint Principal, Bill Prior: “We don’t make things easy for international students and one of our jobs is to explain why we have different words for English words they might already think they know. For example, why homework is called ‘prep’. We also organise mini British cultural workshops: what different kinds of cheese taste like; how to tie a tie; how to love (or hate) Marmite on toast.
Bishopstrow College has ‘Phrase of the Week’ as part of their curriculum. This is a typical British phrase such as ‘in the same boat’ or ‘knocking your head against a brick wall’ which is totally incomprehensible to an international student who is learning English as a second or third language. Getting to grips with these idioms is part of helping students feel part of British life and helps build confidence.
The full article is published here in StudyTravel magazine
https://studytravel.network/magazine/news/2/26488
For more information about the schools featured in the article