St. Roch's Secondary School: Valuing Ethnic and Cultural Diversity - Discussion Point 7.3
This is an inner city secondary school in an area of multiple social disadvantage. In addition to addressing a wide range of additional support needs, the school also provides for a large number of refugee children from a variety of countries.
This sequence demonstrates the ways in which schools can seize opportunities to welcome and be enriched by the practice of inclusion. This denominational school also demonstrates a striking commitment to a whole and multi-faith community.
Discussion point 7.3
Key themes:
Breaking down barriers to communication
Friendships in mind (PSD)
Religious and cultural sensitivity
Audio file: St. Roch's Secondary School - Discussion Point 7.3 (1.4 MB)Transcript
Tom Gallacher, Assistant Headteacher, St Roch's Secondary School
We include as many of those youngsters in our residential experience as we can.
The youngsters themselves enjoy this. It's an opportunity for them to meet others in the school and it's an opportunity for them to mix with others and many have commented that being in a total immersion of English-speaking environments (if that makes sense) - they find that beneficial because they've got no option but to find out by means of English what is happening.
Nurul, Pupil, St Roch's Secondary School
I enjoyed being away from school because if you live with your friends you can be all independent and you don't have to depend on your parents that much and you can mix around with people that you think - you used to think that you couldn't mix around with. Maybe you think that they're different or something but actually we're all the same and we can all be best friends and stuff.
Rinda, Pupil, St Roch's Secondary School
The activity I really enjoyed was mountain biking because we all get muddy and abseiling, because we get to know each other really well.
Sabina, Pupil, St Roch's Secondary School
I like all the activities because when you don't know something everybody encourages you. It was, like, passing through the small tyres and things, everybody would encourage you just to go on and I got to know everybody. It breaked up the ice!
Tom Gallacher, Assistant Headteacher, St Roch's Secondary School
The youngsters who've been away on the residential experience have really, really enjoyed that part of it. Obviously an aspect of it must be the maintaining of their custom and practice and some allowance has to be made for slightly different practice.
At its most basic this can be that if you've Muslim youngsters then there's halal on offer on the menu and to respect their customs and wishes. As a result of that, this is a two-way benefit because not only do the youngsters have their customs and wishes respected but the native Scots also recognise that and they also respect it and that's an essential element.
On the actual residential experience itself, it's an opportunity for them to do different things; and to see youngsters abseiling is something really to behold. The mixture of fear that goes with their attempts followed by their relief and exhilaration once they have actually achieved the abseiling is quite a nice thing to witness. And the programme of events is built around the needs of all youngsters.
Some of the activities they do involve a fair degree of communication. If they're doing a team task, a team-building task, for example, then you won't do that properly unless they communicate... they're no longer suspicious of one another, so the communication, the team-building is very important.
So all in all I think the residential experience is a challenging thing for anyone to do, to go away like that, even more so when you're going into an environment where the language that's being spoken is not your mother tongue.
Schools sequences and discussion points
| School | Discussion point |
|---|---|
| Stranraer Academy: No turning back | Discussion point 1.1 Discussion point 1.2 Discussion point 1.3 |
| Marlpool Special School: Making connections - opening doors | Discussion point 2.1 |
| Alness Academy: Planning for diversity | Discussion point 3.1 |
| Sandwick School: Working together - a school in community | Discussion point 4.1 Discussion point 4.2 Discussion point 4.3 |
| Cauldeen Primary School: Open for all | Discussion point 5.1 Discussion point 5.2 Discussion point 5.3 |
| Lumphinnans Primary School: Reaching out and reaching in | Discussion point 6.1 Discussion point 6.2 Discussion point 6.3 |
| St. Roch's Secondary School: Valuing Ethnic and Cultural Diversity | Discussion point 7.1 Discussion point 7.2 Discussion point 7.3 Discussion point 7.4 |