Date and venue of the event: 10-11 November 2022, online workshop
Local organiser: Pernilla Sundström Fast, Head of Unit, Swedish National Agency for Education / National Curricula/ Pre-school and Compulsory School
Experts and moderators: Nermina Wikström, Director of Education, Swedish National Agency for Education / National Curricula/ Pre-school and Compulsory School, and Katri Kuukka, Counsellor of Education, Finnish National Agency for Education.
Participants: More than 40 primary and secondary school teachers in the different school subjects, school leaders, policymakers and decision-takers.
The Swedish National Agency for Education and the European Centre for Modern Languages (ECML) organised a 2-day workshop entitled “Supporting the language(s) of schooling – The ROADMAP ” as the online session.
The workshop took place on the 10th and 11th of November 2022 and was attended by more than 40 participants who showed a great interest and dedication in the topic. The aim of the experts and moderators, Nermina Wikström and Katri Kuukka, was to give the participants an overview of the Roadmap project, including a presentation of the outcomes of the project, while conducting a training session focusing the hands-on activities related to language development. During the workshop the participants had the opportunity to see some examples of promising practices, use the self-assessment tool in practice, get to know the Roadmap database and to set up the outlines of a school development plan for their own school.
Since sharing thoughts and experiences was an important part of the workshop, the participants had the possibility to discuss different topics in pairs and in smaller groups. The participants discussed the role of language(s) of schooling as a backbone of education as well as the challenges of plurilingual and intercultural education. Other topics were the importance of adapting a whole-school approach, school culture and leadership, the key ideas of the Roadmap-project and benefits for the school, areas and dimensions, self-assessment tool and guide, survey statements and customized school report.
The workshop aimed to provide a “learning by doing-opportunity” as the participants familiarized themselves with the different parts of the user-friendly Roadmap-material, sharing their findings in the common work platform Padlet.
This two-day online workshop received favourable comments from the participants, who stated that they advanced their knowledge and skills, exchanged opinions within the working groups and with the experts and shared ideas and experiences concerning their own involvement in the work with language(s) of schooling. According to the participants` evaluation the workshop provided a good combination of activities and information. The participants found the presented approach and materials very useful for their practice.
In conclusion, it has been a privilege for the Swedish National Agency for Education to take part in this project and to contribute to the Roadmap with our expertise. We are very satisfied with the outcome, and we believe that this workshop will contribute in the most positive way to support the language(s) of schooling. We would like to take the opportunity to thank the European Centre for Modern Languages (ECML) for all the support we have been given in organising the workshop in Sweden.
For those countries which have not yet had the opportunity to host this workshop, we strongly recommend it. It was great fun!
Pernilla Sundström Fast
