UKLA is delighted to announce the Winner of The Brenda Eastwood Award 2021.
Now in its third year, the award is in memory of a much-loved friend and colleague. The Brenda Eastwood Award for good practice in teaching for diversity and inclusion invites UKLA members to nominate schools, early years practitioners, teachers, Higher Education (HE) tutors, consultants or librarians who have shown good practice in empowering children to respect and appreciate diversity.
The 2021 winner is:
Dr Su Li Chong, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Management and Humanities, Institute of Self Sustainable Building, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS (UTP), Malaysia and Head of UTP’s University Social Responsibility (Education Pillar)
https://stream-readingduobookreview.simplesite.com/
http://streamreadingduo.simplesite.com/
The multilingual, multiethnic and multicultural work completed by Dr Su Li Chong was in encouraging and inspiring families to read together. Families with children in the early years, primary and secondary ages read during the global pandemic declared by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in 2020. They read in their Heritage Languages and submitted short video clips of their activities demonstrating excellent learning and reading for enjoyment across the curriculum.
Instructions provided for reading together in 2020 and writing a literature review in 2021 were clearly and professionally presented with appropriate humour by Dr Su Li Chong. Children and families were encouraged to have fun and reminded that ‘Families who read together, stay together’
The members of the panel were impressed with the cross-cultural work which demonstrated impact on practice and provided families with a voice and choice.
The panel also have much pleasure in Highly Commending Altmore Infant School in the London Borough of Newham for their Reading Café to promote reading at home and at school.
https://www.altmore.newham.sch.uk/page/?title=Reading+Cafe&pid=101
The vision, energy and commitment of the staff, children, parents and carers of Altmore Infant School displayed exemplary practice of learning and teaching in multicultural and multilingual classrooms. The Reading Café encouraged reading for pleasure and conversations about books. 55 languages are spoken in the school community. The impact of the whole school literacy rich environment demonstrated strong home/school links. Staff, children and parents continued their reading journey during the national Lockdown due to the global pandemic (WHO, 2020). This was commendable The video clip shared of a parent reading to their offspring in their heritage language was an excellent example of dialogic talk which the school models during the termly Reading cafes for parents and carers.
The members of the panel would like to express their gratitude to the UKLA members Gabrielle Cliff Hodges and Christine Lockwood who nominated
Dr Su Li Chong and Altmore Infant school, respectively.
Janet Douglas Gardner Panel Chair writes: I express my gratitude to all the participants for this UKLA award.
The nominees demonstrated their knowledge, understanding and engagement with inclusion and diversity at local, national, and international levels.
The members of the panel agreed that diversity and inclusion of teaching and learning was embedded in practice with young people in the early years, primary and secondary classrooms and beyond. The nominees found innovative ways to ensure that the love of literacy continued throughout the challenge of the Global Pandemic (WHO, 2020).
The winner and highly commended school are invited to present their practice at the UKLA International Conference on Saturday July 3rd during Parallel session I10
Panel: Janet Douglas Gardner (chair), Dr Christine Callender, Dr Liz Chamberlain, Lorraine Hunte, Dr Sabine Little, Shaheen Parekh, Dr Cheryl Diane Parkinson, Farrah Serroukh, Elizabeth Ward.
