Helping Non-English Speaking Parents Support Their Children’s Education

Find out more about non-English speaking families and how to enhance the ability of parents to support their child’s education.

In such a diverse country where over 300 different languages are spoken in British schools – equating to around 900,000 children who do not have English as their first language – it is so important to ensure education is accessible to all. This includes non-English speaking parents who may have been ‘left behind’ to a degree, who cannot speak English whilst their child is able to speak the language. This can result in children struggling to receive the best possible educational support at home, something that every parent wants to provide. For this reason, it is important that non-English speaking parents are given the opportunity to support their children with their education, something that can be enhanced in multiple different ways.

The Basics

One of the most important things to do when it comes to enhancing the ability of a parent to support their children’s education is to ensure local government sites are accessible to them. This includes professionally translated versions of all information pages, as well as some recorded voice overs for digital information videos. Basically, multiple language options of all essential educational information has to be available so that the basics can be accessed by parents.

Parent – Teacher Relationships

It is a challenge for teachers to effectively nurture a positive relationship with parents who may not speak the same language. To some degree, children can translate and accommodate communication exchanges. However, it is important not to rely on the child as a key communicator and instead, ensure that multiple language versions of different pieces of information are available. This could be a translated version of the curriculum breakdown, online digital versions of letters that can be translated, and something as simple as alerts sent with a translation button so that parents are always kept in the loop, whichever language they speak. This article from Education Week is a really helpful overview of ways to support non-English speaking parents as a teacher. It’s relevant to America but has some great universal tips to checkout.

Encouraging English Learning

It is essential to encourage English learning by non-English parents to ease their ability to support their child’s education. It helps to take the pressure off the children to facilitate interactions where there is a language barrier.

This Migrant Help UK website has an excellent list of free and low cost resources for English learning that can be accessed really easily. Most importantly, the website itself has an easy multiple language button you can use which helps non-English speakers navigate the site with ease.

Consider Utilising A Professional Language Service For Help

If you want to improve your own resources to help non-English speaking parents support their child’s education, consider utilising a high-quality, professional language company like Matinee. They can offer professional translation, transcription and voice overs in a huge range of languages, all at a competitive price. It’s a great step towards ensuring that parents can provide the support that they so naturally want to provide to their children as they go through education in the UK.