About Intercultural Education Service

The Intercultural Education Service (IES) is available free of charge to all schools across Northern Ireland.  IES aims to support Asylum-Seeking, Refugee, Traveller, Roma and other Newcomer pupils and their parents in accessing education.  We provide advice, guidance and focused support to schools, families, and other educational support services to help meet the Education Authority mission:

"To give our children and young people the best start in life and to provide a high-quality education for every child"

IES works with parents, families, schools, educational support services and various multi-disciplinary agencies to help meet the additional educational needs of children within Traveller, Asylum Seeking, Refugee, Roma and other Newcomer families.

We work with schools and families to help reduce or remove barriers to education and we help schools create inclusive environments where every child can succeed.

Our services include:

• Family Support: parental engagement including supportive school and/or home visits, help with school enrolment, free school meals, uniform and transport applications.
• School Support: guidance on teaching, learning, curriculum, parental engagement and other minority support resources such as the Newcomer Good Practice Guide and our digital ‘Toolkits for Diversity’ (pre-school and primary school).
• Training: trauma-informed practice, guidance on how to use the CEFR language assessment tools, cultural awareness materials including distinct ethnic minorities such as Roma and Traveller communities.
• Collaboration: working with EA services such as Education Welfare, Child Protection, Behaviour Support, Education Psychology, and Special Educational Needs to provide joined up assistance to schools and families.

We have a number of related objectives that align with our values as an intercultural team:

• To help meet the learning needs of our children and young people with additional needs;
• To help develop excellent educational supports for our schools and target communities;
• To provide a consistent service to schools and families in need of support across Northern Ireland;
• To help advise and guide our families with additional needs in their transitions from pre-school to primary, from primary to secondary, and then secondary into post-16 education;
• To build the capacity of schools to meet the intercultural development needs of children and young people;
• To promote whole school approaches to service development;
• To help encourage families to take up any available family learning, out of school hours learning and/or life-long learning opportunities.

Our service delivery plan outlines how IES will provide a comprehensive set of support activities, which are intended to help us achieve the objectives set out above.