Principal: "The aid must be deployed as early as possible"

The mill's school in Örebro is a small F-3 school with more than 130 pupils. At school, 95 per cent of the pupils have a different mother tongue than Swedish and in recent years many children who have recently come to Sweden have also received.

SVT News has reported on the support effort for study guidance in mother tongue, which has become increasingly important as the proportion of pupils in compulsory school who recently immigrated to Sweden has increased significantly.

However, the quality and availability of support varies widely across the country and many children do not receive the help they are entitled to.

But at the School of Nursing, study guidance in the mother tongue has been given priority.

An important reason is that the school's acting principal, Tamar Ucar, previously worked as a study supervisor.

- Imagine that you come to a country where you cannot know the language and that you have to attend a lesson about the human body, which you can still share. But since you do not master the language, you still sit there for 40 minutes and only guess what the teacher says. But if you have received study guidance before and learned a few words and concepts in the new language, you are much better off, says Tamar Ucar.

- We have students who have a lot of knowledge, they have a lot with them from their home country. But language stops them from expressing their knowledge. But the study guide gives them a chance to show what they can while helping to acquire new knowledge.

Tamar Ucar also believes that the earlier the study guide is inserted the better.

- If a student needs support in grades four or five and does not receive it until they have failed several times, we are a little late.

Susanna Mkrtchyan works as a study supervisor and mother tongue teacher in Russian and Armenian languages ​​at the Mill School.

Today she has study guidance with newly arrived Ariyan, 9 years.

Together, they go through the teacher's material for a lesson on traffic that the class will have next week. They work with different traffic rules and with what dangers there are in traffic.

- It is ... important ... to know what to ... think about ... for the road to school to be ... safe, Ariyan reads slowly.

As a study supervisor, what help do you need from the teacher to do a good job?

- You must have a good cooperation between subject teachers and study supervisors. It is good to get material from the teacher on time so that you can prepare the student for the upcoming lesson, says Susanna.

They go through important concepts and words in Swedish that Ariyan is then allowed to write down in Russian, which is his native language.

Study guidance in the mother tongue can be done before, after or during a lesson.

- With Ariyan we sit before the lesson because he has so hard to understand Swedish. If we prepare well he will already know everything and maybe also be able to say something out loud to the class - it will be easier for him.