The aim of intercultural competence is to prepare children to become curious, open-minded citizens who can live their lives positively with cultural diversity as the norm.

Intercultural competence is made up of knowledge, skills, attitudes and awareness. Knowledge includes facts about a culture and knowing how to behave in a culturally appropriate way. Skills include the ability to interact with people respectfully, and to find out things about another culture. Attitudes include a willingness to see things from another point of view. Awareness includes having a sense of your own identity and being able to relate another culture to your own.

In lower primary your approach needs to focus on getting children to participate in pleasurable cultural activities such as songs and games that may be similar to ones they know in their home language(s). As children develop, intercultural competence includes comparing and contrasting aspects of culture from the English-speaking world with their own. It also extends to learning about diverse cultures in the wider world and opportunities to interact in an intercultural communicative context.

In my experience, the starting point for developing intercultural competence is often in children's own classrooms where pupils from different ethnic, cultural, social and language backgrounds work and play together.

My key tips for intercultural competence are:

• 41 Integrate culture appropriately

• 42 Compare and contrast cultures

• 43 Explore culture in the wider world

• 44 Value children's multilingual identities

41 Integrate culture appropriately

In lower primary, the integration of traditional songs, rhymes, games and stories encourages children to join in activities that may be familiar from their home languages. Traditional counting songs, which exist in many languages, such as Five little ducks, are examples of this, where holding up fingers to count and acting out the songs, promotes engagement as well as gives exposure to meaningful language.

Traditional rhymes, such as Incy Wincy Spider, provide exposure to different sounds, rhythm and stress patterns, and contribute to children's pronunciation and literacy development.