Above and below: The children brought in fridge magnets from all the countries they are from and have been to. They placed them on the world map to share their knowledge of the world and its nations to enable their peers to learn about the different countries they have experienced.

Below: We support our EAL children by clearly modelling target language and explicitly teaching key vocabulary and sentence structures. We provide visual word mats, word cards, and classroom displays to help our children learn subject-specific vocabulary and keywords related to their class topics.

We provide a range of different roleplay areas (for example, a shop), in which the children are offered some ‘guided talk’ with staff. This helps to situate their EAL learning in useful real-life contexts. We also provide one-to-one language support such as reading outdoors to promote speaking and listening skills development.

Above and below: We use a range of objects, pictures, picture dictionaries, diagrams, and actions as visual aids to support our EAL children’s understanding.  

Below: We provide fun and engaging demonstrations and examples of the class tasks for our EAL children so that they can better understand what they need to do.

King’s Hedges provides all its EAL children with a bilingual dictionary so that they can look up and translate new words from their own language into English and vice versa. We communicate with parents through the Home Reading Record, which has lists of keywords and learning schedules for each year group. Also, we provide images of the uniform the children are expected to wear, information on school opening and closing times for each year group, and outlines of upcoming topics so that parents can first discuss the key ideas in their children’s first language at home to reinforce and develop their understanding.

We celebrate and reflect all our children’s different languages and cultural heritage.

                      Below are some examples:

Below are some great resources and activities you can use to support your child’s learning:

General support from the British Council for learning English for primary school children

http://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/

Phonics games

http://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/

Reading activities for primary and pre School

https://www.roythezebra.com/

ESL Lesson Plans, Materials & Activities

http://www.esl-galaxy.com/

Google Translate: Immediate translation of words and phrases into many different languages.

https://translate.google.com/

EAL language resources in 43 home languages and English.

https://flashacademy.com/

An EALwellbeing resource that introduces EAL learners to English vocabulary and language structures. 

https://www.learningvillage.net/free_resources

Develop listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills in English. Resourcesto support Ukrainian families.

https://www.hes.org.uk/Page/16929

EAL – English as an Additional Language

Vision

Excellence is achieved through care, creativity, and challenge.

Intent

We are committed to ensuring that all our learners – including our EAL pupils – feel safe and valued. We are committed to making appropriate provisions for teaching and resources for our EAL pupils and raising achievement among our ethnic minority pupils – who are at the most risk of underachievement. We identify individual pupils’ needs, recognise the skills they bring to school, and ensure equality of access to the curriculum.

Implementation

We support our EAL children in many ways. First, we find that modelling language and explicitly teaching key vocabulary and sentence structures are highly effective teaching methods. We also provide visual word mats, word cards, writing frames, and classroom displays to help children learn subject-specific vocabulary and keywords for their themes. Besides this, we use objects, pictures, picture dictionaries, diagrams, and actions as visual aids to support the children’s understanding. Ultimately, we believe that well-planned mainstream lessons in appropriately organised mainstream classrooms provide the best environment for the acquisition of English by EAL pupils.

Next, we believe it is important that EAL pupils are provided with opportunities to use their home or first language where appropriate. Our school celebrates the different languages our children speak in our classes and the countries they come from throughout all lessons. Our teachers and teaching assistants play a crucial role in modelling the curriculum language. Pupils have one-to-one support as well as group sessions. We provide role-play area where pupils are offered guided talk with staff; we also provide one-to-one support such as reading outdoors to promote speaking and listening skills development.

To maintain student progress, we ensure that the cognitive challenges presented to EAL pupils remain appropriately high and are not reduced because of their English language skills. Supporting our EAL pupils begins when they first arrive at our school when they are assessed and then provided with the correct support. For example, each year group has its own dedicated EAL box featuring general resources to support English acquisition for new speakers. We also provide a range of flashcards and word mats as well as helpful advice and strategies which teachers can use in the classroom. We also have three main language boxes: Polish, Bengali, and Turkish, that contain resources to support children in their first language. Any withdrawal of EAL learners from class is carried out for a specific educational purpose; it is time-based and linked to the work of their mainstream class.

Finally, we encourage pupils to discuss their reading books at home in their own language as well as in English so that their comprehension skills are not held back by decoding the English text.

Impact

EAL pupils are monitored when they first arrive in school and are assessed using an EAL assessment baseline to check their level of understanding and identify how best to support them in class. Feedback is given to teachers of EAL children so they can better support them in class. Each term we assess EAL pupils again to make sure they have made progress and if any extra support is needed. All EAL pupils have made progress since starting our school. The school data shows that EAL pupils acquire spoken and written English quickly and make similar progress to their non-EAL peers in the school. Once an EAL pupil has grasped the basics of English and maths, some make significant progress in all subjects; some are even making more progress than non-EAL pupils.

All EAL pupils leave our school with a foundation in English and Maths skills; some excel in these areas.  We have had EAL pupils with no English at all coming straight from their home countries and joining the school immediately who have left with an expected level of attainment or higher. We have had children that started with no English in Year 4 yet left in Year 6 to attend a private school after passing their entry assessments. This shows our EAL children are making excellent progress and that the correct support and resources are in place for them.