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An opportunity: The number of pupils using EAL in our school was low until recently. As numbers have increased we've been looking for guidance on how to best support these pupils. Something we've found helpful is networking with other schools in the area.

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A challenge: We would love to invest in some dual language books and multilingual resources but simply don't have the budget. Any ideas?

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A challenge: we would love to allocate more time to EAL training. We have had x2 CPD sessions (led by myself using readings and research from The Bell Foundation) and I would like to include more opportunities for staff but we have a tight CPD timetable with other subjects and school improvement priorities. I've asked for EAL to be a continuing factor in maths and English INSETs. Any other solutions?

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Our parent community have low literacy levels and are at the earlier stages of language acquisition than their children. We already use our parent community to support one another with trip forms but we still have some reluctance. It was hard to ensure parents knew to apply for secondary school places. What strategies did you use?

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With high numbers of EAL students across the school, student assessment and providing accurate data is quite a challenge. How often do other EAL Co-ordinators update their EAL data and assess their EAL students and what assessment tools do you use?

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With high numbers of EAL students across the school, student assessment and providing accurate data is quite a challenge. How often do other EAL Co-ordinators update their EAL data and assess their EAL students and what assessment tools do you use?

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Mark N Low EAL percentages and poor parental engagement

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Mark N Low EAL percentages and poor parental engagement

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A challenge - As a school we have a small percentage (4.3%) of EAL students, spread across the bands A-E.  How do we ensure full staff buy-in to an initiative that impacts on such a small percentage of the cohort?
Secondly, parental engagement and understanding with the parents of some of these students has at times been tricky, where we have access to somebody who can translate we have used them, pictures/diagrams, google translate, family friend to come in to support, but how can we effectively engage with the non-engagers?  Is there a quick and easy way to remove that language barrier?

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A challenge - with very little funding, what are the quick and easy wins (And cheap) when it comes to moving a student in band A or B to band C as a minimum quickly?

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we are lucky to still have some ring fenced funding. I don't know how it would work without. At this point, I am able to invest in some ipads so students can use duolingo and other apps to help in 1:1 sessions.

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I am currently in the process of meeting with, and assessing pupils with high needs. Once this has been done, I am adding their needs to an ILP: Individual Language Plan that is accessible to all teachers. I attach a copy here

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I led a CPD for all staff at the start of the year to help with staff understanding. I did find some useful information online so I used it and made it more specific to our students. I have removed names and attached it here, if you wish to use.

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The fact that I am the only member of the EAL department and am very thinly spread in terms of direct support that I can offer students across the school is a reflection of the limited funding in this area. For EAL to be more high profile, more staff would be impactful.

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The fact that I am the only member of the EAL department and am very thinly spread in terms of direct support that I can offer students across the school is a reflection of the limited funding in this area. For EAL to be more high profile, more staff would be impactful.

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challenge: how to teach a class of 30 children when 75% are the new to English or early acquisition proficiency? funding does not allow employing additional support staff or purchasing additional resources or getting additional CPD. 

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challenge: how to teach a class of 30 children when 75% are the new to English or early acquisition proficiency? funding does not allow employing additional support staff or purchasing additional resources or getting additional CPD. 

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opportunities: designing your own language rich curriculum - that's what we did and it works !

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opportunities: designing your own language rich curriculum - that's what we did and it works !

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We also mapped out an EAL assessment for children below ARE that we found works across the school and allows children to progress and "progress" onto ARE in time.

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We have become experts in this and have been able to share our work with other academies across the MAT.

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We have become experts in this and have been able to share our work with other academies across the MAT.

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Developing a whole school strategy towards assessment. It should not impede on the workload of teachers but is also meaningful to ensure EAL learners progress towards becoming more competent and fluent in English.

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The non-ring fenced funding for EAL learners means that the funding gets swallowed into school budgets and often used elsewhere before having a chance to be allocated specifically to EAL provision. However, in our school there is a big priority on staffing (e.g. 2 full time TAs per class and smaller reception classes) which means that although the funding may not directly go towards EAL learners, the additional staff members in each classroom/higher ratios of staff to pupils means that there are consistent opportunities to provide individual support to EAL learners when necessary.

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Integrating EAL learners fully into mainstream classrooms allows them to form strong relationships with peers, learn social English quickly, and feel like part of the community. It also benefits the whole class and school in providing insight into different languages, cultures, and beliefs and exposing the native English pupils to these things. The curriculum and learning is enriched by including the backgrounds and cultures of EAL learners in a cross curricular way.

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I have started using an assessment framework across the school for EAL learners. I have started to collate the data from the Autumn term, however I am unsure about how to use this data to inform practice/pedagogy in a useful way for teachers. I don't want them to be spending their valuable time on the assessments without them being useful.

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I am leading a CPD session after school on EAL in March. What would you recommend I spend the time focusing on for maximum usefulness for teachers and support staff?

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with 60% mobility and low level of literacy amongst our families it is a very time-consuming process when admitting a new child. It particularly feels hard when a newly admitted pupil after a very careful induction process, 1st assessments and a lot of admin related to their school admission leaves the school after a week or two :)

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with 60% mobility and low level of literacy amongst our families it is a very time-consuming process when admitting a new child. It particularly feels hard when a newly admitted pupil after a very careful induction process, 1st assessments and a lot of admin related to their school admission leaves the school after a week or two :)

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Resourcing and funding - challenge

Continuing professional development - opportunity

We have an EAL department of four teachers and one support worker for a school of a very large cohort of EAL students. If we had more funding or resourcing we could employ more support workers/TAs to do interventions, to follow-up on students who have left for mainstream, to support EAL students who have recently joined our school in mainstream lessons.

Regular CPD sessions for staff present opportunities to empower them with further knowledge on EAL, so that they embed and utilise EAL strategies.

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If we had funding for more EAL support workers we could follow up on newly arrived students and provide continuous in class support so they access as much of the curriculum as possible even in the first few weeks.

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- Regular EAL slot in briefings / Practice Groups to identify staff awareness of EAL strategies / news / research / good practice

-EAL trainings for NQTs and new starters

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The amount of funding received for EAL pupils is not adequate. This does not cover the required resourcing adaptions or the additional human resources required for children to make accelerated progress in language proficiency, whilst learning the curriculum. It is therefore left to school leaders to continuously balance all the vulnerable group funding allocations and priorities for rapid improvements.

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Coaching teachers through planning cycles and instructional coaching in lessons, is the best way to support teachers in making adaptions for EAL pupils. It supports the teachers in identifying scaffolds and the pre teaching required to improve the progress of pupils.

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Opportunity and Challenge - Neelam Okhai

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Opportunity and Challenge - Neelam Okhai

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I feel like I have had a huge opportunity in school to be able to purchase Mantra Lingua items and the PenPals. We've had a huge focus on reading and improving vocabulary as part of filling the COVID gap.
However, as the only EAL lead (as of last September) where 38% of the school is EAL. I feel like I generally just don't know enough about how to actually use the funding and resources I have available to support them more efficiently. As a full time class teacher too, It's so hard to set aside time to do research for this as I have so many other tasks to complete on a daily basis. It would be great to have another EAL lead who has more experience than me! Or be in contact with someone regularly - without feeling like I'm putting pressure on them.

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An opportunity: a diverse range of families with different cultures and beliefs means our children grow up respecting and valuing each other naturally. The best part of my job is being part of such a vibrant community!

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A challenge: This is not limited to EAL but to every area of school in the current climate - the challenge to do more with less!

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The importance of EAL is being recognised here again after a lapse of many years. We're 1.5 years into our policy development but there is plenty still to be done. Which is one of the reasons I'm doing this course. The interesting thing is that whilst the majority of my time is spent on EAL related tasks none of them are mentioned in my job description and I'm employed as a librarian. However there is plenty of evidence for that to change in the not too distant future. There is so much more that I'd like to do in terms of provision training etc.

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We are also fortunate that Wolverhampton City Council has an active Language and Literacy co-ordinator who has termly EAL Hub meetings and provides us with training sessions that can be shared with staff. I have found them very useful. As other folk have mentioned the main issue we have is finding space in a crowded CPD timetable in order to facilitate them. Currently much of the information for staff comes in the form of One Page Profiles of new arrivals highlighting strategies that would be helpful for that student. They also pick up any background information, which may help to understand home or cultural situations. Where we can we add hobbies and interests too which can help with the bonding process. Great strides were made with a couple of Arabic speaking students when we discovered they were massive football fans!

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As a school we are noticing an increase of children with EAL in school year on year (we are a growing school: going from 2 form to 3 form; which we have now up to year 3; so every year we have an increase in the number of children on roll) so I feel we need recognise and support the provision for these children and their needs need to be monitored and assessed, hence why I am doing this course. 

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As a school we are noticing an increase of children with EAL in school year on year (we are a growing school: going from 2 form to 3 form; which we have now up to year 3; so every year we have an increase in the number of children on roll) so I feel we need recognise and support the provision for these children and their needs need to be monitored and assessed, hence why I am doing this course. 

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An opportunity: Inclusion of learners using EAL in the mainstream classroom is hugely beneficial for their exposure to curriculum content and social development.
Challenge: It is sometimes difficult for the class teacher to provide the level of expertise these learners are entitled to without the funding and additional support required.
Julie Fitzpatrick.

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Up until September 2021, the post of EAL coordinator had been lying dormant at my school for 18 months. Most of our EAL students (and families) did not receive very much support. The post was set up during a re-structing of the school and inclusion for EAL is starting to become more of a priority. I have the opportunity (and challenge) to start addressing the needs of our EAL students and to support our staff in supporting these students and our families. I'm hoping that this course and the networking we are starting to do will help me with this.

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The opportunity for this CPD, especially in another area of SEND, is both exciting and inspiring. As providers of academic, social and ethical support, it is key in understanding and addressing difficulties faced by our EAL users and their teachers.

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Our challenge is to make EAL as visible as possible within our school, which promotes and reflects a positive multi-lingual student community. One example, we are currently installing the 'Welcome' poster, in different languages, in main areas of our school such as the entrance foyer, the library and student lunch hall. Teachers will also be asked to display these posters either in their tutor/teaching rooms or on their classroom doors . I would like to ask if you have any suggestions as to how you do, or would like to, make your school EAL user friendly?

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Jenny Banfield

We have no specific school strategy to induct new arrivals-as yet. In the last year, we have had two children with minimal English language skills arrive. Strategies that have worked well: Having time to chat to the family and find out as much as we can about their situation, level of education in first language etc; finding the child a language buddy in the school and giving them time to debrief regularly. This has helped the child feel less alone and has helped their understanding of events that have occurred in the day; using a first language English speaker, who is calm and supportive as a learning partner; Google translate on the iPad/immersive reader have been useful; teacher learning to say hello in their language.
Challenges: Simple but effective strategies to enable the EAL learner to access to the curriculum. We need some strategies that can be used by the teacher or TA. As a new EAL leader, I really need support in this area.

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We have had a whole school focus on improving vocabulary as a key to improved outcomes. This has been of benefit to all children. During a pupil voice, many of the EAL children said they liked that we were always discussing the meanings of words, as that was one of the things they found hardest.

Has anyone have any ideas for the children who are working at a lower English language proficiency? Any strategies to help them develop their skills?

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A challenge -  In our setting this means that often pupils new to English end up in mainstream classes whereby staff are not trained effectively in how to meet their needs, therefore lessons pass them by as language delivery is either to complex or too quick for these pupils to be able to understand and take in effectively. This leads to many lessons passing them by and huge gaps developing in their learning. We are aiming to offer whole school training to develop teacher’s skills in this area.

An opportunity - I feel mainstreaming is likely to be the best strategy, with some intensive ESOL or in house EAL input to supplement language acquisition. However, in order for pupils to be able to access lessons effectively then effective teacher/support staff training is essential to ensure materials and lessons are developed that are accessible for these pupils from their arrival. We are managing to combine the two to some extent and hope to increase this over the next few months.

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A challenge - We are developing strategies to improve pupil induction, assessment, placement and monitoring of progress. As such, our setting does not have these systems fully embedded yet, hence training on this course.

An opportunity - We have established an EAL Strategy Group in school with representatives from each faculty and we are keen to drive this forward with an appropriate member of staff taking on responsibility for induction, assessment and monitoring. This will be combined with approaches to developing staff training opportunities and support which hopefully will impact positively to approaches to teaching and learning.

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A couple of years ago, my school started what they called an "anti-racist group". Their objective is changing all the racist attitudes not only among students or staff, but also the curriculum, to make the school a more inclusive place. I though students with EAL would benefit from this as well, and ran a brief student voice to have evidence of the students' experiences. There is still a lot to do, but it looks like a very promising opportunity for the whole school.

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Our school policy is to be inclusive in our teaching and learning and to differentiate for our EAL learners in the main stream classroom to overcome barriers to learning and access the full curriculum. The challenge we face is not all teachers have experience supporting learners with EAL and resources aren’t adapted or strategies put in place to support.

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I think one of the biggest challenges in my school will be training the teaching staff to provide them with tools and strategies to support EAL students in class, while keeping the objective of being exceptionally and unashamedly academic (which is what my school's most proudest of).

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An opportunity: Due to our high level of EAL children, teachers and LSA receive a training on EAL provision once a year, have access to support and resources. We have a EAL budget.

A challenge: Although as a school, we are very competent at supporting EAL children, we have been struggling due to the pandemic and lack of staff. For children new to English or in early English acquisition we normally run a short daily intervention of Racing to English but it has become increasingly challenging to run those consistently when there are no available adults.

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Opportunity
In our Early Years setting, we have been completing the Elklan Communication Friendly Classrooms training, which is great for ideas on how to build children's language from the very beginning and will particularly benefit EAL learners

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Challenge
Since 2019, we have been using the Bell Foundation framework to assess pupils - however, I am finding staff interpret the level descriptors very differently. I wonder what other schools have done in terms of moderation and training to produce more consistent results?

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A challenge: with 70% pupils with EAL it is a challenge to assess proficiency for all EAL pupils across the school - and to review on an annual basis - mainly in terms of time. Is this still a statutory requirement and how do people manage it/what tools do they use?

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Sheila Tugwell

Opportunity: development of a topic-based curriculum and inclusive teaching approach helps to ensure that all learners access the curriculum.

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Leadership and management of EAL provision. Jenny Allen

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Leadership and management of EAL provision. Jenny Allen

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I have worked in many schools where there is a huge range of EAL learners.  In East London the percentage of EAL learners was very high (around 98%).  Many were New to English when they arrived.  Therefore EAL provision was a high priority.  However, in my current school we have 28% EAL learners, most of whom are competent to fluent. Traditiionally our EAL learners did very well but it is only now we are noticing the gap between our EAL learners and native English learners is beginning to widen.  We believe this is partially due to the pandemic. The largest impact appears to be linked with grammar, vocabulary and reading comprehension but is also consequently having an impact in other subject areas.
We are now pushing for more CPD support for teachers and TAs to enable our EAL learners to make even better progress. Specific strategies are being implementing more so now in planning, whole class lessons and small groups lessons.

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I would like to provide CPD to ensure teachers embed good practice for EAL students into their lessons. Currently our system means that I teach the newest to English to a reasonable level of competence and then they are pretty much left to struggle

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Our SENDCo meets and assesses all new starters - as the EAL co-ordinator the first thing I know about a new student with EAL is when she sends out the new starter information to all staff.
The students all sit the same Maths and English tests when they come in for their tour and paperwork. It has been suggested to me that EAL students shouldn't sit these tests at that point because they don't give a true picture as they may not have the language proficiency to understand the task. The view of our EMTAS service is that we should let them settle in and then assess them using a Bell profile or similar.
Apart from maths, students are taught in mixed sets at our school so there is not the danger of an EAL student ending up in a low set just because they are EAL.
How have other people as EAL Co-Ordinators managed to 'muscle in' on this process?

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I am second in English and the EAL Co-ordinator. I teach 25 lessons a week and just can't see how I can even learn the names and faces of our EAL students in that time let alone what their needs and challenges are.
This role seems to be different in every school. I would be really interested to know what time people are given to do the role as if I can build a picture, I can ask for more!

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How do these policies, regarding mainstreaming, funding and guidance, impact provision for learners using EAL in your school?

Resourcing and funding

Strength:
As a majority EAL school (90%+) EAL support will have to be a whole school strategic approach with support for teachers.
The focus being what will have the widest impact in terms of professional development of teachers and LSA's teaching and supporting our EAL children. This would need to be through staff meetings and INSET as school could not afford the training costs and supply to train each year group individually.
SLT need to be trained as if there is a high staff turnover they leave with their knowledge!
Challenge:
EAL children need access to first hand experiences, quality first teaching, adaptations which sometimes (not always) need a monetary outlay, both for school and sometimes (first hand experiences) for the families which are heavily subsidised by our school if possible. A funding formula which is not ring fenced to support EAL children may remove these opportunities to develop language at a quicker pace.

Louise Worthington

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We  have (this year) started to develop a Language Support Team. These are non timetabled members of staff (two HTLA's currently) whose responsibility amongst other things is to meet with families of new starters with an interpreter. We have worked with a speech and language therapist to devise questions and the parents have ample opportunity to ask us any questions they have, whether this be about school or housing/benefits etc. This then gets uploaded onto CPOMS so staff have an awareness of the family.Referrals are then also made if necessary e.g School Nurse, Family Liason Officer (for form completing/parent and toddler/ESOL classes), SENDCO. It's a start and we have found it stops parents and children getting asked the same questions that they often cannot answer, access support quicker, feel part of the community quicker, then the assessment can begin!

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We  have (this year) started to develop a Language Support Team. These are non timetabled members of staff (two HTLA's currently) whose responsibility amongst other things is to meet with families of new starters with an interpreter. We have worked with a speech and language therapist to devise questions and the parents have ample opportunity to ask us any questions they have, whether this be about school or housing/benefits etc. This then gets uploaded onto CPOMS so staff have an awareness of the family.Referrals are then also made if necessary e.g School Nurse, Family Liason Officer (for form completing/parent and toddler/ESOL classes), SENDCO. It's a start and we have found it stops parents and children getting asked the same questions that they often cannot answer, access support quicker, feel part of the community quicker, then the assessment can begin!

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Working with colleagues at my setting to share some of the good practice for supporting EAL Learners that the Bell Foundation have provided - e.g. Substitution Tables, giving clear visual instructions - which will actually support other learners too.
Laura Beddow

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We have no specific induction policy - as yet. However, I wonder - maybe all pupils new to school need to complete something - with a
Who am I / Getting to know me focus. Then EAL pupils perhaps would not feel so isolated when arriving at a new school. After all, children of the same age must have lots in common which extends beyond language barriers?

Laura Beddow

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Celebrating all the stories of our school community would be a lovely and inclusive thing to do - would hope to create a real sense of 'belonging'.
Laura Beddow.

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A challenge: As a school we are currently experiencing high levels of new arrivals. We do not currently have a policy for welcoming newly arrived EAL children. I am fairly new to my post and this is something that I want to change as soon as possible. However, I don't want to rush it and put things in place that will not be beneficial for our community. Any ideas of where to start?

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We are in some ways fortunate as we have over 90% EAL together with extremely high FSM, we do have access to funding to meet the needs of our children. Teaching and support staff have a good understanding of supporting children with EAL through training given but this funding is constantly under threat and this will hinder our ability to support children and families in the future.

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Ensuring the environment is welcoming to all is vital. A culture of acceptance, support and inclusivity ensures children and their families can flourish.
Working with whole family be it through offering English classes, parenting classes or mother and baby groups etc supports pupil achievement.

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It is great that our school is starting to recognise the importance of inclusion for EAL students, most staff will not have received EAL CPD for many years. One of my new tasks will be to deliver CPD, and a personal challenge will be to do this. I am hoping to draw advice knowledge and ideas from this training in order to train my colleagues. Any ideas would be appreciated.

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Without investment in EAL based CPD, there is no chance of training staff on how to support EAL learners. For example, this course is self funded for myself, as there was no budget for it. I am new to leading EAL, and I need support and CPD, but the money is simply not there. There is an opportunity which has been created, where different EAL leads throughout our trust have set up a professional network to share ideas and support each other.

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The monitoring of EAL pupils is a challenge, as assessing pupil progress consistently across different age groups creates difficulties. How does a Year 1 teacher compare their EAL progress to a Year 6 teacher? However the Bell Framework does provide a lot of clear visual and textual ways of assessing levels of proficiency.

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For those in a school with a very small population of EAL (as we are - very small primary school), I'm conscious that efforts at 'including' them by inadvertently highlighting their difference from the mainstream could itself be a counterproductive move and might make them feel different. Are there any subtle techniques or ideas?

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My school has used the LEA assessment to judge English proficiency however not all the EAL students on the register have been assessed as the role of EAL is new.  I plan to use the Bell foundation assessment tracker.  However identifying learners needs has been carried out quickly and they have been placed into appropriate intervention

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My school has used the LEA assessment to judge English proficiency however not all the EAL students on the register have been assessed as the role of EAL is new.  I plan to use the Bell foundation assessment tracker.  However identifying learners needs has been carried out quickly and they have been placed into appropriate intervention

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I plan to deliver whole school training on EAL and how to imbed strategies into teaching in mainstream lessons. I will provide learning walks to help staff and resouces.

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Not all teachers see it as their responsibility to create an inclusive lesson for EAL students. They see it as an added job, however with the relevant training I aim to provide resources and strategies to support them in their class.

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Leadership and management of ELA provision

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Leadership and management of ELA provision

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An opportunity - we are a new, growing  school. As we are continually developing the provision both in primary and in a secondary setting, we are looking at the best approaches and most successful strategies. As we still have a comfortable budget, there is scope for creating an EAL intervention team, opportunity for external CPD and resources.

A challenge - 186 students needs a rapid response and targeted support asap as some have been in the country and the school for a few years yet their language acquisition levels are still B and C.

Kasia Scofield

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Kasia Scofield

We are at the beginning of our journey to support our multilingual students and we are embracing the increasingly growing diversity of our school. It is a challenge as there is a lot of work that we as leaders have to do at school but also in the community.

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CPD is a challenge. I am the only specialist who is in charge of EAL provision and I have hosted a couple of CPD sessions and collaborative planning sessions. However, teachers would benefit from a a more comprehensive EAL CPD training. This, unfortunately, is not always possible as everyone's schedule is tightly packed and quite often other aspects take precedence in terms of staff training and CPDs. A CPD course for the whole teaching staff would also be a significant financial commitment.

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School environment, attitudes and ethos. Our school has had a large intake of EAL students in recent years and it has been incredible to see how that has positively affected our school environment. Soft skills, such as open-mindedness and empathy have improved across the staff and the student body. People have become more culturally and linguistically aware. The presence of a high number of EAL learners has made the school more inclusive and has enriched the lives of everyone in it. We are celebrating our diversity and individual uniqueness.

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Isra Husain - Pupil Induction and Assessment 

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Isra Husain - Pupil Induction and Assessment 

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I am new to this post and my predecessor was only in post 3 months before going on to maternity leave. I am the EAL coordinator and there hasn't been much of an induction process for previous new t English students. However I am in the process of changing this. I also think that the SEN support staff need to be involved with the EAL students as they are a great resource howver they arent. We have a Leeds Assessment pack which I am thinking of changing to the Bell Foundation one as it has come highly recommended by other EAL coordinators.

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I have delivered a CPD to all staff in my school and shared with them a range of strategies they could use in their lessons to support EAL students. The CPD went really well and I am now planning to do one for parents so they can support at home as well.

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We have only been getting EAL students recently and never had an EAL department in my school as wasn't needed.
The challenge now is to get the resources and enough funding to support these students.
I was wondering if you use your teaching assistants to support EAL students in your school? If not, what support have you got in place for new arrivals?

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Challenge and an Opportunity: Making EAL a high profile specialism.

I’ve noticed that EAL often tends to be an area which is delivered by support staff, unqualified teachers or by people who have random qualifications (SENco, ESOL, ELclan, dyslexia training etc) and who are seen by other members of staff (rightly or wrongly) as low-profile. How do you convince teachers and middle leaders to plan for EAL students if SLT are not on board/don’t see this as a priority?  How do you collaborate between departments if staff see you as someone who doesn’t really understand the demands of their job? Luckily we have a designated director of EAL, a mainstream English LP (me), another qualified teacher working with new arrivals, and designated support staff with EAL specialism. We build the knowledge of GCSEs into the induction programme etc. Still mainstream staff tend to listen to me more as I’m a classroom teacher then to a very well qualified teacher who works in the induction room but is perceived as unqualified and detached from the realities of the classroom. How would you challenge those attitudes?

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As the EAL coordinator of the school and the only person who is giving direct support to EAL students, I feel that funding is more than inadequate. I have support lessons that can have 10 students with various levels in English proficiency. I have to find resources for all of them and try and teach them simultaneously. I have to make hard choices in terms of who to prioritise sometimes. Funding for one TA would make a huge difference

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Our leadership values training and never refused any EAL training I chose to do. In my three years here I have not attended a whole school EAL CPD but I am asked to do small group training for NQTs and new TAs. I'm planning to do a whole school cpd at the end of the year or the begining of next year. Which is better?

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At the academy I work at, I am in a fortunate position to offer CPD training to all staff, termly. However, it can be difficult to offer strategies that can fit into all curriculum areas, and are appropriate in all subject areas. We have previously explored the use of vocabulary builders and simplifying definitions. I would benefit from understanding strategies other schools deploy to support mainstream lessons, that have been successful.

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We have invested in a new software that allows us to assess pupils, in a low stakes test, in speaking, listening, reading and writing. The software generates a students' grade against the DfE framework, which allows us to quickly assess and support students, without extension paper testing. It has also meant that students are more motivated than our previous paper assessments, as the software will stop when the level isn't accessible for the EAL student.

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Pro: Instead of taking Y10-11 students out for several hours of extra English has enabled them to take a second creative option subject, such as Art.

Con: Some students have not yet attained competency, having arrived in Y9; this means high levels of TA support needed in class, especially English and Hums.

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I have increased the dept from 1.5 TAs to 2 TAs but it's not enough. In 2021 we saw a large in-year influx of new students who will have garnered a large amount of extra money for the school, however extra staffing has yet to come through.

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One area I struggle with is getting classroom teachers to know their students. All too often a busy teacher will just let EAL, especially new arrivals, melt into the background of a class which is just one of a busy 5 period day.

I have done profiles on the shared drive and sent out to relevant teachers.

I am talking to the art tech about raising the profile of languages generally.

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Opportunity and Challenge
Because of the lack of funding , many schools in my area do not provide the children with the proper EAL support. sometimes having a part time TA filling the gaps.
I have been giving an opportunity to move from the class teacher to EAL teacher role few years ago. This is something I always wanted to do, since I started to teach in England. However, I still haven't received a proper 'job description' for the role, there is no EAL policy and I feel like a 'lonely island'. I have attended the very brief training when I started provided by the EALs service then. However, we became an academy and we are not 'buying into' EAls services any more so I can't rely on any more training. I feel quite confident in my role now (lots of reading and searching for the right resources) but I would like to develop the policy for the school and it would be nice to be a bit more recognized and have the opportunities to collaborate with the other professionals.

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A challenge- I have been providing teachers in my school with lots of ideas for resources and activities they can use in their lessons, offering to create the substitution tables, the new vocabulary pictionaries, trying to convince what is good for EAL could be used for SEN, so they don't double their work. However, apart from the very few of them, lots is so stuck in their old ways. They don't ask for any help, and getting any information about the new vocabulary is like 'getting blood out of stone'. In a very best they email back saying, 'can you prepare something about Fire of London' , 'World War 2' etc. How I am supposed to know what vocabulary they need exactly? Has anyone experienced something similar in their settings and how do you deal with the stubborn colleagues?

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Evelyn Pope
The lack of direct funding creates challenge for our setting, meaning we have to be both imaginative and careful when planning for EAL activities / sessions as we need to ensure they come at a minimal cost. However, because of this I think we have done more research, been more creative and learnt more as a team than we would have done by 'just' buying in an app for example. Time constraints are also a challenge as I am currently running the sessions, eventually I would like to train all staff so that anyone can support our children in specific EAL sessions.

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Does anyone have experience in assessment in a primary setting? Currently we have focussed on welcoming our families and ensuring they are happy with us. I have also been running EAL sessions. However the next thing for me to approach is assessment. I am planning on using The Bell Foundation pack but just wondered if anyone has any primary related thoughts or suggestions?

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As Deputy SENCo EAL sits with me - however until recently it has ticked along nicely with not much to do. Now with 5 secondary aged Afghan refugees students join our school, supporting these EAL students has very much become a great part of my job. Teachers are now very much aware of how to support EAL learners - and this has all had to be coordinated.
A challenge has been ensuring that teachers know where to find further support, including subject-based support. Also making sure that these students are having their needs met. Teachers are having to ensure that their instruction and delivery is suitable.
An opportunity from the resettlement scheme for the school is having the support of EMTAS funded for the year. This brings staff training opportunities and resources available, that we were previously unable to access.

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Challenge - as is the case for many schools I imagine, no ring-fenced funding makes it difficult to prioritise EAL CPD and resources. Due to this teachers have not seen it as a priority, as they do with students with SEND. Opportunity - now we have funding from the bridging resettlement scheme for 5 secondary students form Afghanistan - we have now been able to buy into a year of the service level agreement from EMTAS, which as an academy we were not able to 'afford' before.

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IT equipment for blended learning and opportunities for home study.

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Our policy is to ensure the inclusion of all learners in our school.  With few pupils speaking another language unless they are new to country, we have focused on developing their language as part of daily teaching with additional input related to the activity. I will be looking at CPD for all staff to ensure this is developed and to reduce barriers to learning.

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Our policy is to ensure the inclusion of all learners in our school.  With few pupils speaking another language unless they are new to country, we have focused on developing their language as part of daily teaching with additional input related to the activity. I will be looking at CPD for all staff to ensure this is developed and to reduce barriers to learning.

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Caroline                                                                           CPD for all staff needs to be a priority for all schools. I am lucky to have been invited to a school near to me to look at their EAL provision - shared good practice will be most beneficial to us.      

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Caroline                                                                           CPD for all staff needs to be a priority for all schools. I am lucky to have been invited to a school near to me to look at their EAL provision - shared good practice will be most beneficial to us.      

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Caroline

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Inclusivity for all learners has to be at the core of the school environment and be supported by SLT. Our EAL pupils who are new to the country already feel vulnerable so we have to remove those barriers to learning and enable them to be successful learners.

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Inclusivity for all learners has to be at the core of the school environment and be supported by SLT. Our EAL pupils who are new to the country already feel vulnerable so we have to remove those barriers to learning and enable them to be successful learners.

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I am wondering what is better for a newly established department: recruiting an experienced member of staff or investing on the training of staff?

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The Knowledge organiser proved to be a helpful tool for the EAL as students refer to for support. A initiative was taken with the subject leaders to translate the key vocabulary into the first language. Yet it does not cover all the languages spoken at our school. Anyone interested to share similar resources?

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We are a large school and have Professional Learning Pods - CPD is high on our school agenda. If therre is a need for CDP in an EAL area - time is allocated for staff to work together to develop knowledge and strategies. This has been particulary useful for newly qualified teachers - who complete mini research projects.

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While have EAL coordination at a senior level is important (that currently falls as part of my remit as AHT), I have found that getting support from mainscale teachers is also incredibly useful. I have a couple of RQTs with an interest in EAL (one of whom is a bilingual Arabic/English speaker) who is helping me to raise the profile of EAL in our school. because she's more 'at the coal face' in teaching EAL kids on a daily basis, her experiences and messages are probably more impactful than mine at whole-schoopl level.

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Baseline testing using BF cirteria is something we are moving towards. It still takes a degree of linguistic expertise, however, to make sound judgements about a speaker's level of competence - luckily I'm an English teacher!

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We do some initial assessment but only work with pupils at the earliest stages of learning English. However, twice a year, we provide an update for all the school staff reminding them of the all the pupils' language backgrounds and their level of English. While not exact, this serves as a reminder to all staff to consider the pupils' learning needs.

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It would be great to do more CPD within the school but it can be difficult to access staff time when there are so many other pressures. Still hoping for an opportunity to work with the teachers though... I won't give up!