EAL (ENGLISH AS AN ADDITIONAL LANGUAGE)
Who are EAL children?
A pupil will be classed as ‘EAL’ if their first language is not English. The Department for Education (DfE) defines ‘first language’ as 'The language to which a child was initially exposed during early development and continues to be exposed in the home or in the community'.
Here at Hambrough Primary School and Nursery we are proud to welcome families from a wealth of different cultures and backgrounds and we greatly value the rich diversity of our school community. We have pupils from all around the world and over 20 languages spoken and as such support for EAL is a big part of our school.
We effectively support our children who have English as an additional language and resourcing is critical to our lesson design.
We provide our EAL learners with the tools needed to build their basic interpersonal communication skills and achieve a smooth transition into their new learning environment.
Getting to know your child through our enhanced admissions process
At Hambrough primary School and Nursery, we understand that starting a new school can be daunting. Our rigorous admissions process allows us to obtain in-depth information about each child, so that our EAL leaners are supported effectively the moment they enter the school. The information obtained, allows us to personalise the provisions that we put in place for each individual learner to create a smooth and tranquil transition into the school. We are able to do this with a parent meeting with Mrs. Khurana.
Supporting your child at Hambrough Primary School & Nursery
Hambrough primary School & Nursery operates a ‘buddy system’ to support our EAL learners. This is where we pair our EAL learners with another child to promote friendship, social and emotional well-being as well as supporting and strengthening their linguistic knowledge.
We will support your child by placing them next to a great model of English in the classroom and our curriculum, resourcing and lesson delivery will also provide a rich language environment for your child.
All children new to English will take part in a personalised programme for phonics and reading and this enables our children to make rapid progress in their language acquisition.
How to support your child
Here you will find ideas and resources regularly uploaded to support your child as they learn English. English as an additional language is a valuable asset to your child's education and here at Hambrough Primary School and Nursery, we value bilingualism and consider this to be a huge strength and a mark of the rich diversity that we have at our school.
Supporting your child develop their English language skills:
Learning Village-
Language-learning tasks are broken down into small, manageable elements of vocabulary and language structure. These build one on another, progressively. This ensures that new language is introduced one small step at a time, layering the language structure around the learnt vocabulary. Learning Village incorporates a translation tool, which provides translation into the 150 most commonly used languages. Audio translations are also supported for around 10 languages. Referring back to a learner’s home language can be a vital part of the language-learning process for learners with SEND.
All children have log in detail to be able to access the programme at home. This is activities personalised to your child’s needs
Read books to your child – Bug club
A nice website with a variety of content, it has a range of books that you can translate from English to quite a few languages - https://storyweaver.org.in
Singing songs – this could be about parts of the body, animals, places etc.
Creating a ‘Remember book’ – in this book your child can log all the new words that they have learnt and refer back to this when needed.
https://www.gamestolearnenglish.com/prepositions-game/ This is a good website to help your child learn English
ENGLISH LESSONS FOR PARENTS
Hambrough Primary School & Nursery offers ESOL lessons for our EAL parents that are new to English. This has proved to be a great success and our parents have engaged in these sessions with great enthusiasm. Alongside this, English Language Learning sessions are offered to our EAL learners that are new to English. Structured lessons are delivered twice a week, where children are taught the basics of the English language to assist them with early communication and navigating a school day. We also offer specific groups Parents Partners in Learning (PPL) for parents of EAL children.
Resources
Learning Village
All children have log in detail to be able to access the programme at home. This is activities personalised to your child’s needs
Words we use for greetings and to get to know one another
Verbs are words used to describe an action, state or occurrence.
“verb labelling and Verb matching jigsaw”
The different parts of the body
Pronouns and Sentence Building
Fruit names
