Ethnicity & EAL

Ethnicity and English as an Additional Language (EAL) at Perryfields Primary

What is EAL?

The Department of Education definition:

A pupil’s first language is defined as any language other than English that a child was exposed to during early development and continues to be exposed to in the home or community. If a child was exposed to more than one language (which may include English) during early development, a language other than English should be recorded, irrespective of the child’s proficiency in English.

The Ofsted definition

English as an additional language (EAL) refers to learners whose first language is not English.

These definitions therefore cover the following:

– Pupils arriving from other countries and whose first language is not English
– Pupils who have lived in the UK for a long time and may appear to be fluent, but who also speak another language at home. These pupils are often not entirely fluent in terms of their literacy levels.
– Pupils who have been born in the UK, but for whom the home language is not English
– Pupils who have a parent who speaks a language other than English and the child communicates within that language (i.e. bi-lingual children)

As the number pupils who use English as an additional language (EAL) continues to rise (DfE, 2018), EAL pupils now form 21.3 per cent of the state primary school population in the UK as at October 2020.

At Perryfields Primary, English as an Additional Language (EAL) support remains a core focus. We take pride in and celebrate our rich ethnic, cultural and linguistic diversity by providing a safe, vibrant and inclusive learning environment for all EAL pupils including new arrivals and children in the early acquisition stage. As a school, we currently have over 15 different languages spoken with Punjabi and Urdu being the most dominant. Amongst others, include Arabic, Italian, Romanian, Chinese, Bengali, Kurdish, Lithuanian, Polish, Telugu, Pashto, Guajarati, Hungarian and Portuguese. About 11% of our pupils are exposed to other languages at home other than English; making these children bilingual although, English may be their first language. We encourage our EAL pupils in the early acquisition stage to continue to develop fluency of their first language or mother tongue while they learn the English language. We believe that fluency in one’s first language (mother tongue) helps facilitate the acquisition of a second language.

‘Bilingual here is taken to mean all pupils who use or have access to more than one language at home or at school – it does not necessarily imply fluency in both or all languages’ DFES Guidance 2007

At Perryfields Primary, our children are exposed to a variety of cultures and celebrations from EYFS to Year 6. We achieve this through a variety of means such as:

– Reading- we incorporate reading genres from different cultures and continents including stories from BAME groups into our reading, library and story sessions. This helps children understand, tolerate and appreciate differences.

– Assemblies- we have assemblies, which educate children about world events including ‘Black history’, which we incorporate into our curriculum all year round and not just in during ‘Black History Month’.

– Celebrations and traditions- children learn about history and practices from other cultures through our rich PSHE and British Values inputs. We celebrate a range of festivals including Chinese New Year, Diwali, Eid amongst others. We also provide a range of enriching experiences for children such as Bollywood dancing sessions, Chinese dragon dance, Diwali lunch and craft sessions during these celebrations.

What we offer our EAL pupils at Perryfields Primary

We are committed to understanding key areas of strength and areas for development within existing provision for pupils across the language proficiency range – from New to English to Fluent. Our key focus for our EAL pupils is to:

– Help our them acquire English not only for social but for academic purposes.

– Acquire English through the National Curriculum contents.

– Develop cognitively through the new language as it is being acquired.

– Learn new cultural values, expectation and social skills alongside the existing ones they have learnt at home.

We work to achieve this by:

– Equipping staff with an EAL self-assessment/evaluation tool, which also facilitates pupil induction, English language acquisition, assessment, monitoring of progress and teaching, learning and curriculum development. To help achieve this, we have invested in the FlashAcademy® app. FlashAcademy® EAL is a digital platform for schools, supporting teachers to deliver learning to pupils who do not have English as their first language. FlashAcademy® teaches English curriculum content from 45 home languages, including English to English lessons, and can be used on smartphones, tablets, and PCs. Pupil’s progress is monitored through a comprehensive teacher dashboard to help identify gaps in learning. Our EAL children use this resource and enjoy it as they spend time completing lessons and tasks without realising they are learning.

– Building pupil’s vocabulary by adopting a “Language-rich teaching” across the whole school via cross-curricular approaches such as MFL and our Enrichment activities. The needs of our EAL pupils fit well with our English/Literacy focus, which is reading and vocabulary acquisition. As we develop these areas as a school, it impacts all especially our EAL pupils.

– Early intervention for speech and Language: Speech and language skills underpin many other areas of development for all learners including providing a strong foundation for learning, such as reading and writing and enabling access to the whole curriculum.

– Supporting and equipping teachers in planning lessons that integrate curriculum content with the language learning need of our EAL pupils. Pupils often work in small groups and all lessons focus on developing accuracy in speaking and writing, as well as developing listening and reading skills.

– Encourage the engagement and interest of parents/carers through communication and involvement.