EAL

What does EAL stand for?

EAL is shorthand for English as an Additional Language, it refers to pupils and families whose first language is not English.

How does Drapers Mills support EAL students?

Mrs Urban is the EAL and Modern Foreign Language co-ordinator and supports newly arrived children as well as other children across the school for whom English is an additional language.

Mrs Urban speaks Polish (her mother tongue) and can also communicate in Czech and Slovakian.

Firstly we focus on teaching the children about the structure of the day and how to behave at school. Language interventions are run at different levels across the school to help the children acquire English as quickly as possible and to be able to access the National Curriculum with their peers.

What about EAL families?

We understand that communicating with our staff may be more difficult for some people in our school community and will do our best to support with this anyway we can.

In the first instance we would encourage adults to bring a friend or family member whose English is stronger than theirs or to make use of technology, Google Translate is a useful app to download, should they need to communicate something to the class teacher.

Your child’s teacher will do their best to communicate with you.

We have a dedicated family team who are available to help our EAL community access communications from the school in whatever method is appropriate.

We regularly record messages being sent home and place these videos on our website for our community who find reading English difficult.

We are passionate about celebrating the different languages and cultures we have in our multicultural school!

Our school values promote Respect for each other and we believe in promoting other languages and accepting our differences.

If you have any queries about your child's English skills, please feel free to speak to any of the team and we would be happy to help in any way we can!