EAL at Britannia

At Britannia Primary School, we are proud of the diversity and languages of our school community. It is important for us to cherish and celebrate each individual language and what we can learn from it. We are lucky to have links to 20 different countries and 25 different languages through our children. We want our EAL pupils to feel welcomed from the moment they arrive. This is created by the warmth of our languages display in the entrance of our school. 

Who are EAL children?

EAL stands for English as an Additional Language. It is an acronym used to describe the teaching of English where it is not a child's first language. 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'. It is to be encouraged that parents continue to expose their children to their home language in their home environment. 

How are EAL pupils supported at Britannia?

At Britannia, EAL pupils are provided with scaffolded resources e.g. sentence frames and visual aids to help EAL pupils to become independent learners. It is encouraged that EAL pupils learn new vocabulary via pre-teaching to allow them to access new learning and vocabulary in context. EAL pupils are assessed using the five English proficiency bands and are assessed against the 4 areas: speaking, listening, reading and writing. 

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