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At Reach British School we value and celebrate multilingualism as a key competency needed for personal fulfilment, a healthy and sustainable lifestyle, employability, active citizenship and social inclusion. Developing proficiency in the English language is key to ensuring that children can fully access the learning, so we ensure the main medium of instruction at Reach British School is English.
Developing proficiency in the English language is key to ensuring that children can fully access the learning.
Students for whom English is an additional language have diverse needs in terms of support necessary in English language learning. Teachers’ planning takes account of such factors as the student’s age, the length of time they have been learning (or exposed to) the English language, previous educational experiences and their skills or proficiency levels in their mother tongue. Teachers are mindful that a lack of proficiency in the English language is not indicative of a child’s intellectual ability. The entire process is a very personalised approach to ensure that the beast approach is taken for each student.
Our teachers formatively assess students’ learning daily and use this observational knowledge to plan next steps in learning.
When they notice that a student is beginning to fall behind with learning because the language is a barrier, an intervention is sought. In the early stages, intervention may take the form of adapting tasks within the class to help support the student in their learning. If these actions do not work in supporting the student to make progress, then a more formal process takes place and an intervention plan is put into action. In this case, the situation is escalated to the SENCO or ESL lead and may lead to the writing of an Individual Education Plan. This intervention plan aims to address the areas where the student is struggling (is this a general language delay – also evident in mother tongue, or unique to English, or are there additional learning needs which are masked by lack of English acquisition) and suggests strategies which should be implemented by the teacher (and parents) with the aim to support learning. To write an appropriate IEP as much information is needed as possible. Where parents have reports from external specialists it really helps supports in the writing of an IEP, as it helps identify appropriate targets for children with realistic strategies and timescales.
We make sure students have access to the curriculum and to assessment through:
with colleagues in different departments to teach key concepts in mother tongue first (Arabic-speaking children only), reinforce skills in other subject areas so students have time to practice new terminology and apply it in a range of contexts.
Are you ready to see how we support multilingualism at Reach British School? Book a visit or an online tour to experience our dynamic learning environment.
