Welcome to the EAL Department!

• The department comprises of a recently appointed Head of Department, a Language Support Teacher, a Teaching Assistant and a Learning Support Assistant.
• Students are supported in mainstream Maths, Science, English and Humanities lessons at KS3 to enable them to access the curriculum and hence improve their attainment. Core subjects continue to be supported at KS4, with support provided as required in option subjects.
• Support is provided mainly to pupils of Bangladeshi origin as well as newly arrived pupils from a wide range of areas including Eastern Europe, the Middle East, the Far East and North Africa. 53 % of the school population has EAL needs.
• The Head of Department is a specialist teacher of EAL. Other members of the department have vast experience in this field and have attended specific EAL training.

All four members of the department are bilingual and use their language skills to assess the pupils as well as explain concepts in home languages as appropriate. The Language Support Teacher was a qualified teacher in Poland so brings a full understanding of the educational system there. This helps our understanding of the prior educational experiences of our pupils from this country. We have capitalised on her bilingual skills to produce resources for mainstream use. She is also a qualified examiner for AQA GCSE Polish and the department has entered students for Polish GCSE (as well as Portuguese, Persian, Italian, Gujerati and Chinese GCSE). We have achieved excellent results: 88% of our students achieved at least a grade B in their GCSEs. This year we are entering a further four students for Polish and Chinese GCSE. The Teaching Assistant is a valuable resource in the teaching of RE.