English as an Additional Language (EAL)

At St Chad's, we are immensely proud of the diverse community in which our school serves: over 90% of our children speak English as a second language. We recognise and celebrate this cultural and linguistic diversity across our school and local community. We are blessed to employ many bilingual staff who support our children and families in all areas of school life. We also work in close partnership with the New Communities Achievement Team (we are very grateful for the translation support that they provide for our families, especially Miss Alena). Further information on the New Communities Achievement Team can be found here.
 
Our EAL children are a strength of our school. We not only recognise and value their home language but also take a whole school approach in celebrating the many diverse linguistic and cultural and educational backgrounds that our wonderful children and their families come from. Throughout the year, special celebrations are recognised and events organised where families are invited to join in, for example our International Food Fair, Our World Week.
 
We are committed to providing high-quality provision for all of our EAL learners. Play, speech and communication lie at the heart of our classroom practice. We offer stimulating and language-rich environments following the principles of Communication Friendly Spaces. In all lessons, there is an emphasis on talk, oral engagement and practical activities.    
 
We value strong home-school partnerships and work closely with our families. We are a small school and staff and families know each other well. Inductions to our school are viewed as precious and important: time is spent getting to know our children, their families and their linguistic and cultural backgrounds. We try to communicate to our families face-to-face as much as possible. We offer translation support during parent's evenings and important written correspondences are translated into different languages, where possible.
 
Throughout the year, we organise many parent workshops and parent classes, including ESOL classes. Our parent ESOL classes are currently running every Friday afternoon (1pm-3pm) in school.