Celebrating cultural diversity and supporting children with English as an additional language

For the last few years we have hosted student teachers from the Wildern Partnership for the day, to work with us and our pupils to explore how we celebrate cultural diversity within our academy and to learn about the ways in which we support children who are new to English. 

Each time, we work in collaboration with the Wildern Partnership to plan the day to suit the needs of each cohort. In the past we have looked at some of the theory surrounding language acquisition, such as the iceberg model. We have modelled how our teachers support children through lessons and given the students time to learn through active participation.

We usually plan aims such as...

Learn and discuss what it is like for a pupil to join a school with little or no English. 

Learn about how pupils acquire language at school.

Consider ways in which we support children who are new to school in this country.

Explore what key resources or visuals we use in school.

Consider how we support children's pastoral needs and celebrate diversity within school.

Encourage partnership between learners and support interaction between learners.

Every year we receive positive feedback regarding the training day and regarding how we meet the needs of our pupils who have English as a second language (EAL) or who are new to English (NTE)...

Mr Kelly stated 'This has been a great experience.  It was great learning how best to support the children.'

Miss Gover stated "I enjoyed being able to discuss ideas directly with the pupils".

Mr Mahon told us "I now feel more confident about the prospect of having an EAL child in my class in the future".

Miss Reed said "The training and pupil interaction has given me strategies that I can use. It has also made me more aware of how diverse city schools are".

We are proud of our on-going partnerships with other providers within the locality to support the training of student teachers and encourage liaison between local schools.

Skype call with school in Nysa, Poland

As part of our international links we look for opportunites to collaborate with other schools abroad to enahance our curriculum. Recently, we set up a Skype call between our pupils and pupils from a school in Nysa, Poland to help them share learning experiences.

You can view the video by following the school videos link below.

Here's what our pupils said about the experience:

"I enjoyed it because I learned facts about what children do in Poland."

"We learned about where each other’s schools were, and then we talked about the Titanic in Southampton."

"It was fun but it was nerve-wracking because I have not done this before."