Barnhill Community School is the second school in the Middlesex Learning Partnership Trust, following William Byrd, to achieve a Gold EAL Quality Mark. One of the starting points for its success is that a high proportion of its staff are multilingual and very proud of it, which has a positive impact on EAL pupils’ self-perception. In addition, the school has a highly effective and trusted EAL co-ordinator for whom English is just one of the six languages she speaks. The co-ordinator has the strong support of a designated member of the school leadership team.

Pupils also often start at the school knowing several languages other than English. The combination of Pashto, Farsi and Arabic (often Quranic) is common. They value the fact that the school is interested in both the range of their languages and their prior learning.  That can lead to Key Stage 4 new arrivals often being entered for the higher tier Maths GCSE. The first days in a new school are inevitably stressful, but the students commented favourably on all teachers’ interest in their prior learning and the effective use of visuals ad translation apps. All new arrivals are supported by a trained buddy, who gives regular feedback on progress in settling in to the EAL Co-ordinator.

Key Stage 4 is a difficult time to start a new school in a new language. However, the inclusive provision for new arrivals in Key Stage 4 is particularly impressive. As the Head of Year 11 put it: “The only withdrawal of a student in Year 11 is a single student from RE.”

Finally, this is the only school who, when asked to provide a governor we can talk to, chose the Chair of the Academy Trust, who happens to know a fair bit about EAL, having worked for many years at the school where our friends at Hounslow Language Service used to be based.