Below are the top ten things that we have seen in those schools making a huge difference for EAL pupils. For each item in the top ten, there is a link to blogs about two schools who do it especially well.
Our Gold award schools share their best practices on our termly EAL Quality Mark webinars.
<< You can watch previous EAL Quality Mark webinars on our YouTube channel
| 1. Focus on developing pupil talk | |
2. Communicate visually | |
| 3. Combine high expectations for all with understanding difference | |
4. Respond rapidly to demographic change | |
| 5. Ask parents the right questions the right way in order to get helpful answers | |
| 6. Treat the local community as key learning resource | |
| 7. Encourage pupils to use and develop all of their languages | |
| 8. Create a curriculum that matches pupils’ needs | |
| 9. Consistency across classrooms | |
| 10. Make sure new staff know what to do with EAL pupils |
The EAL Quality Mark is based on a school’s self-evaluation of its EAL provision. It is an award made to schools on their achievements in meeting the needs of pupils learning English as an additional language.
It is available as a bronze, silver or gold award, allowing schools the opportunity to re-visit the award and build on their practice over time. Any school with pupils on roll who are learning English as an additional language is eligible to apply.