Earlham Primary School

At Earlham, we are proud that we speak 39 different languages with over 90% of our pupils learning English as an additional language to their home language. We provide a welcoming, accepting environment, which acknowledges and celebrates children’s diversity. We strive to meet the needs of all of our children for whom English may be their second or even third language, while at the same time encourage confidence in using their home language at school to support and enable learning. 

Our curriculum reflects all the cultures and religions of the community we serve. We actiively build positive partnerships with parents and carers to support learning at home. We regularly celebrate our cultural diversity and we support and develop pupils’ appreciation and knowledge of British culture, manners and behaviour, while respecting and maintaining their indebtedness to their own. 

We welcome new pupils who join our school  throughout the year, many of whom are new to the country, and new to English. During their first two weeks, new joiners are paired with a learning buddy, who helps them to settle in and make friends. If the new pupil is also new to English, we pair them with a buddy, who speaks the same language as them. The class teacher learns how to greet the pupil in their home language. We have identified language ambassadors who can buddy up with and provide invaluable input to support these pupils e.g. by translating, settling them in, reading with them, helping to fill in welcome packs and so on. After two weeks, our EAL lead checks in with the new pupils and parents and ensure that they are settling in well. 

New pupils are interviewed and assessed as soon as possible so that they can be allocated to the correct intervention group. We run a language aquisition programme called ‘Racing to English’, which has been carefully tailored to match both the school’s and British values. We also run reading and writing intervention groups including synthetic phonics, colourful semantics and reading recovery, to support the accelerated progress of our EAL pupils.