The Key for School Leaders
Supporting pupils with EAL
Supporting pupils with EAL to access the curriculum
This booklet features
a selection of articles
we’ve written in
We relay advice from two of our associate
experts, Diane Leedham and Charlotte Raby,
on teaching pupils with little or no English.
response to school
leaders’ questions.
Thousands of up-
Getting to know pupils’ needs
However, she cautioned against seating all pupils
with EAL together, as this will not help develop
their English language skills. She said that support
from another EAL learner with the same first
language can be useful to a new pupil with little or
no English, particularly where the other pupil has a
much higher fluency in English.
to-date articles are
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Diane Leedham previously a local authority lead
for EAL, said that pupils with EAL will have a wide
variety of needs, and will have strengths and
weaknesses in different skills.
She recommended having an initial meeting
with the parents of a pupil with EAL, using an
interpreter if necessary. This is important to
understand the pupil’s starting point and context,
and to get to know him/her as an individual.
The school should try to find out about the pupil’s:
• Personality – for example, whether he/she is
normally shy or outspoken
• Proficiency in his/her native language, and whether
he/she has any issues with articulation or fluency
• Educational background, including whether he/she
has attended school before and whether he/she may
have an existing special educational need (SEN)
She also recommended using teaching assistants
(TAs) and support staff to work with pupils who
have very low levels of English. However, these
TAs should have the appropriate training to help
them effectively support pupils with EAL.
Differentiating activities
Diane said that, in her opinion, it is important to
adapt whole-class activities to individual pupils.
Class teachers must ensure that they are
maintaining a high level of cognitive challenge
while also allowing pupils to access the same
content as the rest of the class.
She said teachers could allow pupils to express
their learning in a different way, for example by
using:
• Visual cues
• Gap-fill exercises
• Experience of language at home, including how
proficient the pupil’s parents are in English
She said that such factors will help the school
identify the skills that the pupil needs to develop
in order to effectively access the curriculum. She
added that pupils’ needs will also be informed by
the demands of the curriculum.
6
• Sentence frames
• Word cards
Organising the classroom She said that many of the techniques aimed at
teaching EAL learners can also be beneficial
to pupils who do not have EAL, particularly in
a primary school setting where all children are
learning literacy and language.
Diane recommended seating new learners who
have EAL with the most fluent English speakers in
the class. She added that allowing pupils to express some
ideas in their first language can help motivate
pupils and move learning forward.
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