EAL (English as an Additional Language)

Enriching our school community

At Wilbraham Primary School, almost 70% of the pupils have English as an additional language.  There are more than a million EAL learners in English schools and like many Manchester schools, our EAL pupils are in the majority.

Our aim at Wilbraham Primary is to welcome, value and support our EAL children and their families.  We have both an EAL team and a teaching staff for whom EAL teaching is high on the agenda.  All teaching staff are aware of the need to provide an education for all of the pupils in their classrooms and have an inclusive curriculum.

We have created a welcoming environment and ethos that includes establishing strong links with parents/carers and their communities.  The home languages of our EAL pupils are valued.  We feel that having children who speak many different languages enriches our school community.  We currently have 40 different languages that are spoken at Wilbraham Primary School.  The main languages spoken are Urdu, Panjabi, Arabic and Somali.

Our EAL Team

Our EAL Team is currently made up of 6 experiences members of staff:

• A part time teacher.
• A part time Arabic speaking bilingual instructor.
• A part time Somali and Swahili speaking teaching assistant.
• A part time Urdu speaking teaching assistant.

We are also lucky enough to have other staff in school who are not part of the team, but who are happy to assist us in our work. They speak Italian, Dari, Farsi, Kurdish and German.

The Support That We Provide

Support is offered at a range of levels and individual needs are taken into account.  It is important to us that we support both children who are new to English from Year 1 to Year 6.

Depending on the level of need, pupils are offered weekly, time limited, individual or small group lessons.

For pupils who are new to the UK, the team also carries out initial assessments to decide how best to support the children. Children and their families have access to the members of the team who will be supporting them.  The staff are both concerned about developing a child's sense of well-being and developing the child's acquisition of English.  The EAL team are also able to support parents/carers by interpreting for them during school meetings. 

There is a small EAL area where children can come to work and find staff if they need their support. 

The team are to be found working on a day to day basis as class TAs in each key stage of the school. They have dedicated skill sets in supporting staff, EAL children and their families across the school. They support the whole school staff in working hard to ensure that children feel well supported, enjoy learning English and feel increasingly more confident in their use of English and ability to access the curriculum.