Knighton Mead welcomes and celebrates all learners. We have many children who come from different ethnicities, have a variety of cultural experiences and differing life experiences. Some of these children have English as an additional language (EAL). Knighton Mead knows that EAL practice is good practice for all learners.

Ways we support learning for EAL learners:

  • visual aids to support language acquisition
  • practical experiences – we provide enrichment opportunities to provide children with language development
  • speaking and listening – our curriculum focuses on language development and the acquisition of new vocabulary. There are opportunities for the rehearsal of new language and for it to be applied to sentences
  • collaborative learning – all classes have Talk Partners. Talk Partners provide children with the opportunity for exploratory talk and to speak and listen for a purpose
  • sentence stems – sentence stems are used across the curriculum to develop grammatical accuracy. Following The Tower Hamlets approach, sentence stems are used to build academic language and help the children to become confident, precise orators
  • overlearning – in lessons, we ensure that there are opportunities for overlearning so that the language and knowledge of a topic transition from the working memory to the long term memory
  • scaffold and supports – children will have vocabulary mats to support them with their language acquisition. They also have writing first aid kits which provide them with scaffolds to support their writing. They build on these over the year and personalise them to meet individual needs
  • reading comprehension – our reading comprehension approach is based around the acquisition of language. Vocabulary examination is a fundamental part of the approach and allows children to build their own vocabulary

When children arrive at the school, they have a settling in period where they get to know the routines and meet key adults and children in their class. They then receive an induction of the school systems and are baselined so that learning is tailored to their individual needs. Knighton Mead has a specialist Teaching Assistant who supports children across the academy with their acquisition of the English language.

EAL Policy (MISSING FILE)