Where have all the EAL children gone?

They have all disappeared and been replaced by this fantastic group of multilingual children! It seems that English is no longer a new, additional language to them, but just another piece of the BSB student jigsaw. While there may have been a little rust for those children who did not have the opportunity to practise their English production skills, be it writing or speaking, it is clear that they have continued to absorb the language from all around them, be it from songs, books, tv shows (few new cartoon names this year!) or movies.

The children have come back ready to blast off into the new year of learning as they continue to bring multilingual practices into the classroom – be it using vocabulary from their home languages or thinking of fantastic new ways to describe something. Wabi-sabi - a fantastic word to describe the acceptance of how things are, imperfections and all!

These last weeks, Key Stage 1 has blasted back into the world of their Super Friends as they reviewed their powers, invisibility, super strength, super speed and animal whisperer, classroom objects and their daily routines. As a time-honored tradition, they labelled the classroom with post-it notes and ensured everyone was properly informed of what went where. They even had a new teacher (a Year 2 student) who led them in a lovely game of Simon Says once they were done!

Lower Key Stage 2 has been reintroduced to our Adventurers, Ben and Lucy, as they explored a brand new castle and discovered medieval treasures lying around, just waiting for our adventurers. To practise the vocabulary learnt, they worked together in pairs and helped one another learn these tricky new words through illustrations and definition phrases.

Not to be outdone, Upper Key Stage 2 has gone back through the wormhole to see our Time Travellers as they begin their own journey with an accident in a science lab. Students interviewed each other to find out how much they recalled about our Time Travellers and played games such as Hot Seat to test each other’s knowledge when reviewing our irregular past tense verbs (supporting/auxiliary and main).

Coming back with such vigour and enthusiasm has set the tone for what we expect to be a wonderful year of learning! 

By Jay Lee

Head of EAL