Learning English as an Additional Language

The term EAL (English as an Additional Language) is used when referring to pupils whose main language at home is a language other than English. At St John's, we aim to work together to meet the full range of needs of these children and their families, ensuring they all feel valued in our community.

In order to better help you support your own children at home, please see our Curriculum pages, where you will find Curriculum letters for each class, videos to help you understand how we teach mathematical methods as well as powerpoints from our information evenings, held at school.

At St John the Baptist, we welcome and value the cultural, linguistic and educational experiences that pupils with EAL bring to our school. We aim to give status to EAL children’s skills in their own language(s) and acknowledge the time it takes to become fluent in an additional language. We encourage pupils to use their first language to explore concepts and implement a range of strategies to ensure that EAL pupils are supported in accessing the curriculum.

Coffee Mornings

As a school, we strive to engage our EAL parental community as much as possible and so hold an annual coffee morning alongside many other opportunities where parents can come into our school. We regularly invite all our parents into school to see the lessons we teach and provide regular information evenings to help our parents stay up to date with the children's latest learning.

We also love to have parents coming into school to share their own cultures.