EMTAS Moodle

By the Hampshire EMTAS Specialist Teacher Advisors with the support of the wider EMTAS team 

In this first blog of the academic year the EMTAS team congratulate students on their fantastic GCSE results, share their new programme of network meetings and update readers on their work with the University of Reading. We conclude this blog with some introductions. 
 
Heritage Language GCSEs 

2023-24 was a bumper year for EMTAS with the Heritage Language GCSEs. 200 requests were made by 11 schools and 187 students were supported by EMTAS Bilingual Assistants in the speaking exam, whilst 70 students had support for reading and writing too. It was great to see so many schools celebrating multilingualism by offering Heritage Language GCSEs to their students. Polish was the most requested language with the largest number of candidates sitting the exam; our Polish Bilingual Assistants supported 38 students at one school alone. Results are in and we are pleased to report that 66% of the students supported by EMTAS Bilingual Assistants achieved the top Grade, 9, with a further 19% achieving an 8.     
 
EMTAS network meetings  

Starting this term, we are tailoring our online network meetings to best meet the needs of our schools. Before the summer, schools were sent a link to a form to complete, allowing us to schedule network meetings on the most popular topics and on the most popular days/times as advised by you. Our programme of network meetings for this term is now live on our website. We are starting on September 17th with a session focussing on the needs of learners who are new to English. Later this term you will have the opportunity to join sessions focussing on the needs of more advanced learners of EAL, a meeting exploring how to use first language as a tool for learning in the classroom and a session considering how to track progress in acquisition of English for learners of EAL. We look forward to seeing you online – book a network meeting now. 
 
University of Reading with EMTAS: research project update 

Our joint research project with the University of Reading continues into this academic year. Naomi Flynn held interviews with the EAL or Traveller co-ordinators and Headteachers of fourteen schools from across the county before the summer. These were very helpful in establishing what schools currently do to support their multilingual, Traveller and Showmen pupils, what they find challenging, and what they would like to see in the new oracy-related training materials that will emerge from this project. Alongside the interviews, Naomi is meeting regularly with the EMTAS teacher team to establish what the principles driving the new materials will be and how we might ensure their accessibility and usefulness to schools. Early this term we will send out invitations for schools to take part in trialling the new resources for us from November 24 – February 25. We’d like to thank those schools who have already taken part; your input has been invaluable. If you have not yet taken part in an interview, and/or want to know more about the project, there is still time (contact Naomi on n.flynn@reading.ac.uk). Alternatively, do please send us your thoughts at this questionnaire link.  

Report on the impact of the Young Interpreter Scheme 

Supporters of the Young Interpreter Scheme and avid readers of the blog will be familiar with research carried out by Debra Page on the Young Interpreter Scheme as part of her PhD. We are delighted that Debra – now Dr Page – has completed her PhD and shared her findings with us. She concludes that  

Read Debra’s report now… 

EMTAS staffing  

Just before the summer break, the EMTAS Bilingual Assistant team welcomed Nyonde, who works with Fiona Calder as Achievement Project Officer for children of black and ethnic minority heritage. Lubna added Urdu to the languages we can cover, and Katya joined our Ukrainian team. Joining EMTAS in September, Anu brings Malayalam and Tamil to our offer to schools and Thibaut joins our teacher team; he’ll be covering schools in the New Forest. All look forward to working with you this academic year. 

Ethnic Minority and Traveller Achievement Service | Hampshire County Council (hants.gov.uk)

By the Hampshire EMTAS Specialist Teacher Advisors

In this first blog of the new academic year, the Hampshire EMTAS Teacher team share important news and highlights. There is much to look forward to!
 
Staffing

We are very pleased to welcome five new Bilingual Assistants (BAs) to our team:  Olena, Alex, Lana, Vlad and Kevin. Olena, Alex, Lana and Vlad speak Ukrainian and Russian (Lana speaks German too), and Kevin speaks Cantonese. Olena, Alex and Vlad will be joining Olha (who is also a Ukrainian and Russian-speaking BA) to act as B-ELSAs: bilingual ELSAs who, thanks to government funding, will be helping to support the emotional wellbeing of our refugees from Ukraine. We have also had an increase in referrals from Hong Kong and so Kevin will be joining Jenny and Catherine, our Cantonese-speaking BAs. This will help speed up response times for BA support for our Cantonese-speaking pupils.
 
GCSE results

September is always an exciting time of the year as we see results pour in for the Heritage Language GCSEs. This year EMTAS supported 152 candidates with 11 different languages and our Bilingual Assistants were delighted to meet so many talented bilingual or multilingual learners. As in previous years, the student success is spectacular! Results are still coming in, but so far more than 85% of students have achieved grade 7 or above.

Naturally it will soon be time to start the process all over again, so we are currently updating our training and processes to make everything run even more smoothly in 2024. We are grateful to all the schools who have given us useful feedback about their experience of EMTAS support and shared comments from the examiners’ reports. We look forward to achieving even more support requests for next summer when we relaunch our request form towards the end of the autumn term.
 
SEND/EAL news

After many years of operation, we closed the EMTAS EAL/SEND phoneline at the end of last academic year. However, we are still very much here to support colleagues in schools where there are concerns about a child for whom English is an Additional Language. Now, instead of waiting for Tuesday afternoon, you can phone us on our main office number at any time convenient to you during term time. A member of the team will either route your call through to the Specialist Teacher Advisor (STA) for your district OR take details from you so that your STA can phone you back. We hope that this will be a more direct, faster way of accessing support where you are working with children who are learning EAL and who may have additional needs.
 
Study Skills Programme

This academic year we are proud to be launching a new and innovative form of support for pupils in Years 5 and 6 and KS3/4 who are literate in their first language. The Study Skills Programme will be delivered to suitable pupils in withdrawal by EMTAS Bilingual Assistants. It aims to help pupils explore how they feel about their learning and their subjects and to equip them with different tools and strategies they can apply in their lessons and home learning. For example, pupils will learn to use Google Lens to create a glossary, have a go at using Immersive Reader to access a text and much more. The programme is being piloted this half-term with full roll-out planned for after the October break. To find out more about the programme and your role in ensuring it impacts classroom practice, sign up for our free network meeting on Monday 6 November at 9.30.
 
GTRSB attendance project

Some of our Traveller students have persistently poor attendance, and this inevitably impacts on their learning, progress and attainment. This academic year the EMTAS Traveller Team is going to be working in collaboration with four schools to pilot an Attendance Project. The aim of the pilot is to support school staff, Traveller parents and students to collaborate with the aim of improving the students’ attendance. It will involve regular monitoring of individual Traveller student’s attendance, regular communication with parents, coffee events and promotion of the EMTAS Traveller Excellence Award. It is hoped that this will result in a marked improvement in the attendance of the targeted students, and will also positively impact their academic progress.

 
Training offer

We have been overwhelmed by the positive uptake and wonderful feedback from our training sessions over the years. We're keen to maintain this momentum, so why not join us and ensure you feel confident, knowledgeable and equipped with how best to support our learners of EAL? There are several different training opportunities for you to take part in which include our pan-Hampshire network meetings. Our next network meeting takes place on 11^th October 3.30-4.30pm with a focus on using ICT to support learners of EAL. Don't worry if you can't make it as we will revisit these sessions throughout the year. View all our training dates via our website.

In addition to our network meetings, we are once again offering SEAL training. This course is the ideal starting point for teachers and TAs, particularly those who are taking on the role of EAL lead within their school. The course consists of 6 full days spread over 2 years, allowing plenty of time to slowly embed best practice within your school. More information about the SEAL course can be found on our website.

We are almost at capacity for our EMTAS Conference which takes place on 12^th October 2023.  It's set to be an incredible event with guest speakers Jonathan Bifield and Sarah Coles along with Jacob Parvin and Jack Hill. If you'd like to grab one of the last spaces, please follow this link for more information.
 
Finally...

Stay up to date with EMTAS news – sign up for the bulletin.

By the Hampshire EMTAS Specialist Teacher Advisors

Welcome to this new academic year. In this blog you will find out what’s in store for 2022-23, starting with a staffing update and news of fantastic heritage language GCSE results. We also share ideas and resources to celebrate World Fun Fair Month and details of upcoming training opportunities. Finally, we have news of our continued support for refugee arrivals and celebrate the achievement of schools on their EAL Excellence Award.

Staffing

To kick off, we have some news about our staffing. We are delighted to welcome new Bilingual Assistants this year, Olha Herel (Ukrainian), Jenny Lau (Cantonese) and Kubra Behrooz (Dari). 

From our Teacher Team, last term we bade farewell to Specialist Teacher Advisor Jamie Earnshaw, who worked with schools in Eastleigh, Fareham and Gosport. In his place, Lynne Chinnery is now covering Fareham and Gosport districts in addition to Havant & Waterlooville and the Isle of Wight. As a temporary measure whilst we wait for our new recruit to join the EMTAS Teacher team, Claire Barker is back on the team and covering Eastleigh and East Hants whilst Kate Grant has added Hart to her brief. Helen Smith is covering Rushmoor and all things GTRSB – that’s Gypsy, Traveller, Roma, Showmen and Boater in case you are wondering about the new nomenclature there, following the lead of the Traveller Movement and ‘The Pledge’. 

Finally, Michelle Nye, the erstwhile Team Leader, left EMTAS at the start of this term to take up the role of Executive Head of the Virtual School for Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. In her place, Sarah Coles is currently acting Head of Service with Claire Barker as her trusty sidekick, acting up into the Deputy Team Leader role.

GCSE results

2021-22 was a bumper year for Heritage Language GCSEs. In the summer 2022 exam series, EMTAS Bilingual Assistants supported 106 students in schools across the county with their Heritage Language exams. Students took GCSEs in 11 different languages, with Persian added to the list thanks to Sayed Kazimi, our Pashto, Dari and Farsi-speaking Bilingual Assistant who supported our first ever Persian candidate. Our Admin team gathered in the results from schools as soon as we started back in September; the full list is now on the EMTAS website, but we are thrilled to be able to report that 60 of those students achieved Grade 9, with another 25 being awarded Grade 8. Our congratulations go to all those students.

World Fun Fair Month

September is dedicated to celebrating our Showmen children and families. World Fun Fair Month was started by Future 4 Fairgrounds which is a community organisation set up by 6 Showmen women to celebrate the Showmen community as well as raise awareness of the challenges they face. Our team is proud to have supported WFFM by collating ideas and resources for schools to use throughout September to celebrate this important month for our Showmen families. There is still time to share children’s work with us so we can display it on the EMTAS website and Moodle. You can share anything from your school’s celebrations by sending it via email to EMTAS@hants.gov.uk with ‘World Fun Fair Month 2022’ in the subject line, ensuring it includes no photos or names of children (only the names of the schools the children attend will be published).

 
For your diaries - upcoming training opportunities

Back by popular demand this term are our online network meetings which will be co-delivered after school by different members of the EMTAS Teacher Team. There are three dates for a session focussing on catering for the needs of refugee arrivals: September 22^nd, October 11^th and November 8^th. We also have three dates for a session focussing on the needs of new to English arrivals on September 27^th, October 20^th and November 16^th. There are details of how to join these meetings on our website.

This half-term we also recruit for our Supporting English as an Additional Language (SEAL) course. This course is suitable for teachers, EAL co-ordinators and support staff in both primary and secondary phases. This is a two-year course: it comprises of six units taught over 6 days. It is held in Winchester and starts in November 2022 and ends in May 2024 therefore it can be budgeted over three academic years. The benefits of sending a member of staff on this course are far-reaching. Not only does it upskill a member of your staff in becoming an expert in English as an Additional Language (EAL) but it also leads to raising EAL standards at your school. Through the course colleagues will explore different cultural practices, learn how to confidently assess pupils with EAL including whether a child’s needs are SEN or EAL, discover the latest technologies to help support pupils with EAL and become more aware of how to support parents of children with EAL. The course also helps towards gaining the EAL Excellence Award. For more information about SEAL, please visit our website. 

Plans are already underway for our not to be missed EMTAS conference which will take place in the Autumn of 2023. Keep an eye out for save the date information which will be sent out this Spring term. We look forward to seeing many of our blog readers at this event which promises to be as thought-provoking as ever. 

Refugee arrivals 

EMTAS referrals for refugee pupils are continuing to arrive and we are pleased to see many school colleagues book on our network meetings to find out more about how to cater for this group of children and young people. We are also delighted to see schools make good use of our resources centre by borrowing dual language stories, translated texts and devices such as talking pens.

Some schools in Hampshire and on the Isle of Wight have been receiving requests from Ukrainian parents for patterns of attendance/provision that differ from full time attendance at school/participation in mainstream lessons every day. In many cases families are looking to return to Ukraine once it is safe to do so and it is therefore understandable that they may want their child(ren) not to miss out on the Ukrainian curriculum. In a recent School Communication also available on our Moodle we share some considerations and points to bear in mind which may help with the decision-making around such requests as well as alternatives to explore.

Later this term we look forward to adding a new blog to our refugee series where we will unpick the differences and similarities between refugees arriving from Afghanistan and those arriving from Ukraine. Later this academic year we will also be sharing cultural information about these countries on our website.

EXA news

By the Hampshire EMTAS Specialist Teacher Advisors

1077 pupils, 60 languages, 70 countries of origin; 2021-22 has been a year like no other. In this blog, we reflect on the highlights of a very busy academic year and share some of the things schools can look forward to after the summer. Notably we discuss our response to our refugee arrivals and Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children, review our SEND work, examine how our research projects are progressing, feedback on our GTRSB work, give an update of developments around the Young Interpreter Scheme, ECT programme and Persona Dolls and celebrate the end of support for Heritage Language GCSEs for this academic year. EMTAS Team Leader Michelle Nye concludes this blog with congratulations, farewells and an update around staffing. 

Response to refugee arrivals

As we post this blog, 275 refugee arrivals have been referred to Hampshire EMTAS in 2021-22. These pupils predominantly arrived from Afghanistan and Ukraine with a small number coming from other countries such as El Salvador, Pakistan and Syria. EMTAS welcomed new Bilingual Assistant colleagues to support pupils speaking Ukrainian, Dari/Farsi and Pashto and a lot of work went into supporting and upskilling practitioners in catering for the needs of new refugee arrivals. We delivered a series of online network meetings where colleagues from across Hampshire joined members of the EMTAS Specialist Teacher Advisor team to find out more about suitable provision. We launched a new area on Moodle to share supporting guidance and resources. We published two blogs – Welcoming refugee children and their families and From Kabul to a school in Basingstoke – Maryam’s story. And we added two new language phonelines to our offer, covering Russian and Pashto/Dari/Farsi. 

In the Autumn term you can look forward to further dates for network meetings focussing on how to meet the needs of refugee new arrivals. There will also be sessions where we will explore practice and provision in relation to catering for the needs of pupils who are in the early stages of acquiring English as an Additional Language (EAL). In addition to this, we are planning a blog in which we will interview our new Ukrainian-speaking Bilingual Assistant to share with you the specificities of working with Ukrainian children. The team is also working alongside colleagues from HIAS and HIEP to collate FAQs from queries and observations related to asylum seekers and refugees who have recently arrived into Hampshire.  

Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children (UASC)  

It’s been a busier than usual year for UASC new arrivals too, with 11 young people being referred to us having made long and dangerous journeys to the UK on their own. They have travelled from countries such as Sudan, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and Eritrea and speak a variety of languages including Arabic, Kurdish Sorani, Tigrinya and Pashto. The majority have been placed in schools outside of Hampshire and so have been profiled remotely, but some are now attending Hampshire schools meaning that we have been able to visit them in person. There is lots of advice available for schools receiving UASC onto their school roll on our website. This includes detailed good practice guidance and Welcome to Hampshire (an information guide written for the young people) translated into several key languages with audio versions also available. 


SEND work  

The SEND phone line run by Lisa Kalim continues to be well used by schools as their initial point of contact with EMTAS when they have concerns about a pupil with EAL and suspect that they may have additional needs. There have been almost 100 calls made on this line to date this academic year. After school tends to be the busiest time so if you can ring earlier, it may be easier to get through first time. It is helpful to have first read the information on our website about steps to take when concerned that a pupil with EAL may also have SEND and to have gathered the information suggested in the sample form for recording concerns before calling. In many cases advice can be given over the phone without the need for a teacher advisor visit to the school.  However, for others a visit by one of our Teacher Advisors can be arranged. This year, our Teacher Advisors have been especially busy with this aspect of our work and have completed over 60 visits since September. These have focused on establishing whether individual pupils may have additional needs as well as EAL or not and also on the enhanced profiling of those for whom a school will be submitting a request for assessment for an EHCP. 

Ongoing research 

It’s been a catch-up sort of year for Sarah Coles, with a delayed start to her data collection due to Covid affecting the normal transition programmes schools have for children due to start in Year R in September. Through the Autumn, Spring and Summer terms, Sarah has made visits to schools to work with the eleven children who are involved in her research. The children are either Polish or Nepali heritage and they were all born in the UK. This means they have not experienced a monolingual start to life, hence Sarah’s interest in them and their language development.   

The children have talked about their experiences of living in two languages – although as it turns out they’ve had very little to say about this. Code-switching is very much the norm for them and having skills in two languages at such a young age seems to be nothing remarkable or noteworthy in their eyes. They’ve also done story-telling activities in their home languages and in English, once in the autumn term and again in the summer. This will enable comparisons to be made in terms of their language development as they’ve gone through their first year of full time compulsory schooling in the UK.  

Early findings suggest big differences between the two language groups. The Nepali children tend to prefer to respond in English and most have not been confident to use Nepali despite all demonstrating that they understand this language when it’s used to address them. This has been the case whether they are more isolated – the only child who has access to Nepali in their class - or part of a larger group of children in the same class who share Nepali as a home language. In contrast, the Polish children have all been much more confident to speak Polish, responding in that language when it’s used to address them as readily as they use English when spoken to in that language. This has been the case whether they’re more isolated at school or part of a bigger cohort of children. 

The field work ends in the summer with final interviews with the children’s parents and teachers. Sarah then has a year to write up her findings, submit her thesis and plan how best to share what she’s learned with colleagues in schools. 
 

Young Interpreter news

This academic year Astrid Dinneen launched the Young Interpreter Champion initiative. Young Interpreter Champions are EAL consultants outside Hampshire who are accredited by Hampshire EMTAS to support schools in their area in running the Young Interpreter Scheme according to its intended ethos. Currently 6 Local Authorities are in our directory with more colleagues enquiring about joining.

Established Young Interpreter Champions met on Teams in the Summer term to find out how the Young Interpreter Scheme is developing in participating Local Authorities and to plan forward for 2022-23. They also heard more about Debra Page’s research on the Young Interpreter Scheme under the supervision of the Centre for Literacy and Multilingualism at the University of Reading and with Hampshire EMTAS as a collaborative partner.  

The aim of Debra’s research is to evaluate the scheme’s impact on children’s language use, empathy and cultural awareness by comparing Young Interpreter children and non-interpreter children. Her third and final wave of data collection took place during the Autumn term 2021. This year is dedicated to analysing her data and writing her PhD thesis. Her chapter on empathy and the Young Interpreter Scheme is complete and she will soon write a summary about this in a future Young Interpreters Newsletter. She also looks forward to sharing results of what is found out in terms of intercultural awareness and language use.   

GRT update 

It has been a very busy year for the GRT team. Firstly, we will be moving towards using the more inclusive term of Gypsy, Travellers, Roma, Showmen and Boaters – GTRSB when referring to our communities. 

As usual our two Traveller Support Workers Julie Curtis and Steve Clark have been out and about supporting GTRSB pupils in schools. The feedback they receive from schools and families is very positive. The pupils look forward to their opportunity to talk about how things are going and they value having someone listen to them and help sort out any issues. Our Traveller team lead Helen Smith has been meeting with families, pupils and schools to discuss many issues including attendance, transport, exclusions, elective home education (EHE), relationships and sex education, admissions and attainment.  

Helen has been lucky enough to work with some members from Futures4Fairground who have advised us on best practice when including Showmen in our Cultural Awareness Training. Members of the F4F team also attended and contributed to our schools’ network meeting and to our GTRSB practitioners’ cross-border meeting. 

The team was busy in June encouraging schools to celebrate GRT History Month. We devised activities and collated resources around the theme of ‘homes and belonging’. Helen attended an event to celebrate GRTHM at The University of Sussex. It was aimed at all professionals involved in working with members from all GTRSB communities in educational settings. It was encouraging to see so many professionals attending. Helen particularly enjoyed watching a performance of Crystal’s Vardo by Friends, Family and Travellers. 
Sarah and Helen have been making plans for celebrating World Funfair Month in September. We have already put some ideas together for schools on our website and hope to develop them further with help from our friends at Future4Funfairs. 

Looking forward to next year, as well as reviewing our GRT Excellence Award, we will be looking at how best to encourage and support our schools to take the  GTRSB pledge for schools  - improving access, retention and outcomes in education for Gypsies, Travellers, Roma, Showmen and Boaters. Schools that complete our Excellence Award should then be in a position to sign the pledge and confirm their commitment to improving the education for all their GTRSB families.  
 

Early Career Teachers (ECT) programme

The Initial Teacher/Early Career Teacher programme that Lynne Chinnery is preparing for next academic year is really coming together. After a large proportion of student teachers stated they were still uncertain how to support their EAL learners after completing their training programmes (Foley et al, 2018), the EMTAS team decided to do something about it. 

Lynne has collated a set of slides to train student and early career teachers on best practice for EAL learners by breaking down the theory and looking at practical ways to implement it in the classroom. The sessions cover such areas as supporting learners who are new to English; strategies to help students access the curriculum; assessing and tracking the progress of EAL learners; and information on the latest resources/ICTs and where to find them.

The programme has been made as interactive as possible in order to reinforce learning, with training that practices what it preaches. For example, it provides opportunities for group discussions that build on the trainees' previous experiences. The trainees can then try out the strategies they have learnt once they are back in the classroom.  

Lynne Chinnery has already used the slides on a SCITT training programme and the feedback from that was both positive and useful. One part the students particularly enjoyed and commented on was being taught a mini lesson in another language so that they were literally placed in the position of a new-to-English learner. This term, Lynne and Sarah Coles have met with an artist who is designing the graphics for the training slides - once again demonstrating a feature of EAL good practice: the importance of visuals to convey a message. The focus in the autumn term will be a reflective journal for student teachers to use alongside the training sessions. 

Heritage Language GCSEs

This has been a particularly busy year for us supporting students with the Heritage Language GCSEs. We received 136 requests from 32 schools. We provided support for Arabic, Cantonese, German, Greek, Italian, Mandarin, Polish, Portuguese, Russian and Turkish. For the first time this year, we also supported a student with the Persian GCSE. 

The details of the packages of support we will be offering next year will be shared with you in the Autumn term. You can also check our website. Remember to get your referrals in to us in good time! 

We wish all students good luck as they await their results! A big thank you to Jamie Earnshaw for leading on this huge area of work. Sadly Jamie is leaving at the end of the Summer term. Claire Barker returns from retirement to take over the co-ordination of Heritage Language GCSEs from September. 

Persona doll revamp

Persona Dolls are a brilliant resource which provide a wonderful opportunity to encourage some of our youngest learners to explore similarities and differences between people and communities. They allow children time to explore their own culture and learn about the culture of someone else. The EMTAS team currently have around 20 Persona Dolls, all of which come with their own identity, books and resources from their culture to share and celebrate.  

Now some of you may have noticed that our Persona Dolls have been enjoying a little hiatus recently. What you will not have seen is all the work that is currently going on behind the scenes in our effort to revamp them. Within our plans we aim to provide better training for schools so that you as practitioners feel more confident in using them within your classrooms. Kate Grant is also looking at ways to incorporate technology so that you can have easier access to supporting guidance, links to learn more about the doll’s heritage and space to share the experience your school has of working with our Persona Dolls.  EMTAS know that our schools recognise the value of this wonderful resource and look forward to seeing the positive impact they will have on their return.  

Finally, a conclusion by Team Leader Michelle Nye

The last time EMTAS topped 1000 referrals was 7 years ago so it has been one of the busiest years we have experienced in quite a while. This was due to the exceptional number of refugee referrals and to a spike in Malayalam referrals whose families have come to work in our hospitals. On top of this we had over 120 new arrival referrals from Hong Kong; these children are here as part of the British Hong Kong Nationals Overseas Programme.    

EMTAS recruited additional bilingual staff and welcome Sayed Kazimi (Pashto/Dari/Farsi), Tsheten Lama-North (Nepali), Kubra Behrooz (Dari), Tommy Thomas (Malayalam), Jenny Lau (Cantonese) and Olha Herhel (Ukrainian) to the team.   

We are delighted that schools have been committed to improving their EAL and GRT practice and provision and have achieved an EMTAS EAL or GRT Excellence Award this year.  Congratulations to St Swithun Wells, Bramley CE Primary, St James Primary, Marchwood Infant, New Milton Infant, St John the Baptist (Winchester District), Bentley Primary, St Peters Catholic Primary, Swanmore College, Poulner Junior, Grayshott CofE Primary, The Herne Primary, Wellington Community Primary, Marlborough Infants, John Hanson, Fleet Infants, Fairfields Primary, Swanmore CofE Primary, Brookfield Community School, Fernhill School, New Milton Junior Elvetham Heath and Red Barn Primary.  

We say goodbye to Jamie Earnshaw, Specialist Teacher Advisor, who has been with EMTAS since 2012.  During his ten-year tenure, his work has included producing the late arrival guidance on our website, developing our Accessing the curriculum through first language: student training programme now available for pupils in both primary and secondary phases, and for leading on our Heritage Language GCSE work.  His are big shoes to fill and we will miss him immensely; we wish him every success in his new venture.   

Enjoy your summer holiday and see you again in September.  
 
 

Data correct as of 30.06.2022 
Word cloud generated on WordArt.com 

By EMTAS Specialist Teacher Advisor Lynne Chinnery 

With an average of one in six pupils in UK schools learning English as an Additional Language (EAL), every student teacher will unquestionably need a solid understanding of EAL pedagogy and how to apply it in the classroom. But how important is EAL these days? You may have noticed a distinct lack of focus on EAL in the OFSTED Inspection Framework but there is at least a mention in the DfE’s Teachers’ Standards. Does this mean that an understanding of EAL good practice is no longer as important for practitioners as it used to be? Is EAL support and training no longer required apart from a cursory nod?

Clearly not, as the number of EAL learners in our schools is increasing, not declining. The Bell Foundation states that, “nearly half of all teachers in England will be teaching pupils from diverse backgrounds, and superdiversity in schools is becoming the norm.” This is no surprise to the Hampshire EMTAS team as our number of EAL referrals and requests for support continues to grow.

In fact, schools sought our support for a total of 30 different languages in March alone! It is therefore rather worrying that EAL is a key area flagged up by both student teachers and newly-qualified teachers as one they feel the least prepared in.

In a study by The Bell Foundation and the University of Edinburgh (Foley et al, 2018), a third of student teachers reported that they had “little” or “little to no” understanding of how to support the language and literacy needs of their EAL learners.  And although the majority of trainees understood that teachers had a responsibility for EAL, approximately one half of them said that they had received no EAL input at all during their school placements. It was even found that the teacher trainers themselves lacked confidence in their own knowledge and experience of EAL. This is despite the fact that standard five in the Teachers’ Standards states that teachers must “have a clear understanding of the needs of all pupils … including those with EAL” and “be able to use and evaluate distinctive teaching approaches to engage and support them.”  

Furthermore, the National Curriculum Statutory Guidance (2014, Section 4.5) clearly states that teachers must ‘take account of the needs of pupils whose first language is not English’, showing that EAL should be an important component of teacher education programmes. EAL is not a separate subject, but rather a pedagogy that should be considered throughout the curriculum, and needs to be taught as a distinct discipline to ensure its theory, practice and strategies are understood. Students’ training courses can differ greatly from region to region and the opportunities for EAL experience will depend very much on the schools they are placed in and the training provided on their course, all of which seem to be rather hit and miss. 

Some areas that were lacking in Initial Teacher Training (ITT) programmes were identified in the Bell Foundation/Edinburgh University study and they include:
- understanding the value and use of home languages in the classroom
- the need for student teachers to expand their own knowledge about other languages and their differences
- developing understanding of the cognitive and emotional demands of moving between languages
- learning to apply their EAL theory and practice across all subjects and levels. 

I was particularly surprised that understanding the value of other languages in the classroom was identified as one of the missing areas. It seems to me that promoting the first language is one of the key elements of good EAL practice and the responsibility of every school. Without it, we are ignoring a significant part of an EAL learner’s life and identity, as well as missing out on a valuable resource right there in the classroom. (If you would like ideas and resources to support the use of the first language across the curriculum, see the section Use of First and Other Languages on our Moodle.)

Whatever EAL training is put in place for ITTs, it will need to continue and be built upon as teachers enter their first years of teaching and beyond. The NQT programme was replaced with the Early Careers Framework (ECF) in September 2021 and this phase extended to two years. The Early Career Teachers (ECTs) will have support from a dedicated mentor as well as time off timetable for induction activities and training, in the hope that fewer of them will leave the profession during their induction period. The DfE are also hoping that the ECF will build on the ITT and “become the cornerstone of a successful career in teaching”.

Yet once again, we have a discrepancy between what is expected and what is taught. The new ECF is closely aligned to the Teachers’ Standards, and yet makes no reference to EAL, which means that as long as the training providers stick to the ECT programme, the inclusion of EAL is discretionary. And so it would seem that the EAL training provided in the ECF could be as ad hoc as that in the ITT.

The last annual DfE survey of NQTs (which was pre-Covid) showed that many were concerned about their ability to teach EAL. I doubt much has changed since then. In her article How well prepared to teach EAL learners do teachers feel? Emily Starbuck says that “NQTs have consistently given this aspect of their training the lowest rating.” In fact, most of those questioned reported having had little or no training on their ITT to enable them to meet the needs of EAL learners. They also felt that it would be difficult to improve their practice due to a lack of external guidance; many stating that CPD opportunities and school support in the field of EAL were unavailable. As one teacher in the survey said, “Most of the training was geared towards mainstream.”

The Bell Foundation report clearly states that in order for all teachers to be prepared to meet the needs of EAL learners, Initial Teacher Education should not be seen as a separate component in a teacher’s career but should be viewed as the first step in their continuing professional development. It is therefore important that the groundwork on EAL taught to trainee teachers in the ITT stage is built upon as they progress through their careers.

Why then is EAL not being addressed more in Initial Teacher Training (ITT) programmes and the ECF? Without knowledge of best-practice principles in the field of EAL and guidance on how to apply them, student teachers and early career teachers are more likely to make poor or uninformed decisions when faced with learners who are new to English as well as more advanced EAL  learners. Some examples the EMTAS team have seen include the deceleration of students, unnecessary withdrawal from the classroom and the use of inappropriate resources. Inexperienced students and teachers are also more likely to judge a student’s ability from their spoken communication (BICS), and therefore fail to provide enough support with their academic and literacy skills (CALP). (To understand BICS and CALP, watch this: Terms to Know: BICS and CALP.)  

Newly-qualified and student teachers will need ideas and strategies that they can use to scaffold the curriculum content for their EAL learners; an hour-long session on ‘the basics’ of EAL is not going to suffice. With this in mind, I have been working with my colleagues at Hampshire EMTAS on an in-depth ITE and ECF training programme to fill this potential void and deliver up-to-date training. Using the pedagogy of EAL to guide the trainees, but with practical ideas for EAL support in the classroom, we hope that our training programme will give the attendees the confidence they need.

We hope that the termly training sessions will run as a steady progression from Initial Teacher Training right through to the end of the Early Career Teacher programme. The training will consist of a set of modules, based on the findings of The Bell Foundation's recent research, but using strategies, resources and ideas from across the Hampshire EMTAS Teacher Team. Each session is designed to be as interactive as possible, with plenty of group activities and discussion, so that the trainees have the opportunity to share their experiences in the classroom and learn from each other. This will have the additional benefit of promoting the value of collaborative work by having the trainees experience it for themselves.

There will be a reflective journal to accompany the course so that the ITTs and ECTs can review their learning and thoughts from each session, as well as plan strategies to explore once back in the classroom. Some of the areas that will be included in the training are:
- understanding the stages of language development such as the silent period
- ways to include the EAL learner in the classroom and scaffold their learning
- collaborative work and setting/grouping
- knowing how to advise parents on bilingualism/multilingualism
- assessment, tracking and planning for EAL.

We also ensure that student teachers and ECTs are made aware of appropriate, up-to-date resources and where to find them. 

By equipping students and teachers with the knowledge and strategies they need, I hope that they will view EAL in a similar way to Sheila Hopkins: 'multilingualism should be seen as a valuable resource and an integral part of a child’s identity, rather than as a hindrance'.

I will continue to work and build on the training course and hope to share my progress once I'm done – although as we all know from Kolb’s Learning Cycle, a teacher’s work, just like a student’s, is never really “done.”
 
References

Naldic (2016) EAL Learners in Schools

The Bell Foundation (2018) University of Edinburgh Research Report, English as an Additional Language and Initial Teacher Education

Department for Education (2021) Teachers’ Standards in England
The Bell Foundation (2019) University of Edinburgh Executive Summary, English as an Additional Language and Initial Teacher Education

The Bell Foundation (2020) Designing New ITE Curricula: EAL Content Recommendations

DfE (2019) Early Career Framework

DfE (2018) Newly Qualified Teachers: Annual Survey, 2018 Research Report
Hamish Chalmers (2018) How well prepared to teach EAL learners do teachers feel?

Sheila Hopkins (2022) Supporting trainee teachers to teach EAL pupils

Hampshire EMTAS Guidance Library

By Steve Clark, Hampshire EMTAS Teaching Assistant for Travellers

Hampshire EMTAS is pleased to announce the release of a new e-learning module for all school staff who support children and families from GRT backgrounds. This module - which complements existing EMTAS cultural awareness training - aims to offer CPD in a way, and at a time, which fits in with practitioners’ busy work schedules. It offers an insight, through self-driven exploration, into the linguistic and cultural aspects of several GRT backgrounds. There are phase-specific examples of how best to support children and families from GRT heritages and an opportunity to build an action plan to support your work with your GRT communities. 

So what does it look like?

The GRT e-learning course takes approximately 40 minutes to complete. The objective is to provide a general awareness of several GRT cultural groups, their languages, their history and from where these groups originated. It is designed to enable the learner to explore various aspects to the support offered by a school to its GRT pupils and their families.

Who should take this course?

This unit will be relevant for class teachers, Governors, TAs/LSAs, the GRT coordinator and any home-school link workers. It is particularly relevant for any trainee teachers and those at an early stage in their teaching career. It is also a useful addition to the training programme of any agency that supports children and families from GRT backgrounds, whether they are within or outside of Hampshire.

What does it include?

Find out interesting facts about GRT cultures around the world and listen to four podcasts about Roma, Irish Travellers, English Gypsies and Showmen. In addition, you can have a try at a language activity which will introduce you to Romany. There are interactive school maps where you can access phase specific information about catering for GRT families. You can learn more about the benefit of ascription for GRT pupils, their families and the school and there is helpful advice about attendance issues, dual registration, distance learning and how and when to use the ‘T’ Code appropriately. The unit culminates with the creation of an action plan to support your role as GRT Lead.
 
How can I access this module?

This module is available free of charge to Hampshire LEA schools and Academies that have bought into the Hampshire EMTAS SLA. There is a charge for other institutions to access the unit. Please contact emtas@hants.gov.uk for details.

Where can I find out more about GRT?

Read our blogs

Visit our website and use the tabs to find out more about GRT resources, how to access support for a Traveller child, effective distance learning for GRT pupils, the GRT Excellence Award and Kushti Careers

Guidance for schools regarding attendance

A Study Into the Use of the T Code

Find out more about our suite of e-learning modules, including The Culturally Inclusive School

By Claire Barker

At long last we bring you the good news that the EMTAS conference will take place on 15^th October 2021 at The Holiday Inn, Winchester. We are delighted that this will be an in person event; over the last eighteen months, the conference date has been moved several times because we really wanted to be able to meet and greet you face to face. This is, at last, possible and we look forward to welcoming practitioners who work in any phase of education from EYFS to KS4 to the long-awaited event.
 
The Conference is titled ‘All in this together – going from strength to strength’. This reflects the post pandemic fatigue felt by many of us and how we now need to move forward together to support our EAL and GRT children who have maybe struggled with their education during the pandemic. Many EAL and GRT children will have lost skills they’d acquired in English and will now be playing catch up. Many will have missed out on peer-to-peer interaction and the opportunities this provides to develop social language and interpersonal skills. On the positive side, some will have improved their first language skills as a result of spending more time living in that language. Others will have increased their ICT skills and their digital literacy and this will be a focus of one of our workshops, how to use ICT programmes to support literacy in the classroom. 

We are very fortunate to be able to welcome Eowyn Crisfield, who is a well know name in linguistic communities. Eowyn is a Canadian-educated specialist in languages across the curriculum, including EAL, home languages, bilingual and immersion education, super-diverse schools and translanguaging. Her focus is on equal access to learning and language development for all students, and on appropriate and effective professional development for teachers working with language learners. She is author of the recent book ‘Bilingual Families: A practical language planning guide (2021) and co-author of “Linguistic and Cultural Innovation in Schools: The Languages Challenge” (2018 with Jane Spiro). She is also a Senior Lecturer in TESOL at Oxford Brookes University.

Our very own Deputy Team Leader, Sarah Coles is currently studying for her PhD. Sarah’s longitudinal study, now in its fourth year, focuses on children with Nepali or Polish in their backgrounds. These two languages represent the greatest number of referrals made by schools to Hampshire EMTAS, hence the relevance of the research to the Hampshire context. In her presentation, Sarah will consider some of the features of the linguistic soundscape experienced by UK-born bilingual children. Drawing on findings from her pilot study, she will discuss the use of the Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives, drawing attention to some points of note for mainstream practitioners with an interest in language development. 

Our third keynote speaker of the day is Leanda Hawkins.  Leanda is from a Hampshire Romany family with a long history of culture and heritage. She went on to Higher Education, and has carved a career supporting children with special educational needs. Her motivation is to help all children progress and thrive through education. Leanda will share her experiences of education as a child, student and artist now working as Behavioural Lead and HLTA in a federated school in Hampshire. 

The workshop offer will include a session with Eowyn looking at 'Language and literacy development for multilingual learners: What do we know and what can we do?'. There will be an interactive IT session looking at OT programmes to support literacy in the classroom led by Lynne Chinnery.  Jamie Earnshaw will lead a workshop focusing on the 'New Hampshire EMTAS first language support programmes'. Helen Smith will host a session on 'Literacy for GRT pupils and breaking barriers in the school community'. Sarah Coles will lead a session on ‘MAIN - Multi-Lingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives'.

The Conference promises to be exciting and informative.  Delegates will have the opportunity to participate in two workshop sessions as well as time to visit the stalls that will promote and highlight resources to help support EAL and GRT students.

If you would like to continue your studies in EAL best practice the new Supporting English as an Additional Language(SEAL) course begins later this term. If you are interested in this course please contact HTLC to book a place or email: Claire.Barker@hants.gov.uk for more information. 

We are looking forward to seeing you at our future events.

References
Language and learning loss: The evidence on children who use EAL (bell-foundation.org.uk)
Languages in lockdown: Time to think about multilingualism | LuCiD

By the Hampshire EMTAS Specialist Teacher Advisors 

Welcome to this new academic year. The EMTAS team is feeling refreshed after the summer holiday and looks forward to continuing their work. We’re particularly excited to support more schools this year as they work towards achieving an EAL or GRT Excellence Award. In this blog you will find out what’s in store for 2021-22 to support your professional development as well as your award submission. You will also learn more about our Heritage Honours Award, find out about staff changes in our team and catch up with important research projects.

Network meetings 

The dates of our EAL network meetings can be found on our website. We will also be holding specific network meetings for Early Career Teachers, the details of which can be found on the same page of our website. The termly GRT-focused network meetings will continue to be held online this year. Like our EAL network meetings, they are free to attend for Hampshire-maintained schools. To find out when the next ones are, check the Training section of the EMTAS website.

EMTAS conference 

We are very much looking forward to the EMTAS Conference on Friday 15^th October at the Holiday Inn in Winchester. It promises to be an enlightening day with Eowyn Crisfield as one of our keynote speakers. She is an acclaimed expert in languages across the curriculum and has a wealth of knowledge in this field. Sarah Coles will be sharing her research findings on ‘Pathways to bilingualism: young children’s experiences of growing up in two languages’ and Leanda Hawkins will speak of her experiences of education from the perspective of belonging to the Romany community. There will also be a selection of cross phase workshops for delegates to take part in and stalls to see some of the latest resources available to support EAL and GRT pupils in education. Everyone who signs up will receive a free set of the latest EAL Conversation Cards valued at £45. There are limited spaces so please sign up as soon as possible. For further information and online booking please see our flyer attached to this blog. 

New e-learning 

We are pleased to announce that we have new E-learning modules now available: 

- Supporting children and families from Gypsy, Roma and Traveller (GRT) backgrounds

- Developing culturally inclusive practice in Early Years settings

- The appropriate placement of learners with EAL in groups, sets and streams.

Our e-learning modules are free to access for Hampshire-maintained schools. To find out how to obtain a login, please see our Moodle.

Heritage Honours Award

The EMTAS Heritage Honours award, launched last academic year, celebrates the achievements of children from BME, EAL and GRT backgrounds at school and within the home/community. Children and young people can be nominated for an award by the school they are currently attending. More than 60 successful nominations were received last year. Reasons for nomination variously include success in heritage language examinations, practical and creative use of first language within the school environment, sharing cultural background with peers, acting as an empathetic peer buddy, success in community sporting events and excellent progress in learning EAL. Nominations are now open for this year. To find out more about how to nominate a pupil, see our Moodle. 

Research 

Debra Page is entering the third and final year of her PhD researching the Young Interpreter Scheme. Data collection happened online due to the pandemic and the first and second wave of data collection with 84 children across 5 schools is now complete. The third and final data collection will be in November and all the data will then be managed and analysed. In her last update, Debra shared a YI diary and additional training resource she created. She delivered this virtually with each school during their YI training session and initial feedback has been very positive. It is hoped that these extra resources will form part of the YI training in the near future. The children are excited to complete their diaries about the work that they do as a Young Interpreter. If the diary is something that you are interested in, please get in touch. We look forward to finding out results of what is learnt about the Young Interpreter Scheme. 

Sarah Coles will update us on her own PhD in a separate blog very soon. Her PhD is part time and she’s just embarking on her fourth year of study. She’ll mainly be involved in data collection this year and a number of schools with children from Polish and Nepali families starting in Year R have agreed to support this. Sarah is hoping the families she and members of our Bilingual Assistant team approach will be similarly willing to be involved. 

Staffing

At the end of last term, we wished Chris Pim a happy retirement and welcomed back Astrid Dinneen following her maternity leave. As a result, we have made some changes to the geographical areas the specialist teacher team will be covering:

Sarah Coles – Winchester

Lisa Kalim – New Forest

Astrid Dinneen – Basingstoke & Deane

Jamie Earnshaw – Eastleigh, Fareham and Gosport

Claire Barker – Hart, Rushmoor and East Hants

Lynne Chinnery – Havant, Waterlooville and Isle of Wight

Helen Smith – Test Valley

Sarah, Claire and Helen will also cover GRT work across the county.

We also welcome Abi Guler to our Bilingual Assistant team. He will be working with our Turkish families. We are delighted to have also newly recruited Fiona Calder as our new Black Children's Achievement Project Assistant. 

We are all looking forward to continuing working with you. In the meantime, be sure to subscribe to the blog digest and visit our website.

By Hampshire EMTAS Polish-speaking Bilingual Assistants Magdalena Raeburn and Katarzyna Tokarska.

Have you ever felt frustrated or out of your comfort zone because of communication barrier? Have you been on holiday abroad and found it tricky to explain what you need to your local shops, hotels or restaurants?

Imagine now, how much more complex and difficult a situation of an EAL child in a UK school might be. Try to put yourself in their shoes for a while… They come to the UK not for a holiday and not out of their own choice. They have to challenge themselves against a new language, new culture and a local community as well as the unknown school set of rules and regulations.

EMTAS Empathy Training will help you understand the complexity of the challenge that the EAL child faces every day.  The aims of the session are:

- To increase awareness of the challenges that EAL learners face in the UK schools

- To give an insight into Polish learners’ cultural school differences

- To share ideas of how to approach the most common challenges experienced by the EAL learners. 

During the training you will have a chance to become an EAL learner in a Polish classroom by taking part in a practical group activity on the geography of Poland. You will be expected to understand the teacher’s presentation, participate in a variety of activities, including group work, match the pictures, read and follow instructions as well as answer questions. 

Would it be ‘only’ a language barrier…?

The training participants concluded that acquiring the language is only a part of the bigger picture. Cultural traits, local history, geography and customs are also a part of learning when they are trying to integrate into the new reality.

Our ‘students’ admitted that it ‘really made (them) consider other barriers than language’. 

They also discovered that the manifested child’s behaviour in the classroom might have different roots rather than the ‘obvious’ ones… One of the participants said: ‘Very useful to understand how they would/could come across as ‘naughty’ or ‘distracted’’. It was an eye-opening experience.  

Our workshop attendees revealed that their ‘survival’ strategy during the session was to answer ‘yes’ to any teacher’s attempt of communication. Have you got such EAL children in your classroom? Our workshop ‘students’ said it was their technique to use to be left alone rather than having to participate in the activity they do not feel competent or confident with. Our participants also felt ‘frustrated’, ‘confused’, ‘not very clever’ and ‘wanted to avoid being asked’.  They were ‘easily disengaged’, ‘embarrassed when put on the spot’, ‘wanted to give up’ and ‘finally turned off’.

The session was an opportunity to face your own emotions as well as share the strategies, resources and ideas. Some strategies could involve researching information on the EAL child’s culture, educational system as well as taking your pupil’s personal experience into account.

When the EAL children join the UK classrooms, they need more than technicality of the language and pedagogical strategies.  They need our empathy at every step of their challenging, new journey. 

Take part in our empathy exercise at the Basingstoke EAL network meeting on January 28th. Limited spaces available and free to Hampshire maintained schools. For enquiries, please contact Lizzie Jenner, lizzie.jenner@hants.gov.uk.

Subscribe to our Blog Digest (select EMTAS).