EMTAS Moodle

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

It has been another busy year for Hampshire EMTAS. In this article we examine this academic year’s data and share interesting trends - these trends are reflected in our staffing update as well as the BCAP and B-ELSA role sections. We reflect on our work with Separated Minors (aka Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children) and share highlights of our support to pupils from Traveller and Showmen heritages. We celebrate the end of the GCSEs, catch up with our new study skills programme and reveal the schools who have successfully achieved their EAL/Traveller Excellence Award. Next, there is an update on our research project with the University of Reading. You will see we also ask for your input to help us shape next term’s programme of network meetings. We finish with a note from Team Leader Dr Sarah Coles.

This academic year in data

Our referrals this year total a little over 1,000. The most referred language this time has been Malayalam, reflecting families coming new to Hampshire from Southern India. Also featuring in our data are various African languages; Isizulu, Ndebele, Twi, Igbo, Swahili, Somali, Hausa, Mandinka and Afrikaans. For each of these, we've had relatively low numbers referred. However, when combined they’ve added up to enough for us to have needed to increase our staffing for this diverse group of children. Although not at the same rate as in recent years, we’ve also continued to receive lots of referrals for children here with their families as refugees. They represent speakers of an array of languages and they originate from countries across the globe – Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Pakistan and Ukraine to name a few. So it's been all hands to the pump as EMTAS staff have worked to profile all the children, and to support them in the way that best matches the needs of the individual. 

EMTAS staffing update

New to the EMTAS Bilingual Assistant team this year we have welcomed Nyonde, who works with Fiona C to support black children on roll in our schools. Lubna adds Urdu to the languages we can cover, Katya joins our Ukrainian team this summer term and in September, Anu brings Malayalam and Tamil to our offer to schools. Replacing Jess, who left for a new life in America at Christmas, Michelle joined the teacher team in the summer term and has been building relationships with staff in schools in Fareham and Gosport, her new patch, ever since. Thibaut will join our teacher team in September; he’ll be covering schools in the New Forest.

We say farewell to Kevin, who joined us just for 1 academic year to help cover our Cantonese referrals. Kevin goes on to a support role in a school. Sudhir is leaving us too. He’s been a member of the BA team for 16 years, and is well-known in schools with Nepali children on roll. Sudhir is off to train to be a maths teacher and we wish him every success in that endeavour. Finally, we congratulate Team Leader Dr Sarah Coles on successfully completing her PhD.

BCAP

This year we are delighted to welcome a new Achievement Project Officer for children of black and ethnic minority heritage. The team consists of two people who are covering the whole county mainly supporting children of colour. We have had a significant increase in the number of referrals from schools for children who speak African languages, the main ones appearing on referrals being Shona, Yoruba, Ndebele and Twi. Our Achievement Project Officers can now offer Cultural Awareness training to schools in addition to their support for these pupils.

Bilingual ELSA (B-ELSA)

Using funding for children from Ukraine, EMTAS and HIEP have worked together to develop a new role, the Bilingual ELSA. Our Bilingual ELSAs receive the same training and supervision with an Educational Psychologist as a school-based ELSA. The Bilingual ELSAs work together with school-based ELSAs to plan, deliver and review ELSA sessions tailored to children from Ukraine. In this way, school-based ELSAs stay fully informed about the Ukrainian children’s emotional well-being whilst the children will always have access to someone in school who understands how they are feeling and the issues they are dealing with like the loss of their home in Ukraine, bereavement, separation from family members and friends, loss of power and control over key aspects of their daily lives and uncertainty.

Bilingual ELSAs offer children a real connection to home as they give an opportunity to speak in first language as well as English. Our B-ELSA team share resources with school-based ELSAs and bring in other materials too, eg from Bear us in Mind. This charity provides, amongst other things, teddy bears in the colours of the Ukrainian flag. A bear attends each B-ELSA session, offering children a tangible anchor of emotional comfort.

Separated Children 

You will have noticed we now refer to Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children (UASC) as ‘separated children’, as this better describes the ongoing experience of separation they face. According to government statistics there were 3,285 applications from separated children in the year ending March 2024, 5% of the total asylum applications to the UK.

The separated children we have met at EMTAS have mostly come from Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and Sudan and the most common languages have been Pashto, Arabic and Kurdish Sorani. Some of these children have been attending schools in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, but we have also been continuing our work with the Virtual School to provide profiling assessments for separated children under Hampshire who have been placed in other counties. We have had 27 separated children referred to EMTAS since September 2023.

These children have to learn to deal with a new language, a new school system, a new home and a new culture, without family and friends to support them. Some cope with this change incredibly well, whilst others feel out of place and find the lessons overwhelming and the restrictions of school life in the UK very difficult to adjust to. If one of these brave young people arrives at your school, please do get in contact with EMTAS as soon as possible so that we can work together to support them as they learn to adjust to their new life. For more information and guidance on separated children, see our Moodle folder Asylum Seekers and Refugees. Try this quiz too, to see how much you really know about refugees: Refugee Action quiz (refugee-action.org.uk). 

Traveller & Showmen work

As usual the Traveller team have been busy throughout the year supporting all our schools, families and children. Julie and Steve, our two Traveller Support Workers (TSWs), have been in schools visiting all our primary aged children whilst Claire, our Traveller Team lead, has been supporting students in secondary schools via our Traveller & Showmen clinics. This is no mean feat when you consider that we are currently supporting 325 children. During this academic year Helen, our Traveller Team Teacher, has made 28 school applications to help Traveller & Showmen pupils to get places in Hampshire schools. 

As well as continuing with our Traveller & Showmen book and gardening clubs, we have also been running an attendance project. Claire and Helen have been working with four schools and their families to support increased attendance. Next year we are hoping to extend the project to include more schools. 

To celebrate Gypsy, Roma and Traveller History Month we were very privileged to be able to provide two live, online story-telling sessions with author Richard O’Neill. We were joined by lots of our schools and hundreds of children were able to enjoy Richard’s wonderful stories. We also held a poetry competition around the month’s official theme ‘What does family mean to you?’. We encouraged our pupils to write a poem entitled ‘What family means to me’. We have had some fantastic entries and Claire and Helen will be getting together soon to decide who will win a signed Richard O’Neill book. 

Heritage Language GCSEs

This has been a bumper year for EMTAS with the Heritage Language GCSEs. 200 applications 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 is 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. All our Bilingual Assistants supporting Heritage Language GCSEs have been racing from school to school to carry out the speaking exams within the assessment window. We are looking forward to results day on 22 August when we hope the students will be celebrating their achievements. Our staff are looking forward to hearing how well their students did too. 

Study Skills Programme

This academic year our Bilingual Assistants have been providing support to pupils through the Study Skills Programme, 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 aims of the programme are 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 have been learning how to use Google Lens to create a glossary, had a go at using Immersive Reader to access a text and much more. After an initial pilot at the start of the academic year the programme is now part and parcel of our ways of working with pupils.

Feedback from the programme has been overwhelmingly positive. One Bilingual Assistant fed back that throughout the sessions, her pupil displayed a strong interest in the programme and seemed determined to learn about the tools and skills introduced to support her learning. Another pupil said that she found Microsoft Translator and Immersive Reader especially useful for her revision practice. She was already familiar with some of the tools but commented that it was useful for her to explore these further and discover new features that she had not been aware of.

It is hoped that the impact of the programme will be apparent in class long after the pupils have completed the programme. In order to maximise impact and help pupils continue to develop independence in the classroom, the use of translation tools will need to be woven through teacher planning. To enable them to do this effectively, there will be opportunities for colleagues to learn more about the technology built into the Study Skills Programme in the new academic year. 

EAL and Traveller Excellence Award celebrations

This academic year, we have once again celebrated the hard work of many Hampshire schools, and others further afield, who have achieved an EAL or Traveller Excellence Award. 

Achieving the bronze level Traveller Excellence Award this year was Micheldever Primary school. Silver was awarded to Robert May’s School. We keep everything crossed for Greenfields Junior school, Wellow Primary school and The Hurst for their upcoming validations at bronze level.

Achieving the bronze level EAL Excellence Award were the City of Leicester College and New Milton Junior school. Silver level was awarded to Purbrook Infant school, St Peter’s Junior school, St Michael’s Infant school and Fleet Infants. Achieving the gold level award were Swanmore College, Alderwood Senior school, Alderwood Infants and Junior school, Elvetham Heath Primary school, The Riccher Federation Nursery Schools, The Wavell and Al Rabeeh Academy. Congratulations to all these schools and settings on this fantastic achievement!

This year we have introduced two new elements within our EAL awards. We have developed an Early Years Foundation Stage EAL Excellence award which we have already been successfully using to validate some nurseries and pre-schools during its pilot phase. In addition to this, we have now included a Diamond level within our EAL award. For schools that have successfully been validated at gold level twice, they can begin working towards their Diamond level. More information regarding this exciting addition can be found here: Working beyond Gold – introducing the new EMTAS Diamond EAL Excellence Award (hants.gov.uk). 

University of Reading and EMTAS research project

Our joint research project with the University of Reading has got off to a great start. Naomi Flynn has held interviews with the EAL or GRT co-ordinators and Headteachers of fourteen schools from across the county. These have been 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 has been 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 next 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. 

EMTAS network meetings 

Starting this autumn term, we will be tailoring our network meetings to further meet the needs of our schools. Each school should have received a link to a form to complete, allowing us to provide our network meetings on the most popular topics and on the most popular days/times as advised by you, our colleagues. Once we have received the feedback from schools, we will be sending out information regarding the upcoming network meetings, allowing schools to book onto those of interest. Should any Hampshire schools not have received this form to complete, the following link can be used: https://forms.office.com/e/14c2MizvEp. 

Finally, a conclusion by Team Leader Sarah Coles

2023-24 has whizzed by and as you can see, we’ve been kept very busy throughout, navigating all the changes and challenges that have come our way since September. Working in this field brings new things to learn all the time, even when you’ve been around as long as I have (24 years!). I look forward to finding out what 2024-25 has in store for us. But first, and like most of us at EMTAS and in schools too I’m sure, I look forward to the summer holidays.

By the Hampshire EMTAS Specialist Teacher Advisors

This has been an incredibly busy year for Hampshire EMTAS with 1089 pupils being referred to us by 30^th June. In this blog we delve deeper into our data and share interesting trends. We reflect on our work with Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children and share highlights of our support to Gypsy, Traveller, Roma, Showmen and Boaters. We also celebrate the end of the GCSEs, share an update to our late arrivals guidance and give details of our brand-new study skills programme. We reveal the list of schools who have successfully achieved their EAL Excellence Award and finish with a staffing update. Team Leader Sarah Coles has the final word in a concluding paragraph.

 
This academic year in data

Of the 1089 referrals received this academic year across the county, 825 were made by primary schools and 252 by secondary schools. Other referrals were made by special schools and the Virtual School. We have worked with around 303 schools and outside agencies, including some from outside of Hampshire. Rushmoor remains the busiest district for referrals with schools in this area submitting 249 referrals. Basingstoke and Deane followed closely behind, referring 188 pupils.

The top five languages referred to EMTAS this academic year were Ukrainian (149), Malayalam (88), Russian (79), Cantonese (74) and Nepali (72). Not all of the Russian language referrals have Ukraine as the country of origin; they include referrals for pupils from Russia, Latvia and UK born.

There has been a rise in the number of referrals from Albania jumping from 1 in the previous two years to 26 this year. Likewise Turkish referrals over the previous two years number 36 in total but this year there have been 38.

EMTAS has also seen an increase in the number of African languages spoken by children in Hampshire schools with Afrikaans, Akan, Akan Fante, Ghanaian, Herrero, Igbo, Luganda, Lugisu, Malinke, Nigerian, Shona, Swahili, Tigrinya, Twi, Twi Fante and Yoruba all being referred.

EMTAS has also seen a rise in the number of Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children (UASC) referred for profiling.
 
Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children (UASC)

According to the Refugee Council, in the year ending September 2022, the UK received 5,152 applications for asylum from unaccompanied children forced to flee their homes. The children we have met have come from Afghanistan, Albania, Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Turkey and Vietnam. Some of these Unaccompanied Asylum-seeking Children (UASC) have been placed in care and therefore in schools across Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, but we have also been working with the Virtual School to provide profiling assessments for children placed in other counties.

Each pupil has undertaken a long and difficult journey in search of safety. They then have to learn to deal with a new language, a new school system and a new culture, without family and friends to support them. Many are resilient enough to manage this change incredibly well, whilst others find the new rules and restrictions of school in the UK too challenging, particularly if they had already left education some time ago in their country of origin or in some cases have never been to school at all. So, if one of these brave young people arrives at your school, please do get in contact with EMTAS as soon as possible so that we can work together to support them as they learn to adjust to their new life. For more information on UASC, see our Frequently Asked Questions.
 
Gypsy, Traveller, Roma, Showmen and Boaters (GTRSB) 

As usual the Traveller team have been busy supporting all our schools, families and children.  Julie Curtis and Steve Clark, our two Traveller Support Workers (TSWs), have been in schools visiting all our primary aged children whilst Claire Barker, our Traveller Team lead, has been supporting students in secondary schools via our GTRSB clinics.  In total, we have supported 285 children this academic year, whilst throughout the year Helen Smith, our Traveller Team Teacher, has helped 22 GTRSB pupils to get places in Hampshire schools.

The school year started off in September with World Funfair Month. We encouraged our schools to celebrate this and provided a pack of ideas and resources to help them get started. Fast forward to June, GRT History Month, and again we provided our schools with a pack of activities and resources to encourage pupils to take part.

We have also launched a couple of new initiatives, including the GTRSB book club. Last term our pupils read The Show Must Go On by Richard O’Neill. One pupil was so inspired by the book that she made an amazing Lego model fairground ride that featured all the characters from the book. We posted a picture on Twitter and Richard O’Neill himself commented. We also launched a gardening club which has been successful in providing some alternative provision for two groups of boys in a primary and a secondary school.

 
Heritage Language GCSEs

As students come to the end of their time in secondary, it is great to see so many schools celebrating multilingualism by offering Heritage Language GCSEs. This year EMTAS supported more than 152 candidates with 11 different languages, mirroring the amazing diversity of learners in our county. Polish topped the tables with the largest number of candidates, and our Bilingual Assistants have been racing from school to school to carry out all the speaking exams within the assessment window. We are looking forward to results day on 24 August when students can celebrate their achievements and EMTAS staff look on with pride.

 
Late arrivals

While some students may view GCSEs as the end of an educational marathon, for others it’s a sprint! Late arrivals (students who arrive in the UK in Year 10 or Year 11) have very little time to settle into their new country and new school before they are faced with GCSE exams. Many are new to English and some must contend with an entirely new alphabet! While not all undertake a full complement of subjects in this short timescale, it is a testament to their fortitude and hard work that so many leave with at least one GCSE. This also reflects the commitment of a host of amazing teachers. Even the best practitioners sometimes need a little help from their friends, so the team at EMTAS have recently released updated Guidance on good practice in relation to Late Arrivals. This aims to help schools navigate the crucial period when late arrivals first join their school and ensure they provide the best advice and guidance.
 
Study Skills Programme 

Members of our team have been busy planning, rewriting and resourcing a brand-new Study Skills Programme for Bilingual Assistants to offer to schools in the new academic year. The programme will be suitable for pupils who are literate in their first language and are working within Band A, B and early stage Band C (particularly for reading and writing). It will be offered to pupils in Year 5 and 6 as well as pupils in Secondary school. The aim of the course is to help pupils explore how they feel about their learning and their subjects and consider different tools and strategies they can apply in their lessons/homework. It will consist of 5 sessions of 50 minutes to be delivered over half a term. As we write this blog we are excitedly putting the final touches to the programme and presenting it to EMTAS colleagues for feedback. We are also looking for schools where our staff could trial the sessions in the first part of the Autumn term. We thank all our schools for supporting us while we train our staff to deliver our new programme after the summer break.
 
EAL Excellence Award (EXA) celebrations 

What a pleasure it is to further celebrate all the schools who have worked to achieve an EXA award this year. Huge congratulations go to Sopley Primary, Gosport and Fareham MAT, Portway Infants, St Matthew's CE Primary, St Patrick’s Primary and St Bernadette’s Primary who all achieved our Bronze award. Also, to Roman Way Primary, St Jude's RC Primary, St Michael’s Juniors, Bordon Infants, Henry Beaufort and Oakmoor for achieving Silver. Congratulations also go to St Swithun Wells, Cranbourne Business and Enterprise College, Cove Secondary School and Talavera Juniors for achieving Gold. We would like to give a special mention to Merton Infants who are the first school to achieve a revalidation at Gold; an incredible achievement! We still have a couple of schools to be validated (at time of print) so please keep up to date by checking our Twitter page regularly. Well done to all involved and thank you for all your hard work in supporting your learners with EAL. 
 
EMTAS Staffing update 

At the end of the summer term we say goodbye to Lisa Kalim from the Specialist Teacher Advisor team. During her 21-year tenure, Lisa has covered schools in the New Forest, led on Refugees and Asylum Seekers for the team and operated the EMTAS EAL/SEND phoneline, ever-popular with schools. From September, a new system for accessing support for children with both EAL and SEND needs will come into effect so do keep an eye out for information about this change.

We also say good bye to Rekha (Hindi), Kubra (Dari) and to Kasia P (Polish) from the Bilingual Assistant (BA) team. We wish them well in their next ventures. 

We welcome Kevin to the BA Team. Kevin joins our Chinese BA Team and will be working with Cantonese-speaking children from Hong Kong once he has completed his induction. We welcome Olena and Alex too, both of whom will be working with children from Ukraine. They will be our very first Bilingual ELSAs, joining Olha and Vlad, existing members of the EMTAS team. Together, the four of them will cover referrals for children from Ukraine as well as providing specialist ELSA support. The new Bilingual ELSA role will begin in the new term with ELSA training from the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Educational Psychology (HIEP) team. After their training Olha, Olena, Vlad and Alex will be deployed to schools. There they’ll work in partnership with school-based ELSAs to enable Ukrainian children to access ELSA support by removing any barriers caused by language and/or culture. 
 
Finally, a conclusion by Team Leader Sarah Coles 

As you can see, 2022-23 has been no less busy for EMTAS than 2021-22. Stepping into the role of Team Leader has brought with it both challenges and opportunities and whilst I’ve got used to these, the team has continued to work hard around me to make sure our Service continues to deliver professional, high-quality support to children, families and schools. Being at the forefront of developments in the EAL and GTRSB worlds has long been a source of pride to us, and this year we have continued to innovate and to inspire in all sorts of ways, some of which you have read about in this blog. I look forward to continuing in post in September as EMTAS enters its thirty-second year. 

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 

EMTAS’s ‘Welcome to Hampshire’ information guide for unaccompanied asylum seeking children (UASC) has been updated. By Hampshire EMTAS Specialist Teacher Advisor Lisa Kalim.

Do you have unaccompanied asylum seeking children (UASC) in your school?  If so I recommend that you have a look here at EMTAS’s newly updated information guide for UASC and encourage your UASC to use this useful resource, perhaps assisting them by printing a copy out for them.  This booklet was written specifically for the young people in our schools who are UASC and aims to help them settle into their new lives in Hampshire as smoothly as possible.  It was first created over ten years ago as a result of feedback received from UASC who had been in our school system for several years and who shared what they wished they had known about when they first arrived.  It has been updated regularly ever since.  It seeks to provide information on various topics that will be relevant to unaccompanied asylum seekers including:

- what happens at each stage of the asylum process

- what their rights and responsibilities are

- housing

- education and schools/colleges/universities

- health care

- working in the UK

- sport and recreation 

- how they can attempt to contact family and friends in their home country including those they have become separated from

- details of organisations that can provide support to them.

It has been written as simply as possible to allow those UASC who are already able to read in English sufficiently to access it independently, either in a printed version or via the online version on our website.  For those who can understand English well but are not yet able to read it to the level required there is also an audio version here.

For those who are unable to access either the written or audio versions in English there are translations available in the three most commonly spoken languages by our UASC here in Hampshire – Arabic, Pashto and Farsi. These can be found here. Please check that your young person is able to read in the relevant language before providing them with this resource as some UASC may not have had the opportunity to learn to read or write in their country of origin due to difficulties with accessing education.  EMTAS hopes to be able to provide audio versions of these translated booklets in the future, starting with Arabic, so keep an eye out on our website.

It is helpful if UASC can be given access to Welcome to Hampshire as soon as possible after their arrival in Hampshire but even if they have already been living here for several months or years it can still be useful to them as they may have forgotten some of what they were told early on or there may just have been too much information for them to take in all at once at a stressful time. Welcome to Hampshire can be referred to by the young person from time to time as needed, for example as they progress through the asylum system and would like a reminder about what will happen next. 

Reading Welcome to Hampshire can also be useful for staff as it will give them an idea of the types of areas that are likely to be important to their UASC and explains the asylum process simply.  It also contains a section on useful contacts which staff may also find helpful if working with UASC. 

At the end of the booklet there is a form on which the young people are invited to give feedback to EMTAS about Welcome to Hampshire.  This feedback is then used to update future versions to ensure that it stays relevant and includes information on everything that the young people feel they need.  I would appreciate it if you could encourage any UASC in your school who use the booklet in whatever format to complete it, with assistance from a member of your school staff if needed.  The young person can write in any language they like, or their views could be scribed for them.  Responses can either be posted to EMTAS’s office in Basingstoke (address is included in Welcome to Hampshire) or sent via email to lisa.kalim@hants.gov.uk.

I’ll end with a quote from a 16 year old UASC from Iran who helpfully provided us with the following feedback:

‘When I first came here, I didn’t know where I should live or what I would do.  This little book helped me to find out what I needed to know.’

Hampshire EMTAS Specialist Teacher Advisor Lisa Kalim separates fact from fiction

If you read and believe certain tabloid newspapers you may well have reached the conclusion that UK schools are struggling with a large influx of asylum-seeking children and young people.  However, this view is not supported by the most recent data released by the Home Office in February 2018¹.  These give the details of all asylum applications made by children in 2017 and compare the data with the previous four years.  Applications from Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children (UASC) and those that arrived in the UK with an asylum seeking relative/guardian are included in the data so all children who were seeking asylum during this period have been considered.

How many asylum seeking children started at British schools in 2017?

Probably far fewer than you think. In 2017 a total of 2,206 children applied for asylum in their own right, down 33% from the previous year.  Of these, 71% were aged 16-17, 22% were aged 14-15 and 4% were aged under 14 with a further 3% of unknown age.  All are entitled to a school or college place.  An additional 2,774 applied as dependents of adult asylum seekers, making a total of 4,980 children.  Some of the latter were under the age of 5 years at the time of their relative/guardian’s application and so would not all need a school place straight away.  When you consider that there were 8,669,085 pupils in UK schools in 2017 (DfE, 2017)² but only 4,980 of these were newly arrived asylum seekers, it would seem clear that schools are not being swamped by asylum seekers.  How can they be when one year’s worth of newly arrived asylum seeking children make up less than 0.05% of the total school population? 

But don’t some areas get more than their fair share of asylum seeking pupils?

The UK operates a policy of dispersal for asylum seekers to avoid particular areas receiving much larger numbers than others.  This has been in place since 2000 for adult asylum seekers and their families and whilst it is not a perfect system (it has had criticism for removing new arrivals from their extended family in the UK, for example) it has meant that any particular area should not receive more than one asylum seeker per 200 of the settled population and therefore no area should feel ‘swamped’. 

For UASC, a new scheme called the National Transfer Scheme has been in place since 2016.  Similarly, it limits the numbers of UASC for whom any particular Local Authority is responsible to 0.07%  of its total child population.  Again, this should mean that no single area should receive a larger number than it is able to manage.

Didn’t the UK take in lots of children when the Calais Jungle closed?

Between 1^st October 2016 and 15^th July 2017 only 769 children were permitted to move to the UK from the camps in Calais.  There were 227 children from Afghanistan, 211 from Sudan, 208 from Eritrea and 89 from Ethiopia.  The rest came from a variety of countries, with fewer than 10 children from each.  Nowhere near enough to swamp UK schools.

Where have the rest of the children come from?

Sudan is now the country of origin for the largest number of UASC. 89% of all applications in 2017 were from the following 9 countries: Sudan (337), Eritrea (320), Vietnam (268), Albania (250), Iraq (248), Iran (213), Afghanistan (210), Ethiopia (74) and Syria (41).  89% of these children were male.  For female UASC Vietnam is the most common country of origin.

For children arriving with a relative or guardian, the countries of origin are similar but with the addition of Pakistan, Bangladesh and India.  Numbers from Sudan and Vietnam have increased significantly since 2016, whereas numbers from Iran and Afghanistan have decreased.  In contrast to UASC, around 66% of children that arrived with a relative or guardian are female. 

How many children are granted refugee status and allowed to stay in the UK?

1,998 initial decisions relating to UASC were made in 2017. Of these 1,154 (58%) were granted refugee status or another form of protection, and an additional 378 (19%) were granted of temporary leave (UASC leave). A further 23% of UASC applicants were refused. This will include those from countries where it is safe to return children to their families, as well as applicants who were determined to be over 18 following an age assessment. 

For children with a parent or guardian their decisions are linked to their adult applicant’s.  So, if their parent or guardian is granted refugee status, the children are too.  In 2017, 68% of asylum applications (excluding UASC) were refused.  Only 28% were successful and an additional 4% were granted other types of leave.  The numbers being granted refugee status are the lowest that they have been in the last 5 years.  The numbers of refusals increased in 2017 compared to previous years.  Pakistan, Bangladesh, India and Nigeria have well above average refusal rates, whereas children from Iran, Eritrea, Sudan and Syria are most likely to be granted refugee status.  Those refused can choose to appeal the decision.  In 2017 only 35% of appeals were allowed, while 60% were dismissed.  This means that a large proportion of the asylum seeking children arriving in our schools will not be permitted to remain in the long term. 

So, are our schools being swamped with asylum seekers or not?

Based on the facts, I would say definitely not but you make up your own mind.  Some schools may have more asylum seekers than others but this does not mean that they are swamped.  The numbers arriving overall are falling. 

Read more about supporting Asylum seeker and Refugee children at school on the Hampshire EMTAS website.

References

¹ Refugee Council (February 2018) Quarterly asylum statistics [online]

https://www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/assets/0004/2697/Asylum_Statistics_Feb_2018.pdf

² Department for Education (June 2017) Schools, pupils and their characteristics: January 2017 [online] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/650547/SFR28_2017_Main_Text.pdf