Who can I speak to if I need help?

Mrs Vaz is the Assistant Head Teacher for Inclusion and the Lead SENCo

Mrs Dray is the EAL coordinator

Mrs Sengupta is the EAL Specialist Teaching Assistant

Miss Spencer is the Mainstream SENCo

Helping children learn: Guidance for parents of pupils who use English as an Additional Language

Schools in the UK want parents to be actively involved in school like and will help you to get involved if you are not confident in English or have work commitments.

Here are some ideas to help:

• Tell the school if you find some texts difficult to understand e.g. school letters or the school website
• Tell school staff if they are speaking too fast for you or use words that you don't know.
  Here are some polite phrases you can use for this:
  - Could you speak more slowly, please?
  - Could you say that again? I didn't understand.
  - I'm sorry, but I didn't understand you. Could you please repeat that?
  - Could you please tell me what ________ means?
  - Could you repeat that word please? I don't know what it means.
  - Could you speak louder, please? I cannot hear what you said.
• Tell the school what will help you understand school communications better e.g. translations of spoken communications
• Tell the school when the best time is to contact you, and the best contact number
• Tell the school if there is another family member who is better in English and can help communicate with the school
• Ask the school for information about the school and your child's learning. Ask for this information to be translated in your home language (if this is possible). You should ask for:
  - school timetable of the day
  - home learning
  - assessment dates
  - attendance/punctuality
  - the curriculum and different key stages#
• Join a parent group with other parents who speak the same language as you. This could be the Class Whatsapp group or the PTA group
• Attend parent's evenings. If you are worried about your English, you could request if an interpreter is available or if someone can also attend with you.

How to support your child's learning

• Ask about the school's Home Learning tasks
• To help your child with the home learning:
  - ask your child questions and talk about the topics studied in your first language
  - encourage your child to use a bilingual dictionary to translate words
  - encourage your child to write down any new words in English and/or their first language to help them remember them
  - encourage your child to ask their teachers if they do not understand something
• Read with your child at home. You can do this in your first language and talk about the pictures and what is happening in the story. With older children you can listen to them read and ask them to guess words if they don't know what they mean. These websites have stories in lots of different languages, and they are free:
  World Stories https://worldstories.org.uk/ and Unite for Literacy https://www.uniteforliteracy.com/
• Join a class to help you improve your English. Some schools run English classes for parents. You can find ESOL classes in your local Further Education College. If you can't join a class, or want to learn independently, you can find English practice from the British Council. https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/