Page 26 - ELG1801 Jan Issue 453

PEOPLE .

A radical

rethink

A school in a city which came to embody the UK’s immigration debate hopes
to boost standards with a major shake-up of how EAL pupils are educated

uring the EU referendum, the city of than English are spoken in the school, with English schools – was out of the question, says
Peterborough became a byword for Lithuanian, Portuguese, Slovakian, Polish and Driver, a modern foreign languages specialist
the Brexit debate. Latvian making the top five. who started her career in Tefl after leaving the
D A convenient 45-minute train The school says 44 per cent of the school army. ‘We had tried immersion, and immersion
ride from London, journalists vox-popped its population is EAL to the extent that it will wasn’t working for us, and we decided we were
citizens to ask them their views on its recent seriously impede their academic progress going to do something more radical,’ she says,
influx of migrant workers from Europe. elsewhere. The school has also taken on explaining that this model only really works in
The picture that emerged was mixed: a significant proportion of Roma pupils, primaries or when the vast majority of pupils
migrants were welcomed by employers in the who can be behind educationally as well as are English native speakers.
surrounding farms and factories, but some linguistically. Teachers were leaving because of the strain
inhabitants felt threatened by the increasing Clearly, addressing the needs of this large of differentiating lessons for pupils of such
number of ‘foreigners’ entering the job market. body of learners had to be one of the keys varying degrees of ability and English, she
One thing is certain: the influx of migrants to the school’s overall improvement efforts, explains. The task, she adds, was ‘impossible’.
since the expansion of the EU in 2004 left There also appeared to be a link with EAL
some secondary schools in the Cambridgeshire We had tried students unable to access the curriculum
city with a large number of pupils arriving in properly and bad behaviour.
the middle of their schooling with little or no immersion and immersion Efforts by the special needs department to
English at all. support EAL students alongside their normal
One such school was the Voyager Academy, wasn’t working for us and lessons were ‘not structured enough’, she says,
which re-opened in September as the Queen we decided we are going and relied too much on reading ages, which
Katherine Academy. Located in one of the she believes are an ‘unreliable indicator’ of
city’s most deprived neighbourhoods, in recent to do something more ability in academic English.
years it has found itself at the forefront of Students were also lacking motivation, as
receiving children who have recently arrived radical being taken out of lessons for a number of
in the area. weeks was fragmenting their learning. It was
A damning inspection report in 2013, which continue apace following recent not always easy for staff to know whether
which criticised behaviour at the school, praise from inspectors. But a little tweaking students could cope with their mainstream
meant it became less popular with parents, so around the edges was not going to be enough lessons.
it soon became one of the only schools in the – something ‘radical’ was needed, assistant Driver says: ‘With EAL, students learn
city with space for new arrivals. Local press principal and head of languages Jane Driver “survival English” really quickly – and that
headlines about poor exam results did not help explains. So, late last year, the school set about masks their real level of language.
matters. transforming its approach. It had no extra ‘Sometimes staff see that the child says a
Now, a total of 61 per cent of pupils are money, only its wits and its existing staff. lot but they don’t analyse the quality of what
‘declared’ English as an additional language A system of immersing EAL learners in they say. They are kind of blinded a bit by the
(EAL) learners and 39 languages other mainstream classes – the general status quo in volume and the amount of language produced,
44 December / January 2018