The biggest issue in my professional practice just now is meeting the needs of pupils with English as An Additional Language. I am funded particularly for Syrian refugee support and with this comes a lot of responsibility with parental engagement, communication support and an understanding of Muslim cultural needs and expectations. It pulls me in many directions from free schools meals lists, halal lunches, religious school assemblies, connecting with the resettlement housing team and the LA language service.
I am particularly concerned about a pupil with EAL who has been with us for three years but may have undiagnosed additional needs. The pupils has difficulty managing emotions, with pronounciation of phonological sounds and with periods of change and transition.
Most of our pupils with EAL are excelling with their spoken English, enhancing their vocabulary and oral comprehension, as well as developing their competence in grammatical English.
The biggest gap between my values and my practice is that I want to get it right for every one of my pupils, however, wait times for Education Psychologist and referrals to CALMS/RAST can make getting the right support, resources and staff in place difficult and particularly slow, which is challenging for the pupil, staff and the parents who don’t understand why support can’t be in place now.
In an ideal world, learning in my classroom would have all our pupils hierarchy of needs met and be differentiated for beyond their English as an Additional Language needs to really Get it Right for Every Child.
To achieve this I will continue to be an advocate for my learners, link with other agencies to create an individualised support plans and upskill my knowledge and understanding of how to equitably meet the needs of learners who speak English as an Additional Language in mainstream Scottish schools.
