We are a team of school improvement specialists, consultants and leaders in the fields of academic literacy, English as an additional language and ethnic minority achievement.
Congratulations to St Michael’s RC Primary School in Newcastle on its Gold EAL Quality Mark
Google search can be very unfair. St Michael’s RC Primary School is in the part of Newcastle called Elswick. If you type Elswick Newcastle into Google, you are an offered...
- Graham Smith
- 25th November 2020
Kensington Primary School in Newham Awarded a Gold EAL Quality Mark
The strapline on Kensington Primary School’s website is “Inspiring children for exciting futures.” The school does what it says on the tin. It inspires children and it inspired me too....
- Graham Smith
- 10th November 2020
Gold EAL Quality Mark for Abingdon Primary School in Middlesbrough
You do not see a lot of writing in Amharic on display in in schools. When you see it not merely on display, but as a permanent sign to indicate...
- Graham Smith
- 2nd November 2020
The EAL/SEND course
Course tutor Marc Thompson describes how the course has developed over recent years The course began as a consolidation of our team’s experiences and knowledge gained from supporting schools, training teachers and...
- Graham Smith
- 13th October 2020
A Guest Blog: Primary School Bilingual Clubs at Thomas Deacon Education Trust
Gladstone Primary Academy, in central, multiilingual Peterborough, despite the disruptive impact of Covid-19, is excited to announce the re-opening of their newly-establish bilingual clubs, catering for Y2 pupils, in Urdu,...
- Graham Smith
- 28th September 2020
The EAL Academy Newsletter – June 2020
As schools reopen in an uncertain world, we continue our current offer to schools of free 30 minute conversations via Zoom, Skype, Messenger or phone to provide support in this area. If you would like the opportunity to discuss the...
- Graham Smith
- 19th June 2020
The EAL Proficiency Scales: gone but not forgotten (Part 2)
Following on from part 1 of my blog about The Department for Education’s useful analysis of its short lived English as an additional language proficiency scales, part 2 looks at what the report tells...
- Graham Smith
- 13th June 2020
Why touching things and being physically close to other learners is important
When I was Head of EAL in an East London secondary school I found myself teaching with the Head of Science. It is fair to say that he was old...
- Graham Smith
- 28th May 2020
Newsletter 3 – Summer Term 2020
In these unprecedented times we feel it is important to reach out to our subscribers and offer all the support we can. We have had a number of enquiries about how...
- Graham Smith
- 22nd May 2020