English as an Additional Language

Department aims

The key aim of the EAL department is to support students for whom English is an Additional Language to facilitate access of the full curriculum.

The EAL department wants EAL students to:

  • feel welcome, motivated and supported by the department
  • enjoy learning English
  • be increasingly confident, competent and independent listeners, speakers, readers and writers
  • make good progress in English in relation to challenging and achievable targets
  • have access to the curriculum in all subject areas
  • make good progress in relation to challenging and achievable targets in subject areas across the curriculum
  • develop their first or other languages further

Teaching and learning for EAL pupils

All EAL pupils should learn how to use:

  • the sounds of English
  • the English alphabet
  • contextual understandings, including non-verbal communication
  • text structure and organization
  • sentence structure and grammatical conventions
  • the meaning of words and phrases
  • punctuation

Top ten languages spoken at QK (May 2009)

  1. Arabic: 322
  2. Bengali: 192
  3. Albanian: 117
  4. Somali: 50
  5. Portuguese: 36
  6. Kurdish: 32
  7. Persian: 28
  8. French: 17
  9. Spanish: 14
  10. Pashto: 13

EAL In-class support

The Department’s specialist EAL teachers and teacher assistants support students in their mainstream classes to help them access the full curriculum.

EAL Withdrawal Groups

The EAL Department is liaising with Heads of Departments for their syllabus plans to cover the literacy sessions via core subjects: Science, Maths and English to support KS3 and KS4.

EAL Pathway Skills

Organised for Stage 2 EAL learners in Year 9, the sessions are to help students achieve targets NC levels across curriculum and to prepare for accessing GCSE curriculum and formal academic register.

EAL Bengali Lunch Club

Our experienced EAL teacher focuses on promoting Bengali language and culture and helps QK students to improve their native language as well as make steady progress in all other subjects.

EAL Accelerated Reader

The English Department is piloting a literacy programme for KS3-KS5 to develop a love for reading and boost English skills in all sorts of areas.

English in a Flash

The group of students with EAL stages 1 and 2 will work on a computer programme from three highly interactive, immersive modules to develop communication skills and provide experience in team working.

The European Day of Languages

Teachers will deliver a taster lesson to Year 9 students about their native language and culture during the celebration of languages day at QK.

Read more about the EAL (PDF Download)