EAL - English as an Additional Language

At Newbury Primary School we welcome all New Arrival families and students that have English as an Additional Language (EAL). Currently we have 84% of families that speak a language other than English at home and 35 different languages.

EAL learners enter Australian schools at different ages and have various educational backgrounds in their first languages. For some, school is the only place they use English. We have a New Arrivals program that supports New Arrival families to Australia who have limited English. We have two multi-cultural education aides, and we access interpreters to help these families for enrolment and when their students first start at our school. We provide a safe and secure learning environment for all students. Students are placed in a classroom with other students that speak their language where possible, and we foster the use of students’ home language to support them when learning English.

Newbury Primary School works through a tiered intervention model. We provide specialist EAL instruction to support students in their English language development and proficiency. This is done through oral language and vocabulary development, reading and writing. We focus on using the language experience approach for our top tier students. This approach promotes reading and writing using experience and oral language. These language experiences are related to things they would do in real life. All classroom and specialist teachers use visuals to support their teaching, along with environmental print being a whole school focus.

Some students will have an EAL report for English and this is completed by the classroom teacher.