At St Bernadette's School, we have a number of pupils who use English as an additional language. It may mean that they speak a different language at home and are fluent in it.  However, it also refers to pupils who may speak little of their home language, but are exposed to their parents and relatives speaking it to each other.

Apart from English, we have 20 other languages and they include (arranged in order from the biggest number of speakers in our school): Polish, Tagalog/Filipino, Nepali, Chagatai, Igbo, Yoruba, Tamil, Swahili/Kiswahili, Spanish, Slovenian, Shona, Russian, Malayalam, Twi, Slovak, Romanian, Pashto, Urdu, Kordofanian, Konkani, Hindi, Greek, Farsi/Persian, Creole and Albanian. Depending on a child’s individual needs, we use a range of strategies to support children with EAL in their learning.

This leaflet explains why we ask parents for information about a child’s first language: it is used to help the teachers give the best support possible to your child.

There are also dual language helplines where parents can access support in their first language. Please click link below for more information:

Hampshire EMTAS Phone Lines (term time only)

We celebrate cultural diversity and understand the advantages of being bilingual. We also recognise that if a child develops good use of home language, they are in a better position to achieve high competence in English and succeed in school.  If children understand an idea or know e.g. a fairy tale in their home language, they will easily pick up the English word that means the same thing or understand the story. We appreciate then how much you can help your child do well in school by reading and talking to them in the home language.

Please choose a leaflet below to find out more about bringing up children bilingually.

Further guidance leaflets can be found here

EAL - Bronze Award

We have been successful in securing a bronze award for EAL excellence.  This award recognises the work we do as a school to support our children and families who speak various languages at home and with friends and family. We are particularly delighted that this award goes some way towards recognising the diversity of our community.