Our Commitment to Your Child
At St Joseph’s, we are committed to providing exceptional support for all our EAL students. Our programme is designed to ensure every student not only thrives academically but also feels confident and integrated into our school community. We understand that starting a new school, especially when English isn’t a first language, can be a big step for both children and parents. That’s why we’ve developed a holistic programme that focuses on both language acquisition and personal well-being. Our goal is to create a welcoming and supportive environment where every EAL student can feel secure, make new friends and confidently participate in all aspects of school life.
Meet Our Team
As our EAL Lead, Mrs Kim is a highly experienced English teacher with special expertise in EAL and TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language). She is responsible for developing and delivering the bespoke curriculum for our EAL students, ensuring it is tailored to their individual needs. She also oversees the academic progress of EAL students across the entire school, working closely with all teachers to ensure they thrive.
Miss Hodgson plays a key role in the day-to-day support of our students. She conducts the initial language assessments that help us understand each child’s needs and monitors their progress throughout the year. Miss Hodgson also delivers targeted interventions for our Key Stage 3 students, providing one-to-one or small-group support.
Mrs Mitchell is our school’s Reading Intervention Lead, bringing her expertise to the EAL team by focusing on core literacy skills. She is in charge of delivering our specific phonics and reading fluency programmes, which are essential for building a strong foundation in English.
As the Associate Assistant Head, Mrs Davies oversees the crucial process of student admission and integration. Her primary focus is on ensuring a smooth and welcoming transition for all new EAL students, helping them to feel a strong sense of belonging from their very first day.
Steps To a Better Future
GETTING TO KNOW YOUR CHILD
Every student is unique, and we begin with a one-to-one English language ability assessment. This helps us create a personal EAL student profile, shared with all staff, so we can tailor our support to your child’s individual needs.
BUILDING THE FOUNDATIONS (YEAR 7-9)
Our EAL team delivers a focused 6-week programme for all EAL students. Children are grouped by their English language ability to ensure they get the right support in phonics, reading fluency, grammar, and writing. This is about building a strong foundation for future learning.
DAILY LANGUAGE GROWTH
Daily practice is key! All EAL students spend 50 minutes each week on Bedrock, an online platform that makes learning new vocabulary, grammar, and reading skills fun and effective.
REFINING SKILLS FOR SUCCESS (YEAR 10-11)
As students move into Key Stage 4, our EAL specialist, Mrs Kim, provides targeted interventions to refine their analytical writing and grammar. These 50-minute weekly form-time sessions are designed to help students confidently embed their skills into their exam-level work in GCSE subjects.
