No support at school for non-english-speaking child?

[Frieda]

DS's teacher mentioned to me the other day that a new child who doesn't speak a word of english will be joining the class next week. I asked her what kind of extra support the child would be getting, and she just shrugged and said "nothing". Can this be right?

It's a year 1 class (age 5-6) with 30 children and one teacher (ie, no teaching assistant or anyone extra ? they had a f/t teaching assistant plus a teacher and a nursery nurse for reception, but in year one the teachers are 'on their own').

The school prides itself on taking a large proportion of special needs children, and I naively thought that this must mean they get extra funding ? presumably for extra support staff. I imagine it must be really difficult and scary for a new child arriving in a large class without being able to communicate with the other kids or understand the teacher ? not to mention for the teacher, with 29 other lively kids to manage and teach. I'd be interested to know if anyone else has any experience of this kind of situation and whether this is normal.

When I taught Reception and Yeat 1 near London I taught lots of kids who didn't speak a whole lot of English, but often thwy had some and also there would be other kids in the class/year/school who I could get on board to help translate. Only once did I teach a child with NO English at all, no one else in the school spoke her language either. There was no money for extra support (state school) and no point printing things in her language because she couldn't read yet. It was a tough for weeks for her, I just did my best to be very friendly and reassuring. She learnt English amazingly quickly, she was fluent by the end of the year.

Presumably in the 16 years since the OP posted, the child in question has learned a word or two!

Zombie thread.

First post is from 2005!!!
Zombie.

I’m surprised, I thought EAL was funded for in the uk.

My English speaking child started school abroad in a European country where they are bilingual in two other languages. They have a lot of one to one time with a special TA funded by the LA. The only issue which grates on me is that in order to access the funding the school needs to mark dc as “failing” the language, but dc don’t know that.

@QuentininQuarantino

I’m surprised, I thought EAL was funded for in the uk.

My English speaking child started school abroad in a European country where they are bilingual in two other languages. They have a lot of one to one time with a special TA funded by the LA. The only issue which grates on me is that in order to access the funding the school needs to mark dc as “failing” the language, but dc don’t know that.

As said, maybe in the SIXTEEN YEARS SINCE THE OP POSTED things have changed.

I work I a state secondary school and we have a member of staff who assesses all such children as soon as they arrive and provides support in the form of extra English lessons for them. The local authority also has a traveller and ethnic minority service who can provide 1:1 support in the first few days and then extra help also. They have staff that speak virtually every language you can think of. We also provide tablets which can translate for the child in class too.

I am really surprised to hear that other counties have so little to help.

@dancealittleclosertome

I work I a state secondary school and we have a member of staff who assesses all such children as soon as they arrive and provides support in the form of extra English lessons for them. The local authority also has a traveller and ethnic minority service who can provide 1:1 support in the first few days and then extra help also. They have staff that speak virtually every language you can think of. We also provide tablets which can translate for the child in class too.

I am really surprised to hear that other counties have so little to help.

SIXTEEN YEARS ago!