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New arrivals FAQs

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SEN: Withdrawal and differentiation

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New arrivals FAQs

Q1: How do parents and carers access information about support available, for example free school meals (FSM) or school uniform?

Q2: When is the best time for a new arrival to start school?

Q3: How are interpreters involved?

Q4: Who carries out the interview?

Q5: Where does the interview take place?

Q6: What information should be collected?

Q7: How do we ensure that our new arrivals are ‘counted’?

Q8: What information is given to parents and carers?

Q9: What needs to be considered regarding year group allocation, class and teacher?

Q10: How should learners and staff be briefed?

Q11: Allocation of buddies or mentors

Q12: How important is locating or purchasing appropriate materials, for example bilingual dictionaries?

Q13: Who is the best person to provide support to a new arrival?

Q14: How is the new arrival introduced to the class?

Q15: What support arrangements are made for the first day, the first month and the first term?

Q16: How is the parent or carer involved?

Q17: How do you know or how will you find out what the new arrival has achieved before?

Q18: How will you know that what you are teaching is not too challenging or challenging enough?

Q19: How does the new arrival become aware and familiar with the school’s routines and social practices?

Q20: Are there times when support for new arrivals is delivered through withdrawal sessions? If so, are these clearly time restricted? Which senior leader is monitoring the impact of this provision?

Q21: How will parents and carers of a new arrival know how their child is doing in comparison to national standards?

Q22: How do parents and carers become aware of their rights and how to avoid pitfalls?

Q23: How do we know that new arrivals are being assessed on subject knowledge rather than just their ability to express it in English?

Q24: Are the long-term aspirations for new arrivals the same as those of other learners, and are they being addressed?

Q25: Who is monitoring the progress of new arrivals? What does individual tracking show?

Q26: How well is the school doing by its bilingual learners? How do you know?

Q1: How do parents and carers access information about support available, for example free school meals (FSM) or school uniform?

A1: It is worth spending time on support available to parents and carers, particularly in terms of financial support. Helping the families fill in the forms and explaining the procedures will often save time later. If the school has a uniform, a new learner should start school in that uniform. Supporting the filling in of uniform grant application forms will ensure that this happens.

Q2: When is the best time for a new arrival to start school?

A2: Although it is tempting to allow a new arrival to start immediately, especially if there has been some delay in accessing a school place, it may be preferable to allow the families a few days to access services and buy the uniform and equipment. It also enables the school to share information about the new arrival, prepare staff and learners for the first day and put into place any support needed.

Q3: How are interpreters involved?

A3: Professional interpreters engaged through the LA organisations such as Language Line or bilingual school staff would normally be appropriate. Using learners, or other parents, might not be appropriate as confidentiality could be an issue. Interviews involving interpreters can be expected to take much longer than the usual interview. Interpreters should be briefed on what is expected of them.

Q4: Who carries out the interview?

A4: It might be appropriate to involve EMA specialist staff, (but not for the process to be delegated to EMA staff alone) and appropriate training should be available for any staff conducting interviews.

Q5: Where does the interview take place?

A5: Ideally, interviews need to take place where all parental interviews are held. Corridors, and other open areas, are rarely appropriate for interviews with parents and carers and even less so for families whose experience of English is limited.

Q6: What information should be collected?

A6: Lists of useful information to collect are available (see ‘Useful websites and resources’). This is particularly important for learners who have no National Curriculum test results or where there is no information about their previous education, especially literacy development in their first language. Health could be an issue, especially for refugee and asylum-seeking learners, and establishing clear contact details (especially language for communications) is essential.

Q7: How do we ensure that our new arrivals are ‘counted’?

A7: From January 2007, it is recommended that schools collect first language data from all learners. For further information on this and advice on collecting information sensitively go to www.teachernet.gov.uk/docbank/index.cfm?id=9864, and further guidance from tp://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/ethnicminorities/

Q8: What information is given to parents and carers?

A8: Many school systems across the world operate very differently (for example, the UK system is age related, many systems are performance related and learners stay down if they do not pass end of year exams) and it is important for parents and carers to know this. School rules, contracts, essential equipment, uniform and important dates are all areas to cover, and this material should be available in a range of languages.

Q9: What needs to be considered regarding year group allocation, class and teacher?

A9: Careful thought needs to be given in placing a new arrival in a particular class as social integration and a feeling of belonging will be very important at the beginning. New arrivals should not be placed routinely with special educational needs (SEN) groups, or in lower sets, as they will need appropriate cognitive challenge, good models of English and good models of behaviour. In secondary schools it might be appropriate to place a new arrival out of year (for example in Year 9 instead of Year 10) but the implications of this need to be thought through and agreed by the parents or carers.

Q10: How should learners and staff be briefed?

A10: The pastoral and academic care of a new arrival is a whole-school responsibility and everyone should be briefed with an appropriate level of information. Playground supervisors have an essential role to play to ensure that a new arrival is not left out at playtime or breaktime, and children and young people can be briefed on effective ways of supporting new arrivals.

Q11: Allocation of buddies or mentors

A11: Class buddies or mentors play an essential role in the early integration of new arrivals. The buddies should be trained, briefed and agree to a time-limited set of responsibilities, including being consulted by the staff over the welfare of the new pupil. Children or young people who speak the same language can be included as buddies, but some schools have had significant successes with buddies who don’t speak the same language; any learner who does speak the language is then assigned the high-status role of ‘consultant’ to be called on when it is essential. This approach also ensures that the buddying responsibilities do not all fall on one child or young person. At the end of the buddying period, there should be full recognition of the buddies’ (and the new arrival’s) achievements.

Q12: How important is locating or purchasing appropriate materials, for example bilingual dictionaries?

A12: Visual material to support access to the curriculum is essential for a new arrival; bilingual dictionaries can be useful if the new arrival is shown how to use them (check that the individual is literate in the first language). Dual language texts can be helpful, as can curriculum-based material in the learner’s first language.

Q13: Who is the best person to provide support to a new arrival?

A13: Any new arrival must come under the pastoral and academic oversight of the class teacher, or form tutor, in the same way as other learners do. The teacher might require the support of other members of staff such as the induction mentor or EMA teacher, but for the smooth integration of a new arrival into the class, the learner must not have a different person overseeing their progress.

Q14: How is the new arrival introduced to the class?

A14: It is important to consider what information about the new arrival is shared with the class and not to assume that just because these learners are new to this education system that they have not experienced formal education before.

Q15: What support arrangements are made for the first day, the first month and the first term?

A15:

It would not be possible to list all the combinations of support possible here, but the key principles of access to the National Curriculum and education alongside peers should apply. Targets should include language development targets which should be addressed by all professionals working with the new arrival.

Q16: How is the parent or carer involved?

A16: This will depend upon the age of the new arrival. However, many issues concerning knowledge about the system are best addressed over a period of time and with the learner as the focus. It is regarded as good practice for the parents or carers to be invited to a review meeting after four to six weeks to discuss the learner’s integration, academic progress, language development and targets for the individual’s progress.

Q17: How do you know or how will you find out what the new arrival has achieved before?

A17: Most of this information will come from a well-planned initial interview and the school’s normal assessment procedures will also provide additional information. However, the school must be sure to be assessing subject knowledge and skills rather than the new arrival’s ability to express such knowledge in English. See ‘Useful websites and resources’ for examples of assessment procedures. It must also be noted that standardised reading tests tend to underestimate even more advanced bilingual learners’ reading skills and as such provide little useful knowledge about learners an early stage of acquiring English.

Q18: How will you know that what you are teaching is not too challenging or challenging enough?

A18: At the very earliest stages of acquiring English, learners might go through a ‘silent period’ during which it can be counterproductive to try to elicit oral responses. It is important at this stage for learners to be allowed a range of ways of expressing understanding, for example using gestures, single word responses, drawings, real objects or first language. It is inevitable that teachers will not always get the system right, but should always be wary of ‘dumbing down’.

Q19: How does the new arrival become aware and familiar with the school’s routines and social practices?

A19: Fellow learners have a key role to play in this. It should be part of the class buddies’ responsibilities to model routines and practices and be prepared to talk through and act out appropriate responses. In addition, staff should be careful not to overreact to inappropriate responses: many early-stage bilingual learners pick up swear words and use expressions inappropriately before they have fully understood their force. Individuals who cannot respond orally in English to teasing, ostracism or racism might respond physically and staff should investigate any such incidents carefully.

Q20: Are there times when support for new arrivals is delivered through withdrawal sessions? If so, are these clearly time restricted? Which senior leader is monitoring the impact of this provision?

A20:

There will be times when withdrawal provision for new arrivals is most appropriate, even though this should be a very small proportion of the school week. The Calderdale Judgement makes it clear that it is discriminatory to educate certain groups of learners separately. Withdrawal or induction classes should be organised in the same way as any other form of intensive intervention: there should be clear criteria for the intervention, clear objectives and outcomes, regular review of the impact of the intervention and a time limit. In addition, such intervention should support access to the National Curriculum and not be a series of decontextualised language exercises.

Q21: How will parents and carers of a new arrival know how their child is doing in comparison to national standards?

A21: At the earliest stages of language development, new arrivals are likely to lag well behind national standards and parents and carers have the right to know this; however, they also have a right to know about the learner’s progress trajectory, i.e. how quickly the individual is closing the gap. Schools must be careful to inform the parents and carers of progress within the context of the learner’s acquisition of English.

Q22: How do parents and carers become aware of their rights and how to avoid pitfalls?

A22: Schools must be careful to make all the implicit knowledge about the education system explicit to parents and carers, being very careful to explain all the options available, for example over transfer to secondary school, choice of options at Key Stage 4, appeal against an admission decision or appeal against an exclusion. It is also important for the school to have links with outside agencies and organisations that could provide impartial advice, for example over interpreting information from a series of secondary schools at transfer.

Q23: How do we know that new arrivals are being assessed on subject knowledge rather than just their ability to express it in English?

A23:

See also Q14 - Q21 above. Teachers must be prepared to use a range of methods to ensure that their assessments are accurate. Eventually, all learners will have to use English as the medium of expression for examinations and must be helped to develop their English to the point where they are able to do so, in the short to medium term. However, an incorrect assessment based on a written test might deny a new arrival future access to appropriately cognitively challenging teaching (by, for example, consigning the learner to a lower set or stream).

Q24: Are the long-term aspirations for new arrivals the same as those of other learners, and are they being addressed?

A24: Schools must be careful not to make assumptions about the future educational pathways for early-stage bilingual learners. Vocational routes, which can be appropriate for some, are not appropriate for learners who wish to go on to higher education. It is very important to ascertain an individual’s aspirations before any important decisions (such as option choices) are made. A new arrival might take longer to achieve their goals and schools must help in planning the route.

Q25: Who is monitoring the progress of new arrivals? What does individual tracking show?

A25:

Just as oversight of the new arrival should be with the class or subject teacher or form tutor, so should the monitoring role. However, the staff monitoring should be aware that bilingual learners will tend to progress at faster rates than their monolingual peers, gradually closing the attainment gap and appropriately challenging targets should be set.

Q26: How well is the school doing by its bilingual learners? How do you know?

A26: Does the school collect Annual School Census (ASC) data on first language? Is performance data analysed by ethnicity, language and bilingual status? Are there performance gaps between groups? If so, what is the school doing to address them? Are there any significant performance differences of these groups across subjects? How well are these groups doing compared to such groups i) nationally, ii) locally, iii) in schools with a similar profile and iv) in comparison with national expectations? Is the school analysing data in terms of progress and attainment?