Engaging subject specialists in induction course development

School: A large urban secondary school in outer London

This school is a large (1430), mixed, 11–18 comprehensive school in an outer London borough. Its intake is diverse: 78% of students come from minority ethnic backgrounds, with 53% speaking English as an additional language (EAL). Although a total of 58 languages are spoken by students, only seven of the languages have more than 30 speakers: English, Turkish, Somali, Greek, Bengali, Kurdish and Albanian. There is higher than average mobility: 4.5% of pupils are new migrants. The percentage of pupils on free school meals is well above average.

In 2005, the school appointed a new ethnic minority achievement (EMA) coordinator (her title was subsequently to become Head of Faculty Curriculum Access). Her background was in special educational needs (SEN) but she was very interested in EAL issues and was, at the time, completing an MA in educational inclusion of which EAL was one element. As she began to reorganise EAL provision in the school, she recognised the necessity of developing an induction course to meet the needs of the significant numbers of new arrivals. She was determined that the new induction programme would be as inclusive as possible. For her this meant a course that was:

• time limited (keeping withdrawal from mainstream classes to a minimum)
• curriculum linked (with a focus on language and subject content to speed up curriculum access)
• inclusive of mainstream staff (so that pupils would continue to benefit from appropriate support once back full-time in mainstream classes).