The New to English Team comprises two staff members: Mr Radek and Miss Farah. Mr Radek is a qualified teacher from Poland and has been a resident in the UK for over ten years. Miss Farah is a highly experienced, bilingual member of the support staff, who has worked at All Saints for many years. At All Saints, we have children who speak over 42 different languages and we are not able to converse with many of these children in their first language. Instead, we spend time helping the children to acclimatise and observe how the school day unfolds. Some of the languages spoken by pupils at our school include: Arabic, Bengali (3 types), Bulgarian, Chichewa, Czech, English, Hindko, Hungarian, Kurdish (3 types), Latvian, Polish, Persian (Farsi), Russian, Swahili, Urdu, Yoruba, and Zulu.

We know that if children feel welcome, safe and emotionally secure, then they will be ready and able to learn English and progress educationally.  Some children take longer to settle than others. Many children have left grandparents or older siblings in their country of origin and experience feelings of displacement and disorientation when starting at All Saints. The New to English team, along with the rest of the school staff, are able to embody the school mission statement on a day to day basis in that they accept that “Each child is unique and loved by God.”

At All Saints, we provide extra support for those pupils who are newly arrived in England. Children are given up to two years of additional support, which at All Saints consists of two hours per day for the newest arrivals. Children who have been in school for over a year are taught in small groups for up to an hour a day. Children in Year 5 who have had two years or less are supported by Miss Farah in Maths in order to close the gap and bring them closer to Are Related Expectations (ARE). In an afternoon, Mr Radek and Miss Farah both hold intervention groups for children who need extra support in both spoken and written language.