EAL learners are a very diverse group. The government definition of an EAL learner includes anyone who has been exposed to a language other than English during early childhood ‘and continues to be exposed to this language in the home or in the community’.

This includes, for example:

• new arrivals from abroad who speak little or no English
• children or young people from other countries who are in the UK for a limited time, for example if they have a parent who is studying here, who have been educated in an English-medium school abroad and are fluent in several languages
• young people who were born in the UK and speak English most of the time at home and school, but who also speak another language occasionally to extended family members.

Highcliffe is a multicultural school and we welcome children from many different countries and cultures. We celebrate different traditions and core events as they appear in the calendar. The children within our school speak many different languages as well as English.

We currently have 39 pupils (9%) of our school population who are registered as EAL.