Information for British schools

The Heart of England Language School has nearly 20 years experience teaching primary and secondary aged children. More details of all our services can be found at www.heartengland.co.uk and www.heartengland.org.uk . Children who have specialised English language support feel more confident in their integration into their new school life, are able to join in main stream subjects more quickly and so miss less primary education as well as learning the language more quickly.

Ideally we would attend the school for 5 mornings a week and teach through the morning which totals 2½ to 3 hours. The children then attend the mainstream classes in the afternoon. Extra work can be supplied for the class teacher to give to the child at times when the lessons are too complex. Mixed age children can be taught together and lessons adapted to suit their needs. We find that most children are able to integrate into the mainstream class in one term. We have had some children who take only half a term’s lessons although this is unusual. Some need a little more support to a maximum of 2 terms. If the second term is necessary we can start to cut back classes so the child starts to attend mainstream lessons on 1, 2 or 3 days a week. As well as cutting back costs this enables the child to join the class with increased confidence.

A lot of our teaching is aimed at tuition through curriculum subjects and so working alongside the class teacher is very important. The lessons can include vocabulary building in all mainstream subjects so the children do not miss any key areas of their course.
We aim to build confidence so the child feels happy to use and experiment with their new language skills. The first few weeks of class incorporate a lot of games and communicative activities that the child wants to participate in so that the language, culture, new school and new country seem attractive to the child. As time moves on, and depending on the age of the child, the lessons become more formalised in order for them to understand that this is required when they rejoin their class.

The lessons are initially designed to build vocabulary, then basic grammar is introduced and finally reading, writing, phonics for Year 3 and below and other curriculum based language are incorporated. Teachers and parents are issued with a report every half term in order for everyone to be aware of the details of a child’s progress. We are happy to meet with parents to talk through any issues at any time.

We use our own books and have a huge supply of primary based material for specialised English teaching as well as CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning). We would expect the school to supply any exercise books, computer access and general teaching equipment.

All our teachers hold relevant qualifications and are CRB checked. We do not charge for days that are cancelled with at least 24 hours notice so any class excursions and school activities can be incorporated.