St Peter’s College EALD Collegial Group Meeting

Wednesday 22nd March, 2023. 1:00-4:00pm (3 hours PD)

Presented by Trish Tynan (St Peter’s Girls),  Arasmia (Ari) Hanna  & Julia Procopio EALD Teacher’s (St Peter’s College)

Today I attended the IPSHA EALD Collegial Group Meeting at St Peter’s College, presented by Ari Hanna , Julia Procopio (EALD Teachers at St Peter’s) and Trish Tynan (IPSHA EALD Collegial Group Coordinator from St Peter’s Girl’s College).

Here is the PDF for the presentation and some of my notes and key take aways from the presentation.

EAL-D Meeting 22 March 2023.pptx

Wellbeing issues/ concerns with EALD families:

• Family separation, father’s/ mother’s still in China or working abroad.
• High and varied expectations at home from school
• Lots of co-curricular or additional tutoring.
• Sleep issues, exhaustion from translation and additional processing
• Counselling- change of culture, adjusting to Australian culture and expectations
• School wide activities, making sure these are communicated and translated
• Celebrating events from their culture

Suggested strategies to support EALD families wellbeing:

• Translation resources, digital resources with subtitles, printed newsletters with translation options, WiChat groups, Seesaw translation. (We already do this at St Andrew’s, but there is always opportunity for improvements in some areas)
• School liaison officer to oversee community inclusion, parent morning teas for EALD families sharing stories
• Intensive English Language Programmes being included like LOTE lessons not as a learning support role.
• Parent Interview Booking system with an option to select or provide a translator.
• Celebrate mother tongue, celebrate our differences and acknowledge in whole school events. (We do this well at St Andrew’s)

Refection for my school setting: I realise we have a great focus on student well-being in general, but how are we specifically catering for EALD student wellbeing? These factors are very much a concern for many children in the EALD community. What can we offer as a way of further supporting wellbeing for our students and families?

Mother Tongue Classes: St Peter’s College have begun a programme to support and foster mother-tongue language within the community. Teacher: Shelby Baker: sbaker@stpeters.sa.edu.au.

These classes assist in these areas:

• Students can be proud of their own identities (both EALD and Non-EALD)
• Limiting or removing a deficit view of any student regarding their cultural background
• School wide activities to bring everyone together and break the language barriers (food, music, dance…)
• Whole school celebrations Eg of Chinese New Year, to highlight the significance and importance of celebrating everyone.

At St Andrew’s we have Mandarin lessons as the additional specialist language being taught, however, we do not provide a mother tongue class, this is so much more than language learning. I wonder if there is an opportunity for such classes to exist in our setting as a co-curricular elective, with a pure focus on celebrating and learning about our community’s cultures.

Trish Tynan Presenting:

• EALD students and NAPLAN: Parental permission of student exemption, students can also be withdrawn, parent consent and awareness. These assessments can be such a challenge for our students, if their parents wish for them to participate, we need to ensure they are given enough support and considerations leading up to these tests.
• Start a OneNote for EALD plans and sharing lessons, photo content etc.
• Legislation: Entitlement of every child that they can access the curriculum. Inclusion and equity. If our school doesn’t have a programme for these students, we are not compliant. Are we providing enough support for these students. We are mandated by the AITSL Standards: 1.3 Students with diverse linguistic, cultural, religious and economic backgrounds. 1.5 Differentiate teaching to meet the specific learning needs of students across the full range of abilities. 7.2 Comply with legislative administrative and organisational requirements.
• Early Intervention for EALD in the ELC.
• Polyglot students, a person who speaks, writes, or reads a number of languages.
• Enrolment processes, international enrolments via zoom. Trish has one day a week to do enrolment processes, she has at least three enrolments on these days every week at St Peter’s girls.

St Peter’s Girls Setting:

• EALD Support usually begins Week 4, Term 1, after all assessments and letters have gone home to parents. (We have a similar system at St Andrew’s).
• The EALD team has three staff members and a coordinator. EALD teachers have teacher assistants to support and create resources.
• The EALD coordinator has one day a week to simply focus on enrolment interviews and assessments.
• EALD is a subject, not just a support programme. It is a language, it should be offered during language learning times (Mandarin). St Peter’s Girls, it is a subject which is advertised to parents as an additional area to get families in. As a subject, it is assessed and reported on.
• Parents agree to enrol students into EALD subject as a condition of assessments prior to beginning.
• Early EALD Intervention Programme in ELC. (This is something I would love to explore and bring to St Andrew’s setting).

Questions/ Wonderings:

• When are EALD assessments (LEAP Levels) due in Independent Schools? Leadership in independent schools are not collecting this data or placing value on it. In DECS schools, this data is mandated and monitored. Functional Grammar, consistent approach across the school. You can use the LEAP levels with all students.
• Are your staff aware of LEAP Levels? LEAP levels should be known across the school, classroom teachers can be using these documents across the board, not only for EALD students.
• Is the student just EALD or is there something more going on? The information shows that there is an overlap between EALD & DLN (Diverse Learning Needs). We had discussions about how we address our suspicions with parents about students needs beyond EALD concerns.

EALD Resources to explore and share:

• WordReference Multilingual Online Dictionary: https://www.wordreference.com/
• ABC Education: https://www.abc.net.au/education
• iSL Collective: https://en.islcollective.com/
• Storybox Library: https://www.storyboxlibrary.com.au/
• ABCYa: https://www.abcya.com/
• British Council Learn English Kids: Online English Courses for EALD Families https://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/
• Unite for Literacy: https://www.uniteforliteracy.com/

Next EALD Meeting: Wednesday 13th September, Term 3 Week 8.

As always it was a pleasure to have professional discussions in the area of EALD learning with passionate teachers across the independent school sector. It was wonderful to attend St Peter’s College for this meeting. I was also fortunate to be able to catch up with an old friend and colleague (Paul Huebl) who gave me a tour of the school grounds. What a delightful afternoon!