Much of this article draws on the KS3 National Strategy document Access and Engagement in history: Teaching pupils for whom English is an additional language (DFES 0656/2002) and more recently published work. Unlike other areas of the site, there is little classroom-based research to back up assertions so I have ‘played safe’ and kept to what has been published. Much of the advice is fairly predictable and what most of you are doing already, no doubt. But finding coherent advice in one place is difficult.
The main concerns
1. The need for joint planning that involves members of the history department and specialist ethnic minority achievement (EMA) staff.
2. The need to ensure that the key history focus is not lost or the thinking challenge diluted just because the pupils lack the necessary fluency in English. How are the pupils with EAL to make progress in history when their reading skills improve if they have been left far behind? OFSTED’s report on learners from ethnic minorities published in October 2001 revealed that there was ‘considerable evidence that once proficiency in English was achieved, the progress for pupils with EAL, across the curriculum, was rapid and their attainment on a par
