Multilingual Learning at ISH Primary

We would like to shine a spotlight on our wonderful after school tutors at . These dedicated educators play a vital role in helping our students maintain, develop, and celebrate their home and . Through their passion and expertise, they not only support growth but also foster cultural connections, confidence, and a strong sense of .

Today, our after school programme supports 14 different languages: Arabic, Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian, Dutch, Farsi, French, German, Hindi, Hebrew, Italian, Mandarin, Spanish, Turkish, Ukrainian, and Portuguese. In addition, we have two highly skilled tutors that provide targeted after school English lessons to help students further develop their academic and conversational fluency. We are also excited to welcome Japanese to the programme next school year!

Over the years, we have watched a vibrant flourish at ISH Primary and it is a beautiful sight. Each language represents a unique story, a rich , and a thriving , enriching the learning experience for everyone at ISH Primary.

A heartfelt thank you to our amazing tutors for inspiring our students, uplifting each other, and strengthening our entire community.

The Primary EAL Team, together with members of our Dutch Team, facilitated a Language Learning Market for our colleagues at ISH.

The goal of this interactive professional learning session was to give staff first-hand experience with a range of linguistic scaffolds that can support multilingual learners at different stages of language development. This work aligns closely with our whole-school commitment to developing inclusive learning practices and ensuring all students can access, engage with, and succeed in learning.

Participants rotated through three of seven stations, each showcasing practical strategies that can be immediately applied in the classroom.

What made the session particularly powerful was the opportunity for colleagues to experience these strategies as learners themselves, reflecting on how intentional scaffolding can increase participation, understanding, and confidence for multilingual students.

A huge thank you to everyone who contributed to the planning and facilitation of the market.

Learn more about merged CBI-EAL practices in the upcoming free masterclass from the Heddle EAL Platform, featuring examples from our school: the International School of the Hague Primary! 👏👏👏 Register below:

🆓 Free Masterclass: Where concept-based learning meets multilingual learners, and everything clicks. Wednesday 10th June | 4:00 – 5:00 PM BST — don't miss out! Join Juliëtte Van Eerdewijk and… | Heddle EAL 🆓 Free Masterclass: Where concept-based learning meets multilingual learners, and everything clicks. Wednesday 10th June | 4:00 – 5:00 PM BST — don't miss out! Join Juliëtte Van Eerdewijk and Mindy McCracken for a masterclass exploring how a concept-based curriculum, designed with multilingu...

From one of our inspiring Year 6 classroom teachers: Amanda Meijering

After watching Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I have a dream... speech" we as a Year 6 class talked about how his words inspired a community to rise up against injustice and prejudice to come together. The children then thought of a community that they were a part of, be it the school community, cultural or religious community, or even a sport or club community and they expressed their own hopes and dreams for what the world might look like for that community one day. They were encouraged to create a wish for their communities in the language or languages of their choice.

Introducing fractions to Year 3 English beginner students through a combination of language scaffolding and visual models. Students used translanguaging to map out concepts like whole, half, equal and parts in their home languages before playing interactive word-to-picture matching games. Bridging language and content allowed learners to understand and engage with abstract math concepts such as fractions.

We are incredibly proud to congratulate our EAL Team Leader Mindy McCracken, on the recent publication of her co-authored book, “Teaching Conceptual Understanding in Multilingual Classrooms.”

It is a practical guide to implementing a concept-based curriculum tailored specifically for multilingual learners. It also includes related research summaries from the field of concept-based inquiry, cognition, and multilingualism, as this intersection is explored.

Please join us in celebrating Mindy’s hard work and contribution to the global education community.

In our Year 5 session this week, we explored how to transform our basic into high-impact language, focusing on , their nuances and the strategic power of intentional word choice to help us elevate our information writing.

We ranked the synonyms from "simple" to "powerful, helping us to visualise the varying intensity of our language. We then applied these insights to a shared text, demonstrating that true vocabulary mastery is not about simply choosing the biggest word, but finding the one that best fits the context.

EAL students listening to facts about different wild animals in their and learning to identify physical features and behaviours that help the animals adapt in their environment.

Building up academic, content words in multiple languages.

Y6 students are learning to generate meaningful notes to help them remember the definitions of new academic terms. This is part of their research process needed to produce strong arguments for essay writing. Pictures, home language links and English explanations are all a part of their annotation toolkit.