At William Ruthven Primary School we welcome all new Araival families and students that have English as an Additional Language (EAL). Currently we have 58% of families that speak a language other than English at home.

EAL learners enter Australian schools at different ages and have various educational backgrounds in their first languages. For some, school is the only place they use English. 

William Ruthven Primary School works through a tiered intervention model. We provide specialist EAL instruction to support students in their English language development and proficiency. This is done through oral language and vocabulary development, reading and writing. We focus on using the language experience approach for our top tiered students. This approach promotes reading and writing through the use of experience and oral language. These language experiences are related to things they would do in real life and gives the students the opportunity to work on something over a period of time.

Students are identified to have extra EAL specialist instruction based on their English language proficiency and year level.

Some students will have an EAL report for English and this is completed by the classroom teacher. Our classroom teachers are all given EAL support through professional learning and weekly advice to be able to support EAL learners in the classroom.

All classroom and specialists teachers use visuals to support their teaching, along with environmental print being a whole school focus.

The EAL specialist teacher works closely with the language schools and outside agencies to support families.