Ceara School

Newcomers

Newcomer pupils are defined as

'pupils who have come to The Northern Ireland school system from another country and are in their first three years in school.'

With newcomer pupils schools face the challenge and opportunity of integrating pupils whose mother tongue is not English.

In Ceara, English is the language of spoken and written communication., though we do have multinational posters around the school.

Because of the nature of all our pupils needs we put in place total communication support to developing language. This means that we accept and use body language, signing, eye pointing, object cues, photo and visual prompts, symbols and spoken language to develop communication.

The school uses Boardmaker symbols uniformly throughout the school to enable pupils to learn to move around the school independently and for continuity from class to class.

An Interpreter can be organised when requested to assist Parents of Newcomer pupils at Parent- Teacher meetings. This is  organised by the Inclusion and Diversity Service and a request needs to made to the school at least two weeks before the date of the Appointment.

Any parent of a newcomer pupil who has not been in Ceara for longer than three years should simply put a note in the Home school diary that they wish an interpreter to attend the Parent teacher meeting. Annual reviews will be carried out in the New Year.