Happy Learning at SIAL.school: supporting our pupils’ biliteracy

Today we would like to introduce you to a new series of posts which will bring you inside our bilingual school and show you how our children learn day by day.

As confirmed by Dr Roberto Filippi (UCL) during his recent talk on bilingual education that we hosted back in October, biliterate children end up having stronger cognitive abilities and better grammar and reading skills than monolingual children.

Did you know that all our pupils in KS1 benefit from individual weekly sessions with their Teaching Assistants both in English and Italian?

Children in Reception work on phonics, while children in Y1 and Y2 practice their reading and improve their comprehension skills and vocabulary as they become confident and fluent readers in both languages.

All children in KS2 attend regular group sessions in the on-site library where they have the chance to get new books in Italian and English and check their reading records with their teachers.

For our pupils attending Y3 and Y5 additional one-to-one sessions are provided for them to read individually in Italian with their native speaker Teaching Assistant who discusses what they read and encourages them to look up new words in a dictionary.

Recent studies show that depth of language knowledge is important for success in life and we are committed to empower our students by offering them a unique bilingual curriculum which will make them not only fully bilingual but also fully biliterate.

Would you like to know more about our bilingual English/Italian nursery and primary school?

Admissions are open for the school year 2022-2023: get in touch with our Admissions Team and ask any questions you may have.