School

PARTNER SCHOOL

King Edward VII School and Language College

General Information

General Information
SCHOOL TYPE Mainstream
KEY STAGES
  • 11-13, 14-16
REGION Yorkshire and the Humber
LOCAL AUTHORITY Sheffield

About our school

King Edward VII School is a large inner-city comprehensive school in the centre of Sheffield, with over 1600 students on roll, including nearly 500 in the Sixth Form. The student body is amongst the most culturally, ethnically, religiously, linguistic, socially and academically diverse in the city. Currently 32% of students come from BME or non White British backgrounds; 18% have English as an Additional language or are bi-lingual. By first language, the main languages in 2008 other than English are: Panjabi, Arabic, Urdu, Bengali, Somali, Chinese (Cantonese and Mandarin). 24 different languages are formally recorded but our latest estimates suggest at least 30 different mother tongues are represented in the School. This diversity presents the School with its greatest opportunities and the challenge to forge a unified, coherent and harmonious learning community in which the City of Sheffield’s commitment to equity and excellence can be delivered.

About our partnership

King Edward VII School works with the Polish Saturday School on the Our Languages Project, developing lesson plans and accompanying resources which will prepare native Polish speakers for Advanced level examinations through Asset Languages, making the materials available also in English so that they can be used by other community language schools.

The project has already had a considerable impact on the schools work with the many communities represented and they have just introduced Arabic classes to prepare the KS4 Arabic speaking students prepare for GCSE and are in the process of setting up Somali classes which will lead to accreditation via Asset Languages. The Somali Language and Culture School, which is hosted on Saturday mornings and which is also involved in the Project in a partnership with Springfield Primary School will provide expertise and vital links with the community.

As the anticipated outcome of the project will be both target language and English materials at various levels (Breakthrough, Intermediate, Advanced) the hope is to make these resources available in many different languages to support schools and students preparing for accreditation in their home languages at the appropriate level.

The project supports many of their current whole school development priorities, such as Extended Schools provision, Community Cohesion, Inclusion and Ethnic Minority Achievement and there are also discussions with the LA to explore whether a central database can be set up which supplementary schools and mainstream schools can consult to exchange information and request/provide mutual support.