SIX schools across the district have been chosen as specialist hubs where other schools can learn the best ways of teaching children who have recently arrived in the country.

Last year, Bradford Council and education bosses chose to create a number of “new to English” hubs to help deal with the high number of young people moving to the district with poor English skills - an issue that one teaching union said was one of the biggest challenges facing Bradford’s schools.

The hubs would be based at schools experienced in dealing with large numbers of non-English speaking pupils, including the rising numbers from Eastern Europe, those of a Gypsy/Roma background and refugees.

Schools were invited to apply to become a hub, with one condition being they were rated good or outstanding by Ofsted. They would help train other schools which may have an influx of pupils staff had little experience of dealing with.

The six schools chosen are Bowling Park Primary School, Green Lane Primary School in Manningham, Horton Grange Primary School, St Anne’s Catholic Primary School in Keighley, St Edmund’s Nursery School and Children’s Centre in Girlington and Southfield Grange School in Little Horton.

Each of the hubs received an initial funding boost of £20,000 and the aim is for them to eventually become self-sufficient by charging for the training they provide.

The Schools Commissioning Board provided £80,000, with £40,000 coming from the Council’s education services.

Horton Grange Primary School was named outstanding by Ofsted last year, with the school praised for its work in helping its high number of children who start with poor English skills to improve.

Southfield Grange includes Southfield Special School and Grange Technology College, and like many schools in Bradford it has students from many different backgrounds, with 32 different home languages spoken across the campus.

MORE EDUCATION HEADLINES

The hub there is already having an impact, with work ongoing to share documents and systems, visits by staff from other schools, work-shadowing opportunities and outreach work with other schools in their own settings.

The team has recently been asked to share its expertise with a school in Doncaster.

Hub project manager and Grange Technology College assistant head teacher Sally Wike said: “Supporting students and their families to access and understand the values and aspirations of our schools is key to the success and wellbeing of students who are new to the UK.

“We also promote and celebrate the culture and diversity of our students and are enriched by their being part of our community.

“This is a really exciting project for us and we have already started supporting other secondary schools in Bradford, sharing the expertise and experience of our staff and helping them to develop strategies for working with students and their families.”