Week 1: Starting the academic year with language in mind

by Amanda Archbald

The first week of term has been less about visibility in classrooms and more about establishing the conditions for sustainable language development across the school.

Much of this week focused on finalising the design of our language support programme, which launches next week. This included training with National Geographic Learning and the implementation of a CEFR-aligned language curriculum that explicitly develops listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Cross-curricular content is used as the context for learning, but always through a deliberate language lens.

A key design decision has been the intentional separation of the language curriculum from subject curricula. This allows language development to be taught systematically, rather than assumed to emerge through exposure alone. When language is left implicit, gaps are easily overlooked, particularly for pupils who appear fluent in everyday interactions.

Alongside this work, I led two parent workshops, my first since joining Brighton College Abu Dhabi. In multilingual school communities, strong partnerships between home and school are essential, especially when language development becomes less visible as pupils grow older. The feedback from parents was thoughtful, constructive, and affirming. Their confidence in the direction of this work reinforced the importance of transparency, shared understanding, and trust when implementing change.

One theme surfaced consistently throughout these conversations, the distinction between social English and academic English.

In international school contexts, where many pupils have been enrolled since early childhood, conversational fluency can easily mask ongoing academic language need. Pupils may communicate confidently while still struggling with disciplinary literacy, subject-specific vocabulary, and the linguistic demands of reading and writing for learning.

This tension is familiar in international education.

Exposure alone is not instruction. Time spent in English does not guarantee access to academic language.

Explicit, structured language teaching remains essential, even for pupils who appear linguistically secure.

This week marks the beginning of a weekly Friday series in which I will reflect on how educators and school leaders can strengthen collective approaches to language and challenge some long-held assumptions. Language development cannot sit within a single department. It must be intentionally designed, taught, and monitored across the school.

When we strengthen language, we strengthen learning for every pupil.