What Future-Ready Schools Know About Multilingual Learners

How the most successful leaders grow in-house expertise and make inclusion a school-wide habit.

Across the UK and internationally, schools are becoming increasingly multilingual.

For leaders, the question is not about belonging — that’s a given. It’s how to ensure all learners have full access to the curriculum, a strong sense of belonging, and the best possible chance of success.

Too often, provision for multilingual learners depends on a small number of specialists. They work tirelessly, but the impact doesn’t always reach every classroom. Teachers may feel unsure how to adapt, and leaders are left trying to bridge the gap between inclusion as a stated value and inclusion as a daily habit.

Future-ready schools are tackling this differently.

From Support to Strength

The most successful leaders see multilingualism not as an extra need to “manage” but as a strength to harness. They embed systems and culture that make language-rich teaching part of everyday practice — not something that happens only when the EAL lead walks into the room.

This aligns with the growing emphasis on disciplinary literacy — the idea that every subject has its own specialist language, ways of thinking, and ways of communicating, and that every teacher has a role in explicitly teaching these.

Research into asset-based pedagogy (Chartered College of Teaching) and frameworks like The Bell Foundation’s Five Pillars of EAL Provision show that when schools integrate content and language learning across the curriculum, outcomes improve — something that's not just crucial for multilingual learners, but beneficial for all students.

Engagement, attainment, and confidence grow when every teacher feels confident in both the content they teach and the language skills needed to access it.

Why In-House Expertise Changes Everything

One of the most powerful decisions a school leader can make is to develop in-house experts to support the school-wide implementation of these strategies. In-house experts are real teachers, in your setting, who:

• Have taught your pupils in your context

• Understand your curriculum pressures and assessment frameworks

• Know the community languages, cultures, and priorities of your families

They become trusted guides for colleagues — modelling, mentoring, and helping to embed inclusive strategies long after the training day is over.

It’s this transfer of expertise from “the specialist” to “the whole staff” that transforms practice from reactive to sustainable.

Training With Impact

The Curee report tells us that the best professional learning doesn’t overwhelm staff with entirely new skillsets; it activates what they already know and has an "intent focus on pupils' needs" - learning is connected to multilingual contexts, and encourages teachers to adapt with curiosity and confidence.

Whether through external coaching, targeted CPD, or peer-led learning, the focus is always on:

• Recognising teachers’ existing strengths

• Building their confidence to adapt in any teaching context

• Encouraging reflective, responsive practice tailored to individual learners

This mirrors the fundamentals of great teaching: meeting learners where they are, amplifying their progress towards high aspirations, and protecting their wellbeing along the way.

The Leadership Question for 2025

The real question for school leaders isn’t whether multilingualism will shape your school’s future — it will. It’s whether your systems, your staff, and your culture are ready to make it a strength.

This isn’t about one-off initiatives or pockets of good practice. It’s about building habits, expertise, and confidence across your whole team — so that every learner is fully seen, supported, and challenged to achieve their best.

That’s the work that lasts.

If your school is ready to move from specialist-led provision to whole-school confidence, let’s talk.

I offer free, no-obligation consultations to explore how you can grow in-house expertise and make multilingual inclusion a habit.

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