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An education charity is working to better support primary school children with limited English through dual-language live performances, with the help of a £5,000 charitable grant.
The Jersey Community Foundation has awarded the £5,000 grant to the 'Every Child Our Future' charity to address literacy gaps, using funds from the Channel Islands Lottery Fund.
The grant will go towards funding dual language performances of familiar stories, such as ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’, to over 600 nursery and primary school pupils across ten schools.
These performances aim to improve literacy and entertain students aged three to five with English as an additional language.
They will be performed by local entertainment company Flair Entertainment and followed by a short Q&A session to further develop the story's themes and language.
Copies of the story and accompanying props are also provided for each attending class.
Following one of the performances, a local teacher said: "The sheer joy when some of our MLL [multi-language learners] children heard their home language gave us all goosebumps.
"Priceless to see that on their faces."
Another added: "This was a very special performance. The children who speak Portuguese were so excited. They couldn't believe it, their faces lit up.
"Those that do not speak Portuguese equally enjoyed it and knowing the story, they knew what was happening and thought it was hilarious!"
The need for dual language education is supported by the findings of the Jersey Community Foundation's ‘Local Needs Assessment' in 2022, which revealed that English is an additional language for 26% of students in Jersey.
This assessment aimed to understand the island's most pressing needs to direct funding to the most impactful areas for the community.
Cris Lakeman, the Chief Executive of Every Child Our Future, said: "Unless these literacy gaps are addressed at the primary school level, we continue to embed long-lasting social and economic inequalities within our community.
"We are working to redress these social inequalities via our programmes to improve outcomes in communication, language, literacy and numeracy for less advantaged children in Jersey."
Jon Taylor, Presiding Officer of Channel Island Lottery said: "These theatre performances are a brilliant way of demonstrating that small projects can have a big impact on the wellbeing and educational advancement of primary school pupils.
"The reviews have been outstanding, from students and teachers alike."
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