‘World of Flavours’ Collages for Bristol Refugee Festival 2025
If you’ve been following us on LinkedIn or Instagram, you’ll know that the Better Bilingual Team has been extremely busy over the past 3 months, working on an innovative art activity to promote community cohesion in the Redcliffe area of Bristol.
It’s been a joy to work with sanctuary seeking pupils, their families and the local community to co-create 5 multilingual, colourful collages about everyone’s favourite foods whilst breaking down barriers and building understanding.
Be sure to check out the collages at Windmill Hill City Farm Café over the summer holidays before they move to the Initial Accommodation Hotel for residents to enjoy. Check out this video preview, enjoy the photos and reach out to us if you’d like to know more about the project: info@betterbilingual.co.uk We’re taking bookings for Sept onwards!
Same mission, same purpose, same values – new branding!
Over the summer, we’ll be working hard on updating all our Better Bilingual channels and assets to reflect our beautiful new branding, thanks to our collaboration with the talented Chris Outlaw of Elements Brand Management
Check out our newly rebranded video introduction to Better Bilingual in which our Director, Catherine, explains what we do and why we do it!
SAVE THE DATE – Fri 3rd October 2025
Our annual Better Bilingual Conference will be on Fri 3rd October 2025.
Once again, the venue will be The Foundation in central Bristol and our keynote speaker – back by popular demand and for longer this time – will be Soofia Amin from the Tapscott Learning Trust.
With the very topical theme of ‘Belonging’, we can’t wait to share more details of this 5-year anniversary, invitation-only CPD event with you very soon!
Our upcoming Better Bilingual Courses & Events
Check out all upcoming dates for our popular Better Bilingual CPD courses in Spring & Summer 2025:
Continuing Professional Development (CPD)
🌻🌷 Better Bilingual Team Event – Spring Strategy Session 2025!
On 20th March, we were excited to gather as a Better Bilingual team for our annual Spring Strategy Session in the beautiful upstairs meeting room of Boston Tea Party’s Whiteladies Rd, Bristol. Guided by skilful facilitator, Alison Belshaw…
✅ We welcomed fabulous new team members and connected as a team of Directors, Associates & Volunteers.
✅ We explored the values and skills which underpin and drive our social enterprise mission…see picture cards!
✅ We identified key actions we need to implement to reduce inequity in education for our multilingual pupils.
A positive, empowering and motivating event all round!
Primary Heads’ Association Bristol (PHAB) Conference in Chepstow (March 2025)
Our Better Bilingual team enjoyed an overwhelmingly optimistic Primary Heads Association Bristol (PHAB) Conference in Chepstow recently.
There was an excellent focus on school leaders’ wellbeing – quite rightly, we think! Hayley Hayes, Paul Fordham & Catherine Brennan connected with a range of headteachers, deputy headteachers, inclusion leads and school improvement partners. Many thanks to everyone who visited our Better Bilingual exhibition stand and congratulations to the raffle prize winners!
Better Bilingual Directors’ Discussion with Bristol’s Education Lead
Catherine Brennan and Paul Fordham were delighted to meet with Cllr Christine Townsend in City Hall in February to discuss the alignment between our Better Bilingual mission and the council’s determination to break the link between deprivation and low attainment in Bristol schools.
Attending the Bristol Future event shortly afterwards was a fantastic opportunity to continue the conversation with a host of school leaders and inspirational speakers!
Multilingual classrooms for young children in the UK: advancing diversity through technology and research
Our friends at Multilingual Matters will be publishing a new book by Jieun Kiaer in January 2025 – and have kindly provided us with a discount code. Book reviews for our Better Bilingual website always welcome!
Better Bilingual Shortlisted for The Batook Pandya Award for Inclusion at the Bristol Social Impact Awards 2024!
We are absolutely thrilled and honoured to have been shortlisted for The Batook Pandya Award for Inclusion at the Bristol Social Impact Awards 2024!
The awards ceremony, hosted by VOSCUR, took place on the evening of February 29th 2024 at South Bristol Skills Academy in Hengrove.
Hayley Hayes (Better Bilingual Associate) and Peri Taylor (Better Bilingual Events Manager) share their reflections on the awards evening here
New EAL CPD Events for Teaching Assistants AND New CPD Leadership Event for EAL Leads in Schools & Trusts
Continuing Professional Development (CPD)
Our latest blog, by Soofia Amin
A Multilingual Display – A blog by Soofia Amin, Assistant Head Teacher and Specialist Lead in Education for Multilingualism, Kensington Primary School, East London
International Nowruz Day – 20th March 2024
‘The word Nowruz (Novruz, Navruz, Nooruz, Nevruz, Nauryz), means new day; its spelling and pronunciation may vary by country.
Nowruz marks the first day of spring and is celebrated on the day of the astronomical vernal equinox, which usually occurs on 21 March. It is celebrated as the beginning of the new year by more than 300 million people all around the world and has been celebrated for over 3,000 years in the Balkans, the Black Sea Basin, the Caucasus, Central Asia, the Middle East and other regions.’
Nowruz in Afghanistan
People are happy during Nowruz. They buy new clothes for their children. They host parties for their friends and family and they cook a traditional food named “Samanak” on Nowruz days. The girls and women sing songs during the cooking of Samanak. It is a happy time! – Afghanaid Staff Member
Read more here
Better Bilingual release EAL & EYFS vlogs commissioned by North Somerset!
We’re delighted to announce the release of a series of short vlogs, commissioned by the North Somerset Early Years team and designed to support EYFS providers to promote outcomes for their EAL learners. Our Better Bilingual Associate and ‘online resident’ expert in EYFS matters, Anna Comfort, provides helpful advice and guidance on key topics to help you enhance your EAL provision – enjoy!
How can we promote sustainable school provision for refugee pupils?
There’s new helpful advice and guidance from The Bell Foundation, including information about the PAWS model, available here.
New Guidance on Welcoming and Teaching Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children (UASC)
Check out our Better Bilingual advice and guidance documents aimed at secondary school teachers and leaders who are keen to promote best practice for welcoming and teaching Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children. Commissioned by The HOPE Virtual School in Bristol (and free to share widely), you can view and download the full documents here: 
Secondary & EAL
New ‘Refugee Education’ CPD from the Chartered College of Teaching
Are you a school leader looking to develop inclusive school policies for refugee students? If so, this online CPD is specifically designed for you, with the aim being ‘to combine research evidence with high quality practice so that school leaders can learn from the best available evidence and discuss their approaches and experiences with peers.’
Better Bilingual is delighted to have contributed a case study on the initial assessment of EAL pupils, in collaboration with Bristol Cathedral Choir School.
You can check out full details of the Refugee Education course here: 
Refugee Education : My College
Vision, mission and animations!
Celebrating Multilingualism – Newbury Park’s Language World
We have all missed Newbury Park’s ‘Language of the Month’ resources so much – but now their wonderful new ‘Language World’ resources are available here
Great for answering the register in many languages – and lots more!