Celebrating International Mother Language Day

Schools in Venturers Trust are marking International Mother Language Day – a wonderful opportunity to celebrate the richness of our diverse community.

Dozens of children from six of our schools have shared some words in their home language for this video, and schools have organised various activities for the day, such as parents and carers sharing a story or song in their home language, a poster-making competition, and a language survey. Through Venturers Trust’s ‘International Language Day’ we hope to raise the profile of language diversity across the trust, as we continue to aim for “all children, all backgrounds, all succeeding”.

 
Katy Isaac, the trust’s EAL (English as an Additional Language) lead, said: “The video features more than 30 home languages, but these are just a fraction of all the languages represented in our schools. We want to encourage a sense of pride in being bilingual or multilingual and would like to see EAL pupils using and maintaining their linguistic repertoire. This is important for children’s sense of identity, and has many further benefits. By valuing pupils’ linguistic capital we can help them reap the advantages of being bi- or multi-lingual.”

International Mother Language Day is part of a United Nations initiative "to promote the preservation and protection of all languages used by peoples of the world”.