insideSUSSEX Magazine Issue 12 - February 2016 | Page 91

EDUCATION

ReadingWise Translate: helping schools
and EAL parents communicate
Founder of Languagenut, a simple but effective language teaching resource that began as a
modest start-up in his garden shed and has since grown to become a thriving community in
over 20 countries worldwide, Sussex-based education innovator, Jamie Fries, has now launched
ReadingWise Translate, a new Beta tool which aims to make it easy for schools to communicate
with English as an additional language (EAL) parents. Polly Humphris caught up with Jamie
about the aims of his new project and the inspiration behind it.

ReadingWise Translate allows school staff to request
translations in hundreds of languages in seconds.

The ReadingWise team is already working successfully with EAL learners
within schools, and we've been exploring the delivery of training and access
of our online literacy intervention to groups of EAL parents. The hope is that
we make it really easy and affordable for schools to communicate in writing
with all parents, regardless of their home language. This should help engage
parents in their children’s education, and supports the ReadingWise mission
of ensuring that every child has a fair chance to achieve their potential.

Hi Jamie, where did you find your inspiration for
ReadingWise Translate?
Having worked as a teacher with children who don’t speak English, I’ve
seen first hand the enormous challenges faced by both the child trying
to engage with their lessons, but also by the school who have a duty to
communicate effectively with these children’s parents or carers.
Working with schools throughout the UK for the last five years, I noticed
that head teachers consistently highlighted the difficulty in communicating
with parents with a diverse range of languages. ReadingWise Translate
has been developed to provide a solution to this problem by harnessing
the existing, but scattered language expertise already in our schools, and
bringing it into one simple and effective offering.

Which schools in Sussex are showing interest?
As of January 2013, 11 per cent of children in Brighton and Hove
schools spoke English as a second language; over nine percent of
children in West Sussex schools; and five per cent of children in East
Sussex schools – that’s a total of almost 8,000 children. Hundreds of
languages are spoken in UK homes all over the country, and over one
million children in our schools have English as a second language. So far,
schools in over 20 regions of the UK, including Sussex, are interested in
ReadingWise Translate and that figure is growing.

What are the main aims of the project and what do you hope to
achieve with it?
The project has three aims. Firstly, to make it easier for schools to obtain
translations for written text, including letters home and school reports.
Secondly, to make these translations more affordable; and thirdly, to
enhance parental engagement.

www.readingwise.com/translate
@jamiefries108

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