Author: Peigi MacLean, Stornoway Primary
At Stornoway Primary, we celebrate the diversity of pupils in our school. We learn from each other to gain an awareness of our cultural differences, and this helps us to develop respect for one another.
We have many children throughout the nursery and school that can speak a range of different languages. Some of our languages include Gaelic, Arabic, Russian, Polish, Nepali, Latvian, Lithuanian, Bengali, French, Hindi, Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean and Telugu. We have 48 pupils who are learning English as an Additional Language and 133 children learning through the medium of Gaelic. We even have some children who are fluent in three languages!
Over recent years, we have been focusing on embedding the Gaelic language and culture into the ethos and life of the school. Abdullah Al Nakeeb and his brother Majd recently made the headlines across Scotland. The boys, who came from Syria, are making excellent progress in learning Gaelic, and recently won our Gaisgeach na Gàidhlig certificate for their effort and enthusiasm in learning the Gaelic language. Abdullah is also singing a Gaelic solo at our local Mod competition.
We value and celebrate all the different languages and encourage our bilingual and multilingual pupils to teach us all new words and phrases.
We are so proud of all the languages we speak at Stornoway Primary.