School Language Policy Builder
Turn shared beliefs into specific practices, responsibilities and a review cycle.
Start with a small representative group: school leaders, teachers, the EAL team, librarians, students and families. Listen to different experiences before drafting. A useful policy explains what people will do, who will support them and how the school will know it is happening.
School context and language profile
Languages used for learning, family communication and school life; strengths and unmet needs.
Shared language principles
What do you agree about access, identity, English development and the value of other languages?
Classroom commitments
How will teachers model language, offer rehearsal and scaffold demanding subject tasks?
Home, additional and host-community languages
How will languages be maintained, developed and included in the curriculum, library and school life?
Admissions, assessment and inclusion
How will language evidence inform support, access arrangements, placement and review?
Staff learning and resources
Who coordinates professional learning, materials, library provision and family communication?
Responsibilities and communication
Name owners, how commitments reach staff and families, and how learners contribute.
Review cycle and evidence
Set a date; choose learner work, observations and student/family feedback; identify what will change.
This is a planning adaptation of the supplied historical guidance, not an IB compliance checklist. For programme approval or evaluation, use the requirements applicable to your school.
Source context
IB, Guidelines for developing a school language policy (2008); Guidelines for school reflection on its language policy (2012).
These tools are original simplified planning prompts based on the supplied editions. They do not reproduce the source checklists or substitute for the complete documents.