Password is committed to helping schools deliver excellence in education for all  bi/multilingual students.  These learners are highly diverse; they range from newly arrived international students to domestic pupils exposed to home-languages other than English, and this makes providing highly effective support both a significant recruitment opportunity and a complex challenge.   

In November 2023, we launched three days of in-person CPD for schools in the UK, aimed at improving understanding of these learners and their families, and sharing proven strategies which will help schools develop a truly welcoming community in which every student thrives, no matter their language background.   

We are continuing rolling out the content to schools across the country this academic year. We hope that your school will find one of our chosen host locations and dates suitable, so you can join us on our journey towards being a community of ‘language-aware’ schools.  The UK sessions will be led by our expert speakers, Dr Eowyn Crisfield and Dr Helen Wood. Please get in touch if you would like to host a Password CPD event.

Dr. Eowyn Crisfield

Eowyn Crisfield is a specialist in applied linguistics, multilingual education,  language teaching, and language policy, with a career spanning over three decades in academia, consulting, and teacher education. She is the Director of Crisfield Educational Consulting and Honorary Norham Fellow at the Department of Education, Oxford University.

Eowyn holds a BEd in TESOL (Concordia University), an MA in Applied Linguistics (Concordia University), and a PhD (Oxford Brookes University). She is an active member of professional organizations including BAAL (British Association for Applied Linguistics), ECIS (Educational Collaborative for International Schools), and CIS (Council of International Schools).

Dr. Helen Wood 

Dr. Helen Wood is the Head of School Partnerships at Password English Language Testing.

Educated in Wales with a Doctorate from Geneva University, she brings first–hand experience of the highs and lows of multilingual education experience. Former Deputy Chair of BAISIS and Head of International Section at d’Overbroeck’s College, she joined Password in 2018. Helen is an experienced teacher trainer and has delivered CPD content for BAISIS, the BSA, COBIS, ECCTIS and various schools upon request.   

Helen fosters Password’s collaboration with independent and international school partners and supports the development of our assessments tailored for the sector. 

Who is it for:  Academic leadership, Heads of EAL, subject teachers, admissions and marketing teams.   

What to expect:  

• Expert insight and proven pedagogical strategies 
• Practical steps towards school improvement  
• Collaborative networking and best practice sharing 

“It was great to develop an understanding of the relationship between a learner’s cognitive development and their dominant language (L1).  I now want to move the culture of my school towards being more inclusive in terms of multilingualism.”

“The day has given me the confidence and information I need to push for a whole school approach to multilingualism. It’s been awesome!”

“The expertise of the speakers was evident and the real world strategies incredibly useful.”

“I’m so grateful to have had the opportunity to access this training. It has given me a super understanding of the strategies to use and, crucially, what not to do, when supporting multilingual learners.”

“As someone new to an EAL role, in a new role at my school, the whole day has been so valuable for guiding ideas to develop our support.”

“This was an invaluable day in terms of giving me the confidence to continue fighting for the approach I thought was right for my multilingual learners.”

“I found Eowyn’s suggestions on how to work with and support bilingualism quite eye-opening.”

“An excellent day, pitched at a genuinely high and challenging level, making it a great learning experience! I left feeling less monolingual myself.”

“More please!  It would be great if we could convey this vision of EAL to all our staff.  We need them to share it – it requires a change of mindset, just as has been experienced with SEND.”

“It was really interesting to learn about the importance of contextualising data we use with learners with EAL.  The research into the academic achievement of bilinguals/multilingual learners and the problems with cognitive ability test data was startling.”