The European Centre for Modern Languages (ECML) of the Council of Europe is pleased to announce the completion in English, French and German of its resource website “A roadmap for schools to support the language(s) of schooling” (www.ecml.at/roadmapforschools), an output of the ECML programme “Languages at the heart of learning” (2016-2019).

This website enables schools to focus on systematic quality improvement by setting up a tailor-made whole-school strategy to advance learners’ competences in the language(s) of schooling.

The Covid crisis has exposed the vulnerability of learners who struggle with the language of schooling and the academic language specific to different subjects. These practical resources will help schools create more inclusive, more supportive and more language-aware learning environments which are essential to quality education and key to educational success.

The ROADMAP offers three elements to assist schools in setting up their self-constructed strategy plan:

• A self-assessment tool – enabling different stakeholders (headteachers, teachers, non-teaching staff, students and parents) to gauge where their school stands in relation to a number of evaluative statements. The tool can generate an automated report so that the results can be easily broadcast and discussions initiated.
• A promising practices database containing promising practices from different countries that can inspire the school to work specifically on one of the areas they decide to improve.
• A coordinator`s package which contains a set of different documents to support the schools when implementing the Roadmap (i.e. a step-by-step guide, a model letter to the parents, the PowerPoint for the presentation to stakeholders, etc).