EMAG (Ethnic Minority Achievement Grant)
EMAG is one of the DfES Standards funds and is devolved to schools on the basis of a locally agreed formula. About 62 Nottingham schools receive this funding. The purposes of the grant are:
To enable strategic managers in schools and LEAs to lead whole school change to narrow achievement gaps and ensure equality of outcomes;
To meet the costs of some of the additional support to meet the specific needs of bilingual learners and under-achieving pupils.
The Black Achievement and EAL consultants are funded by EMAG and they work with schools to ensure the effective use of EMAG funding, supporting them in drawing up effective action plans, timetabling arrangement, targeting pupils and setting appropriate targets, assessing pupils and, in particular, in developing effective classroom strategies that will meet the language learning needs of pupils learning English as an additional language or which will enhance the achievement of Black pupils.
Each consultant has a number of link schools that they visit frequently and in some of these schools they work in partnership with mainstream and EMAG funded staff within the classroom to development materials and approaches.