This article describes an intervention by educational psychologists in a secondary school and involves consideration of a diverse range of roles and responses, including consultation and research processes, in addressing the needs of bilingual students, many of whom are refugees. The work was made possible as resourcing was attached to a training institution, and implications are considered for changing roles and requirements in service delivery patterns of an EPS.The work was concerned with raising teachers' awareness of the experiences which refugee children and families are likely to have encountered. Another initiative was that of helping the staff to evaluate a reorganisation at the Year 10 level. This involved placing bilingual students at the earliest stages of learning English in the same GCSE science teaching groups and targeting the available ESL teaching support towards that group 's lessons. The research process involved generating 27 Basic Principles for Bilingual Learners, and observing how these 'protocols of good practice' were met in the classroom by analysing both student and teacher behaviour, and learning tasks and context. The study illustrates how students were helped to build relationships in the classroom, reflected in the high incidence of teaching and support they offered each other. It highlights the importance of creating a facilitative and supportive environment, as well as following the pathways which have emerged when considering bilingual teaching and learning.