School Pupils: English Speakers

Lord Nash Excerpts

Monday 3rd March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sharples]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their estimate of the number of children starting school for whom English is a second language.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Nash) (Con)]

My Lords, the latest school census in England in January of last year showed that 19% of pupils in year one, 113,000, and 14% of pupils in year seven, 75,000, have English as an additional language. More than 1 million pupils in schools, 13% of the total, have English as an additional language.

[Baroness Sharples (Con)]

Is my noble friend aware that certain schools are involved in considerable expense because they have to employ interpreters? What is being done to help parents learn English, so that it can be spoken at home?

[Lord Nash]

My Lords, it is for schools to determine how to respond to the needs of pupils with EAL, including how they support pupils’ families. We do not hold centrally a figure for the number of interpreters employed in schools. Local authorities have the freedom to allocate EAL funding to schools as they see fit. Schools may well choose to spend this on interpreters or on employing bilingual staff. For example, we know that in 75 local authorities, primary school pupils with EAL attract between £250 and £750 each. The Government are investing £210 million per annum in community learning language programmes to support families with EAL. We are also funding English courses for 24,000 adults with the lowest levels of English through the £6 million English language competition. There is no specific duty for schools to teach English to parents; however, schools have a key role to play in this. Parents of new pupils at, for instance, Millbank Academy—one of the primaries up the road, which is in my wife’s group—where 85% of pupils have EAL, are introduced both to other parents and a member of staff who speaks their home language, and are invited to the school every week to be updated on their pupil’s progress.

[Baroness Coussins (CB)]

My Lords, a recent British Academy report highlighted the importance of the diverse languages of the UK’s minority communities for our diplomacy, national security and defence needs. Will the Minister therefore acknowledge the data, which suggest that the presence in schools of children who are bilingual or have English as an additional language tends, in fact, to raise overall school performance at GCSE, not damage it? What action will the Government take to recognise and improve these language skills for the benefit of the whole country?

[Lord Nash]

The noble Baroness is quite right. In fact, pupils with EAL progress very well and have higher EBacc scores. Indeed, sadly, it is many white, working-class British boys with English as a first language who do particularly badly. We recognise the importance of language skills, which is why we have introduced them as a compulsory measure into primary schools. Under this Government, the number of pupils doing languages at secondary school has risen substantially.

[Baroness Hussein-Ece (LD)]

My Lords, my noble friend will be aware that many children who begin school with little or no English go on to become successful students and have a very positive work ethic that they contribute to the school. But is he aware that there are successful schemes in some authorities whereby bilingual students are trained to provide additional support to young people and their parents who do not have English as a first language to adapt quickly to school life and to the English way of life?

[Lord Nash]

I am aware of what the noble Baroness said. These programmes are excellent and we encourage all schools to do the same.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, will the Minister join me in celebrating the role that teaching assistants can play in helping these particular children integrate quickly, particularly if the teaching assistants are drawn from the local community and share the child’s first language as well? Will he reassure all those hard-working teaching assistants around the country that the Government do not have any plans to phase them out?

[Lord Nash]

The noble Baroness is quite right that teaching assistants can play a vital role, particularly in this area. As we have discussed, the use of teaching assistants can sometimes not be done well—but, properly used, they are vital. We believe that it is for the head teachers to decide how they employ teaching assistants. It is entirely a matter for them.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)]

The House will be grateful to the noble Lord the Minister for the statistics that he has given us. More importantly, what is the estimate of the number of children who are now going to school who cannot eat properly, have not been toilet trained properly and cannot cope with healthy foods by comparison with what they are accustomed to eating? What are the Government doing to help parents to train those children to make sure that they have a better standard and to stop the closure of the Sure Start centres, which were aimed at trying to prevent that difficulty?

[Lord Nash]

The noble Lord is quite right that we unfortunately see an increasing number of pupils entering primary school with very challenging social skills. Primary teachers and assistants have to spend several terms socialising them. Meals are very important, which is why we have introduced compulsory meals. On early years training, in fact we have invested substantially in early years and continue to support childminding.

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

Does the Question not highlight the additional challenges that certain teachers and schools have? Will the Minister assure the House that in the inspection and evaluation of schools, full appreciation of the job that teachers do and the distance that each child travels, as well as their achievement in academic league tables, are taken into account to stop demoralising teachers who work in particularly challenging areas and do a wonderful job taking children forward through their education?

[Lord Nash]

The noble Earl is quite right; teaching is the most noble profession and we should at all times recognise that and constantly try to raise the status of teaching in all our lives. Teachers do a wonderful job. Our new Best 8 progress measures will track the progress of all pupils of whatever ability throughout their school careers. We think that that is very important.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton (Lab)]

Can I share with the Minister an experience that I had? A London taxi driver was talking to me about his daughter’s education? His daughter had a first class degree and had gained a job in India in IT. He said, “You see, my daughter was very fortunate. She went to a school where she was able to learn Urdu and Gujarati”. The availability of such languages in our schools should always be seen as an asset and an opportunity for English first-language pupils.

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[Lord Nash]

I agree entirely with the noble Baroness. Additionally, we are now introducing computing into our schools, which will help in this regard as well.