Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what data her Department holds on the proportion of (a) primary and (b) secondary school pupils who do not speak English as their first language who arrived in the UK in each of the last five years.

The requested data on the number of primary and secondary school pupils who have English as an additional language can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-pupils-and-their-characteristics/2024-25.

The most recent data has been available since 5 June 2025.

A pupil is recorded to have English as an additional language if they are exposed to a language at home that is known or believed to be other than English. This measure is not a measure of English language proficiency or a good proxy for recent immigration.

The department does not hold data for the number of pupils who have recently arrived in the UK.