UK Edition
Number of children with English not their first language soars by two-thirds in decade
The number of schoolchildren who do not speak English as their first language has soared by two-thirds in the past decade to nearly 1.3million amid fresh concerns about the strain immigration is placing on schools.
New figures revealed that English is no longer the first language for the majority of pupils in more than 2,000 primary and secondary schools, equivalent to one in nine.
In more than 200 schools nine in 10 pupils did not speak English as their first language. In some parts of London, including Newham and Tower Hamlets, the proportion of children who speak English as a second language now makes up as much as three-quarters of the school roll.
In towns such as Slough, Luton and Leicester the figure is 50 per cent. Children who do not have English as their mother tongue generally perform as well as native speakers and are valued in many schools for creating linguistic and cultural diversity.
But critics warned that schools with large numbers of pupils who speak other languages may struggle to accommodate their particular needs – meaning other pupils get less attention.
They also warned that it is placing a significant strain on school places. Alp Mehmet, vice chairman of campaigning organisation Migration Watch UK, said: "This is the clearest possible evidence of the huge impact that massive levels of immigration are having.
"Not only do one in five primary school children not speak English as their mother tongue but the pace of change is incredibly rapid – the proportion is up by 50 per cent in a decade.
"The public are rightly concerned at the effect that this scale of immigration has on population growth, including a greater demand for school places and additional classroom facilities like interpreters, at a time when education budgets are stretched.
"The longer term problems posed for integration and the consequences for the nature of our society are immense. Effective government measures to address the public's unease are more pressing than ever.”
The figures show that the proportion of primary school children who do not speak English as their first language has risen from 13.5 per cent in 2007 to 20.6 per cent in 2017.
In secondary schools it has risen from 10.5 per cent in 2007 to 16.2 per cent this year. The overall number of children in primary and schools who speak a first language other than English has nearly doubled, rising from 789,720 in 2007 to nearly 1.3million.
The Department for Education said that the rise was driven by a significant increase in the number of children born to non-UK mothers. Over the past 20 years the proportion of children in the UK born to foreign mothers has risen from 13.6 per cent to 28.8 per cent.
In some parts of the London three-quarters of children are born to non-UK mothers. Non-UK mothers most commonly come from Poland, Pakistan, India and Romania.
Jonathan Portes, a Professor of Economics and Public Policy at King's College in London, said: "On the whole most of these kids seem to make pretty good progress. They start off behind but they end up on the same level. Some of them do exceptionally well.
"We do know that on average there doesn’t seem to be any negative impact on what happens to English speaking kids. There have been a couple of recent papers on this which found no impacts on the impact of English speaking kids.
"There is absolutely no doubt that immigration, directly and indirectly, has increased the demand for school places. Immigration is clearly one of the main reasons that there has been this increase in the number of children of primary school age."