English is the second language at some schools (From Echo)

English is the second language at some schools

4:00am Friday 28th November 2008 in

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MORE than a third of pupils at some Southend primary schools do not speak English as their first language, a new report has revealed.

The study by Southend Council showed 39 per cent of pupils at Porters Grange Primary School are learning English as an additional language.

Visitors to the school, which has 450 pupils, will hear 34 different languages spoken ranging from Polish to Urdu and Czech to Chinese.

Ros Ferdinand, headteacher, said the diversity at her school was inspiring pupils to understand other cultures and learn about lifestyles around the world.

She said: “Having children with different languages, from a range of countries and continents helps all our children understand there is a wider world they can be interested in and aspire to.

“Teaching pupils who are learning English as an additional language just requires good teaching and learning practices, with lots of practical and visual activities.”

Gerri Bennett, deputy head teacher at Westborough Primary School in Westcliff, where about a third of pupils also have English as an additional language, said pupils easily pick English up when they start.

She said: “They can excel at languages.

“It is definitely an advantage for students to speak more than one languages as it prepares them for the multilingual world we live in.”

She added that some of the pupils speak four or five languages.

Secondary schools also have a high proportion of students whose first language is not English. A fifth of students at both Chase High in Westcliff and Futures college in Southend speak English as an additional language.

Futures head Jean Alder said: “The mix of languages is a positive thing for the school. UK students who struggle with subjects like French are very impressed by the students who can already speak other languages. It inspires them.”

The school has a special unit which is dedicated to teaching students who come to the school with little or no English. The unit, which has been going for five years, currently looks after 14 students who will stay there for around ten weeks before moving into the mainstream school.

Schools are given extra funding from the Government to provide things like bilingual literature. This year the borough was given £241,604 to help.