To want your experiences of non English speakers in your child's primary school class?

[TheClacksAreDown]

I'm currently looking at primary schools for DC1 as we will be applying for reception places at the end of the year. We are in London and there is a shortage of primary school places so not much in the way of choice.

Our best shot at a community school is a large one about a 15 minute walk away. Due to its size and the geography it pulls from a variety of areas and those areas range from well heeled to pretty deprived. Looking at the Ofsted and info on findaschool.info I can see that the school is pretty ethnically diverse. I'm totally fine with all of that and would prefer they don't live in a pure middle class bubble. The bit that gives me cause to pause is the level of English spoken. It looks like nearly half don't have English as their first language and a sizeable minority of those start with limited/no English at all. Looking at the ethnicity split I think the first languages would be relatively split rather than concentrated in one language.

This is a really different set up to the primary school I attended - my family lived in a very white suburban area where everyone spoke English and the school was 99% white british. So what I don't know is what it is like when there is a large proportion of non-native English speakers, particularly those who don't speak it well. I know kids learn quickly and of course they have to learn but when I mentioned this to my mother she was appalled that I would look to put DC into such a school - she was convinced that their education would suffer. We have the possibility of a religious school which seems to be 80% white and 90% English first language or a private school that is ethnically diverse but very professional middle class.

So - did/do your kids attend a school where there were a lot of non-English speakers and did you find it impacted their education?

The key fact for me is that the first languages are diverse. That's a huge plus.
I've always found it a bonus as a primary teacher, and my children did attend ethnically diverse schools.

Hag why is that key to you?

My dcs are at a school where there are a number of polish kids, most of who speak excellent English. What I've always wondered is, do the school have to teach them English if they don't speak it, and if so, how does that impact on the rest of the class?

The problems at our school stem mainly from non English speaking parents, rather than the children- i.e they can't help them read (English) books at home or help with homework. There has also been problems reading and understanding the newsletters that are sent home.

My children's school is about 1/3 non English as a first language. I think it's a very very good thing to be exposed to other languages early. My eldest's best friend is French and my child says hello and goodbye in French without thinking. He has had absolutely no french tutoring, he's just picked it up from his friend. Most of the signs in school are in English and several other languages. I can't think of any downsides to such variety at all.

If you have large numbers of children who speak the same language, it tends to mean that friendships are often formed within that group and they are self-sustaining. The playground language choice tends to be the home language.
In an ethnically diverse school, the friendships often cross boundaries based on having an interest in common rather than a language.
I've also found that schools with a number of children with EAL often teach grammar and language use very effectively and meaningfully.
Just personal observation, not data.

Around 85% of the children at ds1 & ds2's school are other than white british, over 60% are of a family where English is an additional language. The school was rated outstanding by ofsted (fwiw) and consistently exceeds national targets in literacy at all ages.

My friend's daughter started school just before she was 5 with no English whatsoever. She was fluent within no time. Moved back to Switzerland when she was 9 but at the age of 16 you wouldn't know English isn't her first language.

I found out recently that the school have english down as his second language!!! All because of his name!!

I know from a teacher perspective it us harder to get class discipline with a lot of non native speakers. It happens but will take longer in the first year. I think 50% is a lot and probably will slow down the English speakers. Schools don't get more assistance for this.

If your DC's first language is English, they're not going to suddenly forget how to speak it if they share a class with non-English speakers.

The school my children is very diverse and plenty of the reception class children would speak English as a second language.

It's not a big problem as far as I can see and there are lots of positive aspects to different cultures in the school.

My DD's school was 98% non-english speaking a few years ago, and is 80% non-english speaking now.

The other parent from preschool, and myself, both were very unhappy when we were given this school (neither put it down).

The headteacher said she had put a lot of time trying to attract more 'english' speakers to the school, and the way the catchments have worked lately have been great, as it means all the english speaking parents, were there by default.

There are a lot of eastern europeans there now, but until the last few years it has been mainly asian muslims who attended there.

The headteacher reassured us that no extra time/resources would be taken from our children to help those who didn't speak it well. But, to be honest, children are really quick at learning anyway.

I think DM's concern is that of allocation of resources - won't teachers be tied up dealing with those children who have limited English to the detriment of those like DC, particularly in early years. The school seems to get reasonable results at 11 but we might want DC to move to a private school aged 7 which assesses age 6 and if we did, being a bit behind where DC could otherwise have been then would be an issue even if they school wouldhave brought them up by 11.

Hag helpful point re playground languages and I am going to look at the ethnicity split again to check out more carefully.

A lot of the kids at son's school started with no English, but by the end of KS1 they were all fluent and English is pretty much the playground language as the population is quite diverse - it is the unifying language. A lot of English speaking Reception age children aren't that verbal either so it never seemed a problem. Neither has it impacted on education.

Slightly different, but it's the absolute norm for dc to go into Welsh medium primary here with no Welsh at all (and 90% of the class can be in that situation some years). They're all speaking fluently within a very short time, and that's despite the fact that the vast majority will be mother tongue English.

I'd agree that if you have a diversity of home languages, they'll pick up the school language more quickly, as there won't be the tendency to speak the home language in the playground.

Presumably if you're going to bale at 7 you'll have a tutor anyway?

Hag why is that key to you?

for us, we didn't want our child to go to a school where everyone else spoke one particular language because our child might be left out of games, friendships etc. if there is a diversity of languages, then I think there will be more mixing.

Our experience has been ok. Both DP and I speak other languages, but English is our first language, so our children speak English at home. it's obviously the case that other children get attention and help with English, but our child doesn't get any help with her non-existent french/italian/spanish etc. (that is, if you are a non-english speaker you get help with languages, but if you are a native speaker you don't. makes sense, but I just wish DD got some language training too). The children whose native tongue is not English who have been in class with DD since reception are now fluent in English from what I can tell (year 2).

I started at an international school at the age of 4, in a country with a very mixed population, with one foreign parent and loads of kids in my class with english as a second language. I have a cut-glass English accent and sound frightfully posh now (even though I am really not)! I've always been very good at English too (although I make up for it by being shit at maths).

I reckon that if 'correct' language is modeled at home by at least one person then the child will be fine.

My DS attends a nursery where there is probably 50% from a particular ethnicity/culture where English is not the first language and they all speak the same language. The other 50% is made up of around 30% native English speakers and 20% Eastern European [London school].

It is a lovely nursery and the children are all very sweet... but the problem for my DS is that most of the boys he wants to play with are in the 50% that speak the same language and have the same culture. These boys tend to speak their first language with each other in the playground [understandably] and DS has trouble forming friendships with them. Also quite a few of the boys parents do not speak English and they don't mix with the English speaking parents... so I don't have the opportunity to arrange playdates after nursery with the boys that DS would like to invite.

So yes, imo it is good on one level to have diversity in schools but when the balance is tipped as I described above it is not ideal ime.

Oh and we didn't have a lot of other teacher support around AFAIK - it was 1 teacher, 1 class, regardless of language level.

I will say that the experience of growing up with many other languages around has been very beneficial - I have much more of an ear for accents than my friends who were born and raised in less diverse areas of the UK. This has been helpful in work environments with colleagues speaking heavily accented English!

My DCs are at a school that is about 65% English as an additional language with only about 10% white british children. EAL as a statistic tells you nothing - you have to look around the school and ask questions about the school's policies and processes to understand more. Our experience in this kind of school has been very positive but that is not to say it would be everywhere.

Within the 65% EAL when DSstarted in nursery there were, for example: a very small handful of kids who had no, or very limited, English; a number more who had some English and in fact speak English at least some of the time at home; and a group of kids - from varying backgrounds - who were already bilingual by the time of starting school (or trilingual in several cases). It has made no difference socially - English is very definitely the playground language and young kids pick up language at the level required for fun and games very quickly. I have seen no noticeable impact in the classroom as yet although I think this may become more apparent higher up the school and language used in class is more complex (especially for writing), but this is unlikely to affect your child. In our area (London too) you are likely to get new joiners at low language level at random points throughout the year into any year group - these seem to be the kids for whom things are hardest and - having spoken to several teachers about it - it can be hard to manage. A good inner city school with high mobility will prob be used to dealing with this though and should have things in place to support these children. Our school certainly does - through the TAs, SENCO, some specialist support and volunteer readers.

On the plus side, my DC has friends from all over the world, with probably a dozen languages spoken by his friends. His geographical knowledge is outstanding and we have two after school language clubs run by volunteer parents. I am constantly embarrassed by my monolingualism when talking to other parents who are immensely proficient in several!

My experience is of a parent of a child whose first language is not the school language, and as a language teacher myself.

As Hag pointed out, it does make a difference when the L1 (first language) of the EAL children are different vs mixed. When they all speak the same language they will tend to play and form relationships with each other in that language and it becomes a little bit insular. Certainly DS picked the one other child who spoke English and stuck to him like glue (they are in different classes now.)

Additionally language teaching/support is very different when you have one L1 vs a range of L1. Where there is a range, you're limited to teaching English in English, and basically they pick it up from immersion, especially in a school setting where there are unlikely to be actual ESOL classes.

I think it's likely to be a very positive thing actually. IME children of this age learn very fast - DS picked up basic German in 6 months and close to fluency in a year. The pace in Reception should not be too fast - there should be a lot of repetition etc, this is helpful even for the native speakers because it means the pressure is off. It's still very play based.

I would imagine if your DC has any additional needs, they might be disadvantaged because the language issue itself is an additional need and might take up time, but if they are NT and fairly bright then it shouldn't be an issue.

And for playdates etc - as a mum who doesn't speak the native language here, please please ask anyway! Usually they want to ask you, but they're too embarrassed, and probably worried about inviting over a child they can't talk to. It's not too difficult to understand if you keep it simple (Can X come to our house, to play? With actions, or add "you come too, for coffee?" with actions if they look nervous.) Swap mobile numbers - SMS is pretty much universal for text and it's much easier for them to decipher a text message (you can even translate them with an app) than feel embarrassed and flustered on the phone.

Somehow it's easier to set up playdates after a party or something, but do try - they're probably feeling even more nervous than you are, and it's much easier to respond to (basic) conversation as a non native speaker than to start one, I'm always worried that if I open my mouth and speak German to somebody that they will rabbit on for ages and I won't know what they're saying, but if they ask me a question then I do try to answer.

Or for more neutral ground, set up a playdate in a local park or something. Say "We are going to X park at 3 o'clock. Do you want to come?" I mean, in fact as the children get older they arrange their own playdates anyway, DS does at 6 and just asks me if it's okay and so he acts as a translator almost. But he's been here a year and a half now so it's getting easier for him.

Parental attitudes, hadn't really considered that. Gah. Yes I could see how that could be an issue if they were unwilling to mix. I may see if I can track down friends of friends locally who may have kids there at the moment to see how they find things.

As for English speaking reception children with limited verbal skills - for better or worse DC1 never stops talking. From the moment they get up to the moment they go to sleep. Which clearly DM takes as a senior of how gifted they are .

If we go private I don't know if we would get a tutor. I know one family who had got their kids through and they had done the tutoring themselves as they felt it was at a level they could help with. That school is just one potential option.

BertieBotts - those are good points. Both DH and I work FT though so I'll have a pretty limited role in playdates etc - short term it will be the nanny arranging them. It must be so hard moving somewhere where you don't speak the native language.