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?

Depends how the school measure them. Our school has more than 50% and is an outstanding school, children catch up very quickly. Many of the children are cradle bilinguals, making it hard to figure which language is first and it comes down to parents saying English is/ is not the first language I think. Strictly speaking our dc is one of them, but English and second language are totally equal here. The extra resources actually benefit all the children not just the EAL ones.

100% depends on the parents. see DC starting Nursery with only Polish, now they are the brightest in the class

BUT, the non-parental-mixing is a fucker. I moved my kids in the end. sorry but 30 unfriendly parents that did not try and speak English did not a friendly vibe make. I do think I was a but unlucky with our class tho

What is not clear from your OP is what you want for your DC as opposed to what your DM wants. I am not saying this to be awkward. Try for where your DC and you might fit in best and where the levels of attainment and progress meet your expectations.

in DD's class of 30 odd there are about 22 different nationalities. Most speak good English but there must be at least 10 who are bilingual or don't have English as a first language. Each year there are 1 or 2 who arrive with no english. I've not seen any negative effects at all. The kids are streamed for reading and the new arrivals pick up english very quickly.

But it is a very middle class area, and lots of the non-english speakers are kids of academics or professionals. So perhaps not representative.

It might be different if, say 50% of the kids all had the same first language, as they might use that rather than english in the playground I guess.

If it is a case of "fits in best" then frankly the private school is the way forward where everyone's parents are in business, the city or medicine. Like DH and I are. But ideally I'd prefer my child not to be in a professional class bubble where everyone's life is strictly Ocado, cleaners and skiing at Easter and nobody has to worry about how to pay the gas bill. I work with a number of people who have had that very narrow existence growing up and I'm not sure it has always done them favours.

I guess what I hadn't really focussed on is the practicalities of any significant numbers of non English speakers in the class because that simply isn't something I ever had to deal with. Now my DM has significant form for catastrophising events so I wanted to calibrate her reaction but it did make me think that I should look at this point more carefully to make sure I'm not unnecessarily impacting my children's behaviour.

I'm totally fine with all of that and would prefer they don't live in a pure middle class bubble people of ethnicity are also middle class you know, they are not just relegated to being poor

As far as I am aware children leaning second language are doing very well, but the English speakers in a mostly 2nd language class not so well.

I had option of two excellent schools but felt I wanted DC to be led and brought on with language rather than being the sole leaders in class of 80% non E spekers.

• But ideally I'd prefer my child not to be in a professional class bubble where everyone's life is strictly Ocado, cleaners and skiing at Easter and nobody has to worry about how to pay the gas bill it depends on set of worries you want as no one lives in a bubble, even dc at private will have parents who have died, nasty divorce, drug and alcohol problems.

Look at peaches geldoff, look at princess william and harry no amount of so called bubble protected them from their parents.

Buds if you read my OP you'll see that the private school is ethnically diverse. But it isn't socially diverse.

If children in your DC's class have another language as their "first" language but have older siblings they will speak English with the older school-going sibling anyway (my DNs live overseas and spoke English almost exclusively before they started school but now speak the school language to each other - it's their DM's language but my DB is a SAHD so it was mainly English at home when they were young).

This is more striking for DN2 as DN1 had more time with just my DB, while DN2 had lots of input from DN1 who was at that point socialising with all the cousins/school friends/little friends in their language, and then came home and talked to DN2 in that language.

You'll find many people who went to school with not a word of English, as older children and especially teens lose their home language through speaking to siblings in English.

It's rubbish. Credit to the teachers for their hard work, but dc learn nothing in reception as how can they learn maths when half the class speak no English?!

Hopeless situation, well done foolish governments for having immigration but not funding extra help for teachers.

It's not quite the same but i know english speaking children who have gone to gaelic medium school and vice versa and it's always been positive. i'd love my children to be surrounded by other languages at that age. i think they have more understanding of 'language' as a concept if they're exposed to more than one.

and if it's a variety of languages then there's no risk of exclusion through not knowing one particular language.

I honestly think the private school is the best option for you. (Please no flaming from other posters- I won't respond)

derxa are you my mother?

If your mother is an elderly Scottish teacher, then yes!

dc learn nothing in reception as how can they learn maths when half the class speak no English?!

Lots of non English-speaking DCs find maths pretty straightforward as all you need to learn is new numerals and all your previous knowledge is still valid.

Personally speaking, my daughter speaks English as a second language and she is top of her class in English and Maths (and I only speak my language with her). It is tricky I guess, whilst some children with English as second language might actually excel, others maybe struggle. I agree with others, the stats won't be able to tell you much and parent's attitude will go a long way with how well children do at school. Not much help, sorry.

My children at a school with very high EAL. And thank the lord as they seem to be the super smart ones who are pushing my lot to do better. One of mine is in y6 and it's really striking that the ones who do best on SPAG and the reading are all from homes where another language is spoken - these are children of South American, Indian, Bangladeshi etc backgrounds.

If you want to racially stereotype the groups that have caused most problems for my children are the poor white boys and the very posh white boys - the former feel very disenfranchised and the latter seem to be really disruptive which their parents ascribe to them being 'so bright'.

"dc learn nothing in reception as how can they learn maths when half the class speak no English?!"

dd went into nursery with no Welsh, she still seemed to have learnt plenty of maths by the end of reception . . .

My children are educated in a language other than their maternal language so we've seen this from the opposite angle. It's been a positive experience on both sides. With young children it really does not take long for fluency to develop.

I think it's good that your school takes children from many different communities - as someone else says this increases the chance that english will be the common playground language.

Don't confuse having English as a second language with not being fluent. It simply means that is the language they speak at home. At dc school there are many children from second/third generation immigrant families. Whilst they do speak another language at home and to family members most of the children and parents are fluent in English.

Dd is in year 1 in a class of 30, of whom 10-12 speak an additional language. There are a variety of languages spoken (mandarin, Farsi, Urdu, German to name a few). As well as this, we are in Wales and so although it is an English medium school many of the routine activities are done in Welsh eg the register, reporting how they are, the weather etc.

We have not noticed any problems with the variety of languages spoken and her literacy and numeracy are progressing well. I think the language exposure is a good thing- she is much more aware of other languages and cultures than it would expect and is interested in learning about them.

As takver said, plenty of English- language only children go to welsh medium school, with Welsh speaking children, and are speaking welsh within the first year. A little girl came into dd's class with no spoken English before Christmas and can now speak English and understand the classroom Welsh. At this age children seem pick up languages very quickly.

The only issue with mixing we've had, sadly, has been with some of the parents assuming that the non-native English speakers wouldn't want to socialise or come to children's parties.

A key factor to consider is that if a significant proportion of the class has English as an additional language, the teacher has a responsibility to plan and structure the lessons to support these children e.g more use of pictures, diagrams and symbols, simpler language, heavy scaffolding when writing (eg filling in the gap type work, rather than just writing the full sentence). Potentially this can mean that some of the native English speakers (particularly if they are bright) aren't challenged.

Was one of three white British pupils in my primary school class. One of two white British in my entire year at secondary school. Now have good GCSEs, good A levels and a first class degree. Made no difference whatsoever. Kids pick up language c quickly and IME kids of immigrants are extremely interested in education and very hardworking.

In fact the main thing that puts me off moving out of London now is the thought my DC wouldn't get that diverse experience.

DD went to a Welsh medium primary school from Y1, and she had no Welsh when she started. The other parents didn't seem to resent any time which might have been spent groping her learn. By Y3 she was winning competitions for Welsh language poetry...
It's all about perspective.

I used to be a governor in a primary where 70% of the kids had EASL and a huge range of different languages/ethnicities.

It was extremely challenging, particularly early years/KS1. The teachers and other resources were spread v thin trying to manage all the additional demands and as others have said, there's no additional funding for the school in that position.