England |
Northern Ireland |
Scotland | Wales
England
The Annual Schools Census
carried out by the Department for Education (DfE) asks schools to
report on the number of children with a first language other than
English.
The latest data for 2010
show:
- 16.0% (518,020)of all Local Authority maintained primary school
children have a first language known to or believed to be a
language other than English
- 11.6% (378,200) of all state-funded secondary school children
have a first language known to or believed to be a language other
than English
- Information at Local
Authority level is available. (Table 13a for primary and 13b
for secondary)
The data for 2009 show:
- 15.2% (492,390)of all Local Authority maintained primary school
children have a first language known to or believed to be a
language other than English
- 11.1% (364,280) of all state-funded secondary school children
have a first language known to or believed to be a language other
than English
- Information at Local
Authority level is available. (Table 13a for primary and 13b
for secondary)
The data for 2008 show:
- 14.3% (466,420)of all Local Authority maintained primary school
children have a first language known to or believed to be a
language other than English
- 10.6% (349,040) of all state-funded secondary school children
have a first language known to or believed to be a language other
than English
- The top fifteen languages spoken by pupils whose first language
is other than English are reported as per the table.
|
|
Number
|
% *
|
|
Panjabi
|
102,570
|
1.6
|
|
Urdu
|
85,250
|
1.3
|
|
Bengali
|
70,320
|
1.1
|
|
Gujarati
|
40,880
|
0.6
|
|
Somali
|
32,030
|
0.5
|
|
Polish
|
26,840
|
0.4
|
|
Arabic
|
25,800
|
0.4
|
|
Portuguese
|
16,560
|
0.3
|
|
Turkish
|
16,460
|
0.3
|
|
Tamil
|
15,460
|
0.2
|
|
French
|
15,310
|
0.2
|
|
Yoruba
|
13,920
|
0.2
|
|
Chinese
|
13,380
|
0.2
|
|
Spanish
|
10,000
|
0.2
|
|
Persian/Farsi
|
8,510
|
0.1
|
* Percentage of total maintained-school
pupil population in England (please read the data notes below)
Data source
Data
notes:
Read
the guidance on the data published in the 2008 statistical first
release tables. (pdf, 25kb)
From January 2007, where a
pupil's first language is not English, schools were asked to record
the actual language (into a coding system which consists of over
300 language categories). However, it was not compulsory for
schools to provide this level of detail and not all schools have
chosen to use the extended language codes. In 2008, language data
were received for almost 79 per cent of pupils whose first language
was other than English. This number of responses was sufficient to
provide summary national level findings. The 2008 data record some
240 different languages for these 79% of pupils.
Northern Ireland
The 2008/09 annual pupil census in Northern
Ireland recorded 4,660 out of a total of 164,811 primary pupils and
2,142 out of 147,986 post primary pupils whose first language is
not English and who have significant difficulties with the English
language and who require additional support.
Data source
Department of Education, Northern Ireland
Scotland
Data from the results of the 2008 annual pupil
census in publicly funded schools in Scotland (published April
2009) gave the following linguistic picture of school children in
Scotland:
- There are over 28,000 bilingual primary and secondary school
children in Scotland (4% of all school children)
- The top 5 home languages were reported to be Polish, Panjabi,
Urdu, Cantonese and Arabic.
- A total of 147 languages are spoken as the main home language
by pupils in publicly funded schools in Scotland.
Data sources
Wales
In 2009/10, there are 1% of pupils (including
nursery, primary and secondary) in Wales acquiring English as an
additional languages.
Data source
School Census in Wales, 2010