PUPILS WITH 39 LANGUAGES PUT SCHOOL IN CRISIS

A FAILING secondary school is being forced to beg for multi-lingual volunteers to help teachers cope with the 39 different languages spoken by its pupils.

Endeavour High School in Hull has seen a “meteoric” rise in pupils who do not speak English as their first language.

Many come from eastern Europe but there are also children from Cambodia, the Congo and Taiwan, with Kurdish, Mandarin, Arabic, Polish and Farsi among the most common languages.

In 2005 just six per cent of pupils at Endeavour had a foreign language as their primary tongue.

Today, following Labour’s open-door immigration policy, these pupils account for almost a third, with many unable to utter a single word of English upon arrival.

The disruption to lessons has led many parents of English-born children to try to find alternative schools.

Yesterday the Daily Express revealed how since 1997, the number of schools where English is the second language for more than 50 per cent of pupils has virtually doubled, to 1,500.

But the situation at schools such as Endeavour is more chronic because of the sheer number of languages teachers must contend with. The 1,200 capacity school – built at a cost of £15million in 2003 – currently has just 710 pupils, meaning new arrivals can be instantly admitted.

But with a chronic lack of funding, school head Chris Straker has been forced to issue a desperate plea for public help.

He said. “We would love to recruit and recruit and recruit but that isn’t possible in this economic climate.”

He added: “The rate of change in Hull has been breathtaking. Five years ago you didn’t see a foreign face or hear a foreign language spoken in the city. Now it is very different.”

The school was placed in special measures for a second time last summer and is likely to miss out on its achievement targets in English and maths.

In its latest Ofsted report, inspectors said: “The school doesn’t have the resources to meet the needs of this expanding group well enough.” Mr Straker said: “It would be fantastic if people could come forward who have a foreign language and are equally strong in English, to come into the classrooms in a mentoring role.”

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