Polish speaking population in schools doubles in three years
There are nearly a million pupils in English schools who speak languages in addition to English. Figures recently released by the DfE show the changes in the linguistic landscape in schools in England which have taken place over the past three years. Information from the January 2011 School Census indicates there are 16 languages which are spoken by more than 10,000 pupils. The most dramatic change since 2008 is in the number of Polish speakers. This figure has increased from 26,840 in 2008 to 47,135 in 2011 making it the fifth most widely spoken language in English schools.
The most spoken languages* are:
- English (5,587, 905)
- Panjabi (113,195)
- Urdu (103,730)
- Bengali (85,210)
- Polish (47,135)
- Gujerati (40,470)
- Somali (40,410)
- Arabic (30,530)
- Portuguese (22,660)
- Tamil (22,515)
- French (20,920)
- Turkish (19,690)
- Yoruba (15,550)
- Spanish (13,135)
- Albanian/Shqip (10.950)
- Pashto (10,895)
*In these figures, language varieties have been grouped together for summary purposes.
There are nearly a million pupils in English schools who speak languages in addition to English. The full details of the numbers of school aged speakers of nearly 300 languages in 2008 and 2011 are available to download in the links to the right. The figures are not directly comparable in all cases as the 2008 figures did not include pupils in special schools.
