An interesting research report has recently been published by the Home Office which looks at the Social and Public Service Impacts of International Migration at the Local Level. The report authored by Sarah Poppleton, Kate Hitchcock, Kitty Lymperopoulou, Jon Simmons and Rebecca Gillespie, notes the diversity of migrants and the diversity of locations where migrant families settle. They note that 'some parts of the country have had relatively little experience of migration. In other places, populations have a long experience of migration and are ‘hyperdiverse’ with large numbers of migrants. Those migrants arrive for a variety of reasons, some to work, some to study, some to join or make a new family, others to receive protection from persecution. '
The research addresses some of these issues from a more rigorous analytical perspective. It provides a more finely tuned assessment of the different population effects of migration on local authority areas across England and Wales through the development of a local authority (LA) typology, which uses cluster analysis to classify the 348 LAs within England and Wales into 12 discrete groups on the basis of key migration and socio-economic indicators, reflecting the different volumes and types of migrants they have received.
The report also includes summaries of findings drawn from discussions with local authorities, literature review, and online and expert panels. The findings related to education are reproduced in full below. One point of particular note is the lack of agreement on "whether providing English language support to children incurs costs (e.g. employment of bilingual teaching assistants) that diverts resources from other needs”. Whilst this may be viewed as a positive eg that language support is not 'diverting' funds from elsewhere, some in the field may worry that what is really happening is that no language support is provided and therefore costs are non-existent.
There was a lack of agreement or disagreement with the statements on education, and this may partly reflect a lack of knowledge of this area, since the online panel’s confidence in rating the statements was lowest for education. There was limited agreement (between 51% and 57%) with the statements on compulsory education for asylum-seeking and refugee families and dependants of migrant workers only. These groups are considered to have a similar impact on schools as non-migrant children, although clearly this can vary considerably between individuals. This assessment is also partly based on the positive effects of migrant children in schools; while there may be negative impacts such as extra costs involved in educating migrant children (for example, language support) there appear to be counterbalancing benefits (for example, positive effects on school and pupil performance), so that the overall impact may be summarised as ‘similar’.
Head teachers in the LA discussions observed that systems put in place to improve outcomes for migrant children drove wider improvement, which had benefited other children, and that migrant children are often eager to learn and are attentive, attitudes that often have a positive influence on other children. Supporting this, research and statistical evidence have shown that the presence of migrant children in schools has no negative effect on the attainment of non-migrant pupils (Geay et al., 2012) and can, if anything, have a positive effect on general school and pupil performance (George et al., 2011). However this may be in part because additional resources are often in place to support schools that receive larger numbers of migrants.
One statement related to migrant mobility, reflecting the consensus in the research that a key migration-related issue for schools is pupil turnover or churn. This can have a variety of effects, such as class disruption and difficulties in tracking the educational progress of children (Institute of Community Cohesion, 2007; George et al., 2011). By definition, this issue is associated with more mobile migrant types, like low-skilled workers and asylum seekers (who may need to move during the process of claiming asylum or gaining refugee status) – and there was agreement in the online panel for this statement in relation to asylum-seeking and refugee families and dependants of migrant workers. The expert panel noted that schools in areas that are relatively new to migrant children (for example, rural East of England) may find churn difficult to deal with, but inner city schools appear to be more experienced in dealing with this issue.
LAs reported high demand for school places, particularly at primary level, in some areas. Recent international migration was seen as an important contributory factor to this through both the arrival of migrant children and the high birth rates of some migrant groups. At May 2011, 10.4 per cent of primary school places in England were unfilled, but there was considerable geographic variation. Primary schools in the areas where most of the discussions with local school representatives took place had appreciably lower than average proportions of unfilled places, at between 5.1 per cent and 8.2 per cent (Department for Education, 2012a), perhaps reflecting that these were high migration areas. Although nationally there are surplus places, the spare places are not necessarily in the areas where migrants arrive (George et al., 2011). The online panel agreed with the statement that, “in some areas demand for primary school places outstrips, or almost outstrips, supply” in relation to dependants of migrant workers only.
The impact of providing language support in schools did not receive strong support in the online panel assessment, despite evidence that this need appears to be significant and growing. George et al. suggested that the main additional demand placed by migration on schools is language support (ibid.). Demand appears to be increasing. At January 2012, 17.5 per cent and 12.9 per cent of children in state-funded primary schools and secondary schools, respectively, in England, were known or believed to have a first language other than English (Department for Education, 2012b), compared with 10.0 per cent and 8.6 per cent respectively a decade previously, in January 2002 (Department for Education and Skills, 2002). There is also wide regional variation in these figures, from 5.9 per cent of primary school pupils in the North East, to 55.5 per cent in inner London at January 2012 (Department for Education, 2012b). However, in the online panel there was no agreement with the statement that, “providing English language support to children incurs costs (e.g. employment of bilingual teaching assistants) that diverts resources from other needs”.
July 2013 Research Report 72
