Pressure on classrooms mounts as we reveal school where 42 different languages are spoken

AN astonishing 42 different languages are spoken at Claremont Primary School – while more than half the kids do not speak English at home.

And amid all the different accents and dialects echoing across the playground there is one word you will rarely hear — British.

That is because, despite the school being in the heart of Nottingham, teachers have been asked not to use this “elitist” term, for fear it may offend the many migrants who send their children to the school.

Headteacher Andrew Gallagher even has an eight-strong “inclusion team” patrolling the grounds looking for “equality incidents”, such as pupils using racist language.

He said: “We teach British values but we prefer to call them ‘human values’ — we don’t want to be elitist.

“Being British is more than London cabs and fish and chips. We are not a little island anymore but part of a global community — and want our school to be the same.”

To help Claremont’s teachers cope with the huge melting pot of nationalities and languages Gallagher has introduced a number of policies.

Pupils from overseas get two weeks’ intensive English language tuition before they are allowed to enter the classroom. And they are not necessarily assigned a translator but will be given a “buddy” — another pupil who will speak their language.

Teachers are specially trained in how to help the recent arrivals and multi-ethnic staff speak languages ranging from Polish to Urdu.

This inclusive approach to education appears to be paying off.

Being British is more than London cabs and fish and chips. We are part of a global community — and want our school to be the same

Claremont headteacher Andrew Gallagher

Results have improved at the school by about ten per cent in the last three years, since Gallagher took over. They are now in line with national averages — 80 per cent hitting Level 4 and above, raising the school’s Ofsted rating to “good”.

But not everyone is happy with the direction of the school. One dad with a girl at the school said: “My six-year-old daughter goes to the school and has struggled to find her feet in class. She feels like she can’t speak up because she doesn’t want to disturb the teacher.

“The school performed well in its latest Ofsted report but I’m worried that it will get worse.”

The Sun on Sunday visited Claremont this week to see how pupils and staff cope at an institution where dozens of extra foreign pupils arrive every year.

The total school intake has swollen in the last four years — from 360 children to 446 — making it a strong example of a worrying trend taking place all over the UK.

New government statistics show numbers in the average primary school have increased by one whole class size in five years — creating supersize “titan” schools across Britain to cope with the numbers of migrants moving here.

The school performed well in its latest Ofsted report but I’m worried that it will get worse

Parent of Claremont pupil

At Claremont, the range of nationalities and the conveyor belt of new arrivals mean staff face a struggle to stop kids being left behind.

In 1992, white British pupils made up around half the intake, with many of the rest being the children of migrants from Pakistan.

Today, just 15 per cent of the children are white British, while 58 per cent speak English as a second language.

The school has so many East European pupils — currently around 18 per cent of the total — that its newsletters are translated into Romanian and Polish.

In just the last 12 months, 46 new children have joined the school — and 40 of them have come here from overseas. Claremont has benefited from a recent £200,000 refurbishment that introduced astro-turf sports pitches and beautiful climbing frames, all paid for by the council.

The corridors are lined with bright pictures and the school emblem is an image of the world with multi-coloured children holding hands.

So many languages are used at the school that the head admits he had not previously heard of many of them, including Amharic from Ethiopia and Hausa from Nigeria.

We are seeing increasing numbers of Romanian and Polish pupils coming here and I think word is getting around that this is a good place for their kids to be educated

Headteacher Mr Gallagher

At parent evenings, translators are recruited in bulk by the school to help teachers communicate, although Mr Gallagher points out: “They cost about the same to hire for the day as a teacher does.”

Inside the classroom the tension that so many new arrivals can cause gradually displays itself.

A young Pakistani boy sits silently drawing pictures. I try to speak to him but his classmates explain that he does not speak any English.

A girl rushes over to translate and, within seconds, a smile breaks out on his face as he tells me his name. But his shyness is obvious.

A girl from Romania, sitting opposite, is also withdrawn. Again, her classmates try to rouse her and the Romanian word for hello — buna — is repeated by a gaggle of the children.

Despite these apparent difficulties for pupils, Mr Gallagher claims the teaching at Claremont is not hampered and that its diversity is far from problematic.

In fact, he insists the school is continuing to improve after being labelled as failing before he took over three years ago.

He said: “This is a good school now and I think success breeds success when it comes to multicultural families.