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Dept for Education and Skills

Answer

Keith Vaz: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what additional support her Department provides to schools with a recent large migrant intake. [223880] Margaret Hodge: Local education authorities receive funding for all pupils on the school roll in their area through the Education Formula Spending Share. The formula also takes account of the number of pupils with English as an additional language. In 2004-05 the Ethnic Minority Achievement Grant, a matched funded grant which is part of the Standards Fund, has provided a total of £162 million of ring-fenced funding to schools, aimed at raising the attainment of under-achieving minority ethnic pupils and those whose first language is other than English. For 2005-06, this total will be £168.6 million. In addition, in 2003 my Department conducted the "Aiming High: Raising the Achievement of Minority Ethnic Pupils" consultation. This has been followed by a wide range of initiatives aimed at addressing the specific needs of certain groups of pupils, including those whose first language is other than English. Part of this initiative is the Primary National Strategy English as an Additional Language (EAL) Pilot which involves the provision of EAL consultants in 21 local education authority areas, each working with 10 schools. The role of these consultants is to develop an intensive professional development programme for mainstream school staff. This will enable the development of improved skills and confidence among mainstream teachers and allow for the production of teaching and learning materials and the dissemination of good practice. My Department has also worked with the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) and Ofsted to promote a common national approach to assessment of the acquisition of English language fluency based on the National Curriculum in English levels. This approach states that particular care needs to be taken to assess the needs of newly arrived pupils and the importance of using pupils' first languages as part of the assessment process. Finally, my Department provided funding to the QCA to develop guidance to help teachers respond to the needs of newly arrived pupils. This guidance "Pathways to Learning for New Arrivals" was launched in December 2004 and provides all school staff with access to information on all aspects of integrating newly arrived pupils, including good practice case studies, to ensure that these pupils get full access to the National Curriculum. This guidance can be found on the QCA website--www.qca.org.uk

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

432 c1590-1W;432 c1586-7W; 223880

Session

2004-05

Subjects

Finance Migrants Ethnic groups Pupils Minority groups Schools

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk