ALMOST 60 per cent of primary school pupils in the Bradford East area speak English as additional language, according to new figures.

Education standards in the Parliamentary constituency will be discussed by councillors later this week, and Bradford Council has released a breakdown of relevant data for the area, from numbers of schools rated “good” or better by Ofsted, to primary and secondary school results.

The report, by Judith Kirk, deputy director of education and skills, is the first of a series providing the authority’s five area committees with localised details of education performance.

The Bradford East report says that there are 24,758 pupils taught in the constituency’s 51 schools.

Of primary school aged children, 59 per cent spoke English as an additional language according to the last census, compared to the national figure of 20 per cent.

Twenty one per cent of pupils are on free school meals, compared to 15 per cent nationally.

The constituency is below the national and Bradford averages for, amongst other things, early years’ development, reading, writing and maths levels at Key Stage 1, and A Level results.

But the gap between the national average is shrinking in many areas.

Of the 37 primary schools that had Ofsted judgements by the end of 2016, 25 were judged good and four outstanding. Of six secondary schools with judgements, two are outstanding and two are good.

Of the 10 schools inspected last year, seven improved their rating.

Ian Murch, Bradford spokesman for the National Union of Teachers, said: “Speaking English as an additional language isn’t necessarily a sign of deprivation. For a lot of families in these areas the home languages may be both English and another language. It is not as big a factor for some communities, especially ones that are well established. It will be a bigger issue in communities that are newer to the UK and less established like some Eastern European communities.

“Reports like this show that some children have a bigger hill to climb when it comes to their education.”

Councillor David Ward (Lib Dem, Bolton and Undercliffe), education spokesman for his party and former Bradford East MP, said: “We’ve been calling for a break down of figures like this for a long time. It is important that councillors can find out what is happening in the schools in the areas we represent. When you only get district wide information it can be difficult to interpret at times.”

The committee meets in City Hall at 6pm on Thursday.

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