Foreign-language pupils beat native speakers at GCSE
‘Ambitious and keen to learn’
PUPILS with a foreign first language are at the top of the class in GCSE English and maths, data shows.
Some 43.8 per cent of children who grew up using a foreign language achieved ‘ strong passes’ in the subjects, compared with 43.2 per cent of native English speakers.
A strong pass is grade 5 or higher – between an A* and C under the old marking system.
The difference in performance was larger in free schools, where non-native English speakers are beating their peers in the two subjects by nearly 6 per cent, the 2018/19 data from the Department for Education (DfE) shows.
In 2017/18, native English speakers were ahead by 0.1 percentage points, with 43.4 per cent achieving 9-5 in English and maths, with 9 being the highest grade.
Professor Alan Smithers, of the University of Buckingham, said the results showed ‘very bright people are coming to this country, who are ambitious, keen to learn the language and can see how the education system can help them’.
Yesterday’s data also revealed that poorer pupils’ GCSE performance has fallen further behind their wealthier classmates.
Gaps in the proportions of disadvantaged and advantaged pupils being entered for, and achieving, the English Baccalaureate (EBacc) as well as attainment over eight GCSE grades all widened.
The EBacc recognises pupils who take a range of academic
GCSEs – English, maths, science, history or geography and a foreign language. The latest data shows that only 27.5 per cent of disadvantaged teenagers were entered for all of the EBacc subjects last year, compared with 44.5 per cent of other pupils – a difference of 17 percentage points. In 2018, the gap was 16.4 percentage points.
An ongoing divide between boys and girls was also evident, with 28 per cent of girls passing all components of the EBacc, compared with 18 per cent of boys.
Children who grew up speaking a foreign language are also ahead of native English speakers in achieving grade 9-5 in the EBacc.
Some 20.2 per cent of non-native speakers got the grades, compared with 16.5 per cent of their native-speaking peers.
Schools minister Nick Gibb said: ‘The attainment gap between disadvantaged children and their peers remains stable and is down by around 9 per cent since 2011 – but we recognise there is more to do.’ The DfE publishes a ‘disadvantaged gap index’ which looks at the attainment gap between poorer pupils and their peers.
A gap of zero would indicate that disadvantaged youngsters were performing as well as those from more advantaged backgrounds. Last year, the gap was 3.70, compared with 3.68 in 2018.
The data also shows that black and white children are struggling to get strong passes in the EBacc.
Only 15.2 per cent of black pupils and 15.9 per cent of white pupils achieved the grades, compared with 19.8 per cent of mixed-race pupils, 23.9 per cent of Asians and 44.9 per cent of Chinese pupils.