Primary charges £1 to see nativity to help foreign pupils learn English

A PRIMARY school is charging parents to see its nativity plays to help fund teaching English to pupils who speak other languages as their first.

Families are being asked to pay £1 per ticket to see their children in this year’s Christmas performances.

The money will contribute to the cost of bilingual books for the 136 pupils at St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School in Warndon, Worcester, who speak 14 foreign languages between them.

Parents will be given the books and encouraged to read them to their children to improve their grasp of English.

Around 44 per cent of the school’s 318 pupils speak English as an additional language (EAL). Their native tongues include Polish, Malayalam, Greek, German, Spanish, Slovak, Portuguese, Punjabi, Lithuanian, Hungarian, Tagalog, Bengali and Slovenian. All schools are expected to support EAL pupils, through the use of bilingual teaching assistants, for example.

But the nominal charge for tickets has sparked tension between parents – some think the fee is not unfair but others object to paying anything to see their children perform. The charge will apply to three performances – one by pupils aged five to seven, one by the reception class and one by children at nursery.

In a letter to parents, headmistress Louise Bury, said: ‘I know that for some of you, paying to see your child perform doesn’t feel right. With ever-tightening budgets and growing numbers, we saw this as an opportunity to be able to invest in some valuable reading and learning resources … to improve the home school learning for reading and therefore improve the reading progress of the children.

‘We have plans to develop parent groups that will enable you to grow in your awareness of how reading is taught. This will especially help those of you who don’t have English as your first language.’

Mrs Bury admitted in the letter that there had been ‘mixed feelings’ in response to the fee, with some teachers facing ‘verbal abuse’ from parents as a result. A pupil’s mother, who did not wish to be named, said: ‘I just wish they had gone about it in a better way … We received the letter and that’s when I realised parents were angry.’

But a father, who gave his name as Steve, said yesterday: ‘I think some parents are just tight. It’s a quid for goodness’ sake. And it is not going for the headmistress to have a Christmas party, it is going on books.’

Mrs Bury said: ‘It was seen as a wonderful opportunity for us to raise some money. We are a very poorly funded authority. Everything we do is for our children. We are wanting to invest in reading.’