SCHOOL WHERE PUPILS KNOW 37 LANGUAGES
IT’S not often possible to find people from across the globe in just one school.
But at James Gillespie’s High School in Marchmont, Edinburgh, the children speak 37 languages between them, including Urdu, Cantonese, Swahili, Hungarian, Korean, Russian and Farsi.
At one time Gillespie’s was a girls’ school, mainly attended by white Scots, and the alma mater of Muriel Spark, who based Miss Jean Brodie on one of her teachers.
Today the 1,117-pupil school – motto We Value Diversity – is believed to be the most diverse north of the Border and almost one in five children have a language other than English as their home language.
Some enrol able to speak little or no English, but headteacher Donald Macdonald said it takes an average of three months to teach them until they no longer require additional support in class.
Children who cannot speak English when they arrive are paired with another child who speaks the same language.
Mr Macdonald said: ‘We see the number of cultures here as a huge positive. The children form friendships across the different cultures and we encourage them to use languages other than their own.
‘When they leave, they will be competing for jobs in an international, globalised market. Those with proficiency in other languages may have the edge over others.’
The school was this year named by Tatler magazine as one of the best state schools in the country.