The Context in Bracknell Forest

Schools in Bracknell Forest have a lower proportion of minority ethnic pupils in comparison to the national average. There has been, however, a steady increase in numbers of both minority ethnic and pupils with EAL relative to the size of the pupil population. According to the School Census in May 2009, 14.7% of pupils were minority ethnic whist 7.7% had English as an additional language (EAL).

Although Bracknell Forest schools have fewer pupils with EAL than neighbouring LEAs, there is a considerable variety of cultures, countries and language backgrounds represented. The School Census revealed that 73 different languages are spoken by pupils.:

Arabic                         Africaans                    Albanian                     Bemba
Bengali                       Bulgarian                   Cantonese                 Chavacano
Chichewa                   French Creole            Czech                         Danish
Dutch                         Fante                          Finnish                       French
German                      Gujarati                      Greek                         Hindi
Hungarian                  Italian                         Japanese                   Kinyarwanda
Konkani                      Korean                         Krio                           Lithuanian
Luganda                     Malay                           Malyalam                  Mandarin
Marathi                       Moldovian                   Nepali                         Nyanja
Parsee                        Polish                          Portuguese               Punjabi
Russian                      Romanian                   Serbo-Croat              Shona
Sinhalese                   Sotho                           Spanish                      Swahili
Swedish                     Sylheti                      Tagalog                        Tambuka
Tamil                           Telegu                        Thai                              Tigrinya
Turkish                        Tswana                       Twi                              Ukrainian
Urdu                            Vietnamese                Visaya                       Welsh
Xhosa                         Zulu

The most commonly spoken of these are Nepali, Polish, Hindi, Cantonese, Shona, German, Arabic, Punjabi, Urdu, French, Portuguese and Twi.

Many of these pupils have been born in Britain and may be second or third generation members of well-established communities. A proportion of the pupil population are in UK temporarily. These include children of:

• Short-stay professionals employed by the numerous international companies based in Bracknell;
• Members of the Ghurkha regiment at Sandhurst ;
• Foreign students at Newbold College

There has also been an increase of migrant workers, such as in the health industry from European Union countries and South East Asia.