Teachers in Sussex should be given more support for having to teach thousands of children who do not speak English as their first language, a trade union said yesterday.

The Haywards Heath-based National Association of Head Teachers warned that while some schools were “bending over backwards” to accommodate children they were then “given a kicking” by schools’ inspectorate Ofsted for poor overall standards.

The call came as figures showed more than 5,000 primary school children and almost 3,700 secondary school pupils in Sussex do not speak English as their first language.

The figures, published by the Conservatives, showed that Brighton and Hove schools taught the highest proportion of pupils for whom English was not their main language - 7.7% of primary students and 6.1% of secondary students.

In East Sussex the proportion was about 3% and in West Sussex up to 6%.

Mick Brookes, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said: “Where you have a child or a group of children with no English at all admitted to a school, the school needs to create some facility for translation, just in terms of the quality of their education.

“Children may well come with languages which are not commonly dealt with in this country. We are now hearing head teachers complaining that they and their schools are being unfairly judged because they have a large number of children with English as a second language.

“Schools are bending over backwards to accommodate these children and then Ofsted comes in and gives them a kicking for poor overall standards.”

The Tories claimed teachers were being put under immense strain by the Government’s “failure to control immigration”.

Shadow Immigration Minister Damian Green said: “The number of pupils with English as a second language makes life difficult for teachers, parents and pupils. Whether or not they can speak English, everyone suffers when it’s more difficult for teachers in the classroom.”

Nationally almost 850,000 pupils in England are known by the Department of Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) to have a first language other than English.

A DCSF spokeswoman said: “The language of instruction in English schools is and always has been English.

“We have listened to concerns of headteachers and are increasing funding in the Ethnic Minority Achievement Grant to £206m by 2010, to bring students weak in English up to speed.

“We also equip schools to offer effective English as an additional language teaching for new arrivals, with a comprehensive support package.”

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