WORLD / Society

EFL for all? Leeds school highlights growing trend

With almost 300 pupils speaking 50 languages, head teacher says method is simply pragmatic

A girl looks at photographers as a large butterfly lands on her face, as she and other children take part in an new exhibition on tropical butterflies outside the Natural History Museum in London on March 31. According to British government statistics, more than a million children in England do not use English as their first language. | AP

By Jamie Doward
The Observer

Apr 6, 2014

LONDON –

Georgiana Sale, the head teacher at City of Leeds School, has had numerous racial insults directed at her. Ever since it was reported, wrongly, that her school was to give all its pupils Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) lessons, her phone has been ringing off the hook.

"People are saying that I should be sacked for spending British taxpayers' money on educating foreigners," she said in a bluff northern voice. "Somebody said to me: 'Why don't you just send the foreign children away?' As if I have any choice. These children are like family. You can't choose them."

If it is a family, it's a distinctly multicultural one. City of Leeds has just over 300 pupils, drawn from 55 countries. Between them they speak 50 languages or dialects. The school could take more pupils but, as Sale acknowledges, it has had a checkered history.