Mother tongue teaching and support: A schools council enquiry

Abstract

This article reports a survey of mother tongue teaching and support for primary age pupils in England and Wales, undertaken as part of the Schools Council Mother Tongue Project. The analysis indicates that the majority of local education authorities (LEAs) now have a multilingual school population, and that bilingual pupils can communicate in a wide range of languages other than English. Information is presented on LEA mother tongue policies and on the extent of local authority support for mother tongue teaching within the primary school and in community supplementary schools. There is also a summary of the details of supplementary schools known to the LEAs.