UK schools with EU migrants ‘perform better’, analysis suggests

According to analysis conducted by School Dash, schools with a large number of caucasian immigrant children from the European Union outperform those without.

The research shows that while the number of white non-British or Irish schoolchildren has increased by just over 1.2 per cent between 2011-15 overall, some areas have experienced an individual increase of up to 30 per cent.

The study collated data from over 20,000 schools across the country, in a bid to shed light on the impact EU expansion and immigration has had on Britain’s schools. The data analyst group claimed that the increase in white non-British school children did not place extra strain on teachers, with findings showing that schools where pupils speak English as an additional language tend to perform better.

The news follows previous reports that white British pupils fall behind their ethnic minority classmates.

Dr Timo Hannay, founder of School Dash, said: “On the whole those schools that have large numbers of non-British white pupils tend to do better than schools that have a smaller number of them.”

The data showed that London, Peterborough and parts of Lincolnshire and Norfolk have had the biggest influx of EU immigrant children enrolling in its schools.

Hannah added: “Educationists tend to see having English as an additional language as a positive indicator of educational outcomes because a lot of those immigrant communities take education incredibly seriously. So even though the child may not have learnt English as a first language, they still may be adept at it and on the whole they seem to do better at school.“

He added: "The increase in performance seems to be a London-specific effect. Why is that? There are two hypotheses and I suspect that are both a little bit true. One is that London is better at assimilating and educating those kind of children, it has got a very diverse population and its schools in recent years have got quite good, and maybe London for one reason or another is a better environment for those kids to thrive.

"The other is that it may well be that the better educated and more aspirational immigrant families tend to end up disproportionately in London than in other areas."