Controlling a primary school class can be testing for teachers at the best of times.
So spare a thought for those at the English Martyrs’ Catholic School in Birmingham where the 414 pupils speak an incredible 31 languages between them.
As this picture shows, children at the school who speak English as their first language are in a tiny minority.
The other languages include Lingala and Yoruba, both spoken in parts of Africa, Mirpuri and Hindko, both from Pakistan, two forms of Bengali, Czech and Sudanese.
Despite the challenges facing teachers, the diversity appears to have improved results at the school in Sparkhill.
New head Evelyn Harper attributes top SATs scores to the value many of the pupils’ home cultures place on learning.
Last year 91 per cent of pupils achieved the benchmark level four or above in English, and 89 per cent in maths.
The majority of pupils come from a Pakistani background and the most common first languages spoken are Urdu and Mirpuri.
In order to deal with the range of languages spoken, teachers are all trained to teach English as an additional language.
The school sometimes uses translators, as well as a ‘buddy’ system where new students are paired with one already at the school who has the same mother tongue and can help them to start picking up English words.
Languages spoken at the school are: Afrikaans, Arabic (Iraqi), Arabic (Lingala), Arabic (Sudanese), Arabic (Yemeni), Bengali (Bangla), Bengali (Sylheti), Czech, Dutch, English, Gaelic, Gujarati, Gurmukhi, Hindko, Jamaican Patois, Kachi, Lingala, Mirpuri, Nepalese, Pashto, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Romanian, Somali, Spanish, Sudanese, Swiss French, Tamil, Urdu and Yoruba.
Figures obtained by the Birmingham Mail revealed that more than 120 languages spoken across the city's schools.
Despite being a Catholic school, the majority of pupils at English Martyrs hail from a Pakistani background, with Urdu/Mirpuri the most common dialect spoken by youngsters in the home.
All teaching staff specialise in teaching English as an additional language and the school also uses translators.
He said: 'We have had many children who have come in with no English whatsoever, and the first thing we do is pair them with other children, as that is the best way for the language to be introduced to them.
'We also use pictures, books and the internet.
'But I find a child having a friend and a confidante is the easiest way for them to pick up words and language which is most important for their day-to-day life at school.'
This can include talking to the teachers and knowing the word for 'sir', 'miss', 'please' and 'thank you', through to words for objects and nouns.
Success: The school was ranked one of the best
performing in Birmingham in last year's SATs exams
Latest Government figures show pupils who speak English as their first language are now in the minority at more than a quarter of Birmingham schools.
Department for Education records showed a majority of students at 117 of the city's 430 primary and secondary schools listed a different language as their mother tongue.
English Martyrs, which recently celebrated its centenary, has moved from having a mainly Irish Catholic roll from the 1950s and 60s through to a majority of pupils from a Pakistani background today.
Around 11 per cent of students are currently Catholic, but new head teacher Evelyn Harper said she expected the number to increase with greater numbers of pupils from Poland, Romania and other eastern European countries. Mrs Harper added that parents played a 'huge part' in their child's success in the classroom.
She said: 'I only came here seven weeks ago, but already I can't believe the respect that parents and children show teachers and the teaching profession that maybe isn't there from white indigenous cultures.
'Parents really care for their children, they want them to do better and for that reason our results are very, very high.'
As you can see that the white race is being watered down until the day there are no white people left at all, and it won't take that long either. Going to Birmingham is like stepping into another country, it's spot the white man time when you go there, but it's getting the same all over Britain, soon all towns and cities will be just like Birmingham, you only have to look at Bradford. In Leicester the whites are now the minorty and it's also the same with Bradford.
We are being took over by immigrants right in front of our eyes, and people are to blind to see it. All this is the fault of the Labour party, they have turned our once great nation in to a hell hole. Not only are Muslims breeding like rabbits so they can take us over and make Sharia law the law of the land, but there are also all these other immigrants from different countries all over the world to contend with.
I would like to thank the soldiers of the first and second world war for fighting and dying for our freedom, but i'm affraid you fought for nothing and died for nothing, because we have been invaded after all, they came without bombs and guns in their thousands to settle in different places all over Great Britain and then take over where ever they go.
The words to Land Of Hope And Glory and There'll Always Be An England are long gone now, and unless the British rise up and take back what's ours, then we will loose, we have to do it now or it will be to late, and every immigrant born in Britain or not must be sent back to their place of origin, by that i mean immigrants from Pakistan and Somalia and places of that ilk.
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