School scores top marks for Bengali but fails in English

TEACHERS at a London comprehensive have been accused of treating English as a second language.

The allegation has been levelled at Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Girls School in Islington after Ofsted inspectors praised pupils' performance in Bengali, Turkish and German but warned that standards in English were "well below national levels".

The inspectors expressed serious concern about the state of literacy among the 1,132 pupils - many of whom come from non-English- speaking backgrounds. In more than half the English lessons checked by inspectors, attainment was "below or well below national standards and in one- third pupils were making insufficient progress". Pupils experienced problems with their writing -"uncertain tenses, muddled syntax and sentence structure, combined with careless or lack of control of basic punctuation". Some who were interviewed by the inspectors "revealed immature tastes" in books. The inspectors warned: "The poor levels of literacy affect attainments across the curriculum." Liberal Democrat councillor Chris Pryce described the inspectors' findings as "shocking". He said: "The teachers seem to be treating English as a second language. The truth is that everything flows from English. Without it nothing is possible. "Islington's education department has another emergency on its hands. Unless action is taken promptly, Islington could end up with a fourth failing secondary school." Head teacher Jill Coughlan acknowledged the problems but stressed that action had been taken to address them. She said: "A new head of faculty for English has been appointed and a great deal of progress has been made. Three new English teachers have been recruited and we aim to drive the department forwards." The Ofsted inspectors praised Ms Coughlan for her "good, purposeful and clear-sighted leadership".

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