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.
