Linguistic Diversity in Education

​​​​Request 853309059

1.Which languages are spoken by students in full time education on the island?(I am looking for a list of which languages, and there seem to be conflicting total numbers: 62 or 84)

2.What is the distribution of languages per student (ie. what percentage of the school population speaks 1,2,3,4,5 etc. languages)?

3.What does the oft-quoted 26+% multilingual figure mean ("mother tongue" is not English or ...)?

4.What percentage of students are studying 1, 2 or more non-English languages (including Classical/Ancient languages) in our schools?

Clarification requested

Please could you clarify the report or publication that is being referenced in your request so that we may respond appropriately. Regarding question 4, please could you clarify the level of study that you require, for example, GCSE or A Level. Please could you also clarify the time period for this request. The following link may be of interest to you as it contains some information on Multi Lingual Learners (MLL) : https://www.gov.je/Education/Schools/Education/Pages/SchoolsPupilsCharacteristics.aspx

Clarification received

thank you" for the link: https://www.gov.je/Education/Schools/Education/Pages/SchoolsPupilsCharacteristics.aspx​ The info there is great. The main thing that is missing for me is the number (62? 84?) and, ideally, list of non-English languages in the MLL section (beyond English, Portuguese and Polish). If possible, I'd like to guage the amount of active language study (beyond EAL support) that is going on in schools too: what proportion of students are engaged in study of a second language and what is the range of languages that is being studied?

Further Clarification requested

Thank you for your clarification response. The data held centrally by the department with regards languages studied is only available from examinations results data at GCSE and A Level. Would you like information from this dataset? Schools would hold information around languages in all years from their timetabling. Given that schools are about to break up, it may be difficult to obtain this information in the timeframe.

Clarification received

Understood. The GCSE and A Level info would be a good start in the meantime. Thank you.

Response

1. The table below provides a list of all languages recorded by all Government of Jersey Mainstream and Special Schools (Reception to Year 11) in the School Information Management System (SIMS) software, as being spoken by students. This was recorded as at the Summer (May) Census 2026 with a total of 109 languages being entered.​

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​2. The table below provides the number of students in all Government of Jersey Schools who speak only English and those who speak 1 or 2 additional languages. SIMS, where this information is held, only allows for two languages to be recorded against any one child.

The department have determined that to provide the breakdown for individual numbers of languages spoken would disclose small numbers and would likely breach the privacy of individuals, therefore article 25 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 applies.

3. The oft-quoted 26% multilingual figure in Jersey means that over a quarter of students in Government of Jersey schools (from nursery through Year 13) are multilingual learners who speak a first or home language other than English.

4. The tables below provide the percentages of students achieving GCSE and equivalent examination results within Government of Jersey mainstream secondary schools.

Results are attributed to pupils who completed Year 11 in the specified academic year, although some qualifications may have been obtained in previous years of study (for example, Year 9 or Year 10).

Where percentages relate to numbers of students which are fewer than five, disclosure control has been applied and is displayed as ‘-‘ to avoid identification of individuals. Article 25 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has been applied.

The tables below provide the percentages of students, aged 16-18. achieving A Level and equivalent examination results within Government of Jersey mainstream secondary schools and Highlands College.

Results are attributed to pupils who completed Key Stage 5 in the specified academic year, although some qualifications may have been obtained during any year of KS5 study (for example, Year 12 or Year 13).

Where percentages relate to numbers of students which are fewer than five, disclosure control has been applied and is displayed as ‘-‘ to avoid identification of individuals. Article 25 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has been applied.​

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Article Applied

Article 25 - Personal information

(1) Information is absolutely exempt information if it constitutes personal data of which the applicant is the data subject as defined in the Data Protectio​​n (Jersey) Law 2018.

(2) Information is absolutely exempt information if –

(a) it constitutes personal data of which the applicant is not the data subject as defined in the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 201​8; and

(b) its supply to a member of the public would contravene any of the data protection principles, as defined in that Law.

(3) In determining for the purposes of this Article whether the lawfulness principle in Article 8(1)(a) of the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018​ would be contravened by the disclosure of information, paragraph 5(1) of Schedule 2 to that Law (legitimate interests) is to be read as if sub-paragraph (b) (which disapplies the provision where the controller is a public authority) were omitted.​