Laura Clark for the Daily Mail
Nicky Morgan has criticised the head of Ofsted over his warning that schools are struggling to cope with an ‘influx’ of migrants.
The Education Secretary said Sir Michael Wilshaw’s language was not ‘helpful’ and insisted many schools are doing ‘extremely well’ with pupils who speak English as a second language.
Her remarks come amid simmering tensions between the Department for Education and Sir Michael following a series of public clashes.
Mrs Morgan last month contradicted the watchdog over inspection procedures for flagship academies and expressed irritation over the timing of follow-up visits to the so-called ‘Trojan Horse’ schools.
In a further blow to Sir Michael, a leaked memo revealed that calls for him to be sacked were made within the Government last year, over concerns about his running of the watchdog.
In a speech addressing critics last week, the chief inspector of schools admitted Ofsted would ‘not win any popularity contests’.
The latest clash follows a warning by Sir Michael that schools need more help to deal with growing numbers of non-native English speakers.
During a phone-in on LBC radio last week, he was told of a school where teachers had to carry out ‘double the work’ due to a ‘huge influx’ of children who could not speak English.
‘Schools need the resources to deal with that,’ Sir Michael said.
‘When they’re faced with an influx of children from other countries, they need the resources and capacity to deal with it, and if those resources aren’t there, that’s a big issue for government. That’s the first thing and we’ll be producing reports on this fairly soon.’
In a subsequent LBC phone-in, Mrs Morgan was asked whether she agreed with Sir Michael that schools were being ‘overrun by children from migrant communities’.
The Education Secretary, who is also MP for Loughborough, said: ‘Obviously Sir Michael Wilshaw has gone round to various schools but no, when I go round schools I see that they have adapted and are doing extremely well with students who do come from abroad.
‘I am not sure that sort of language is always helpful but there are challenges and there are parts of the country where we know that there are higher numbers of students who don’t speak English as a first language.
‘I know from my own constituency that can bring challenges but I also know schools that cope extremely well with that and actually I’ve been to a school recently in my constituency where they have had a situation and children are doing absolutely brilliantly.’
Asked whether Sir Michael should have chosen his words more carefully, Mrs Morgan added: ‘This whole area of immigration is an area where we need to be very careful about the language that we use.
‘It isn’t that it isn’t a concern to people because it absolutely is but we also need to think about the language and the tone of the debate that we use.
‘We need to tackle the issue in a sensitive way without saying there isn’t a problem because people are clearly concerned about it.’
The intervention came after David Cameron told the House of Commons that schools and hospitals were under pressure from immigration.
During heated exchanges with Labour’s Ed Miliband, the Prime Minister said the British people ‘just want this issue sorted’.
Concerns about the impact of migration on public services were also voiced by Defence Secretary Michael Fallon, who said some towns were ‘swamped’ by European migrants, leaving communities ‘under siege’.
He later retracted the comments, with a Government source saying he accepted he ‘should have chosen his words better’ and should have said some communities felt ‘under pressure’.
Official figures show the number of schoolchildren who speak English as a second language has risen to 1.1million.
Almost one in five primary pupils are non-native speakers and one in seven at secondary level.
The number of youngsters needing extra help with English at school has risen by about a third in five years.
At some schools, dozens of different languages are spoken. In nearly 20 local authorities, fewer than half of primary school children are native speakers – and in parts of London, only a quarter of primary pupils count English as their first language.
Tensions between the Government and Sir Michael burst into the open last month when Mrs Morgan publicly contradicted the Ofsted chief and dismissed his demands for more powers to inspect groups that operate academies.
It also emerged that the Education Secretary had expressed concern over the ‘unhelpful’ timing of follow-up visits to schools implicated in the so-called Trojan Horse plot to impose strict Muslim practices in the classroom.
The inspections suggested little had changed in the schools but Mrs Morgan said a ‘great deal of progress’ had been made since the Ofsted visits.
There is also believed to be frustration within the Department for Education over Ofsted’s handling of some inspections since new rules were introduced to tackle the threat of extremists infiltrating schools.
In one case, the watchdog was forced to withdraw a report on a Catholic school in rural East Anglia which had been marked down for failing to do enough to ‘teach students about the dangers of extremism and radicalisation’.
Meanwhile a leaked memo written last year revealed that Mrs Morgan’s predecessor, Michael Gove, considered replacing Sir Michael over concerns that Ofsted under his leadership was a ‘serious and growing problem’.