Cox Report 1989

"Bilingual children should be considered an advantage in the classroom rather than a problem. The evidence shows that such children will make greater progress in English if they know that their knowledge of their mother tongue is valued, if it is recognised that their experience of language is likely to be greater than that of their monoglot peers and, indeed, if their knowledge and experience can be put to good use in the classroom to the benefit of all pupils to provide examples of the structure and syntax of different languages, to provide a focus for discussion about language forms and for contrast and comparison with the structure of the English language. We endorse the view of the Kingman Committee: "It should be the duty of all teachers to instil in their pupils a civilised respect for other languages and an understanding of the relations between other languages and English. It should be made clear to English-speaking pupils that classmates whose first language is Bengali or Cantonese, or any other of the scores of languages spoken by the school population ... have languages quite as systematic and rule-governed as their own".

http://www.educationengland.org.uk/documents/cox1989/cox89-10.html

How is it that after over 20 years the education system still hasn't fully accepted any of this?

If I could do any initiative to improve attainment it would be to work with the teachers who still are not aware of any of this.

I almost feel that an initiative HAS to also educate the educators.