Nationals of the European Union (EU) and the European Economic Area (EEA), which includes the countries of the EU plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway, are free to enter the UK without being subject to immigration control and are free to reside and work in the UK.

Every year, children who are nationals of EU and EEA member states enter English schools. They are a diverse group of pupils and come from different social and ethnic backgrounds. The largest group to arrive in recent years are Portuguese nationals. This group of children includes many whose parents are workers in the hotel, catering and food-processing industries. The seasonal nature of such jobs means that families may move many times. This can have a significant impact on the schooling of the children.

Among new arrivals are significant numbers of children whose families have been refugees or immigrants in other EU and EEA states before arrival in the UK.

These EU and EEA nationals include:

• Somalis who have entered the UK after having fled to the Netherlands and Sweden
• Nigerian and Ghanaian nationals who have previously lived in Germany
• Sri Lankan Tamils who have previously lived in other EU and EEA states.

Children who are nationals of other EU and EEA states may also have had the experiences of a refugee child. Their linguistic background may also be complex.

School achievement

There is some evidence that Somali children previously resident in the Netherlands and Sweden are finding it difficult to settle in English schools and are underachieving.

Useful weblinks

Please note: QCA is not responsible for the content of external sites

DCSF: Pupil mobility project
This is an area of the School improvement and excellence website. It is concerned with accelerating access and raising attainment of mobile pupils. Fifty-one schools from 26 LAs and one education action zone (EAZ) were involved in a project developing, trialling and evaluating innovative strategies to narrow the attainment gap between the mobile and static populations. Schools involved experience pupil mobility greater than 20 per cent.

DCSF: School improvement and excellence
The School improvement and excellence team works with schools that face challenging circumstances.
Among the circumstances that can be deemed challenging are:

• schools serving areas of severe socioeconomic disadvantage
• schools with a high proportion of pupils with special educational needs
• schools whose pupils have low prior attainment, poor motivation and low self-esteem
• schools with a high proportion of transient pupils
• schools where many of the pupils speak languages other than English
• schools whose past reputation has made it difficult to maintain pupil numbers and consequently sufficient staff to offer a high quality education.

DCSF: Schools facing challenging circumstances
This area of the School improvement and excellence site explains that the increased funding to schools facing challenging circumstances is to ensure that the leadership teams in those schools are able to transform the delivery of education so that pupils are not disadvantaged by their schools' circumstances. The focus is on collaboration between schools in order to significantly strengthen leadership, enhance teaching and learning and to establish a culture of high expectations.

In addition to the above, the DCSF has promoted several initiatives including an action research project with eight schools that face exceptionally challenging circumstances. Over a three-year period, the aim is to develop and test a range of inputs to help raise pupil attainment.