Author: Brian Foster

Friends, Families and Travellers are working to raise public awareness on the experiences of young Gypsies, Roma and Travellers at school. They need your help! If your family has faced challenges in education, complete these surveys as a parent or with a young person and help to build understanding of how schools can support Gypsy, Roma and Traveller students.

Here’s a survey for parents: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/JXXV2ZY

This is a survey for young people to complete with parents: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/JNKZYHC

Each survey will take about 5 mins and when you complete you will be entered into a draw to win a £50 voucher. Thanks for taking part!

Since NATT folded last year, staff employed in schools and local authorities to support the inclusion and achievement of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller children have felt quite isolated. The issue was raised earlier this year when we consulted about the Parent’s Network (which we’re also working on) and again at The Traveller Movement conference last month.

ACERT has applied to the Allen Lane Foundation for funding to run training to help Gypsy, Roma and Traveller parents to develop the skills they need to organise local self-reliance groups to make sure their children are not short-changed by the education system.

If funded, the project will run from Spring 2021 for a year, with training opportunities for each participant, sandwiching mentored activities with local groups.

It is hoped ambassadors and groups will contribute to a parents’ website, under development, and participate in an on-line network.

We believe that parents who are supporting their children in education have experiences and insights to share which can help reverse the trend of exclusion and underachievement which we have seen in recent years.

The excellent STEP website has launched a graphic novel Shifting for schools which tells the story of Joe and Tillie and describes their experiences of bullying behaviour in several different schools.  The graphic novel will be distributed free to schools throughout Scotland with the aim of generating dialogue about discriminatory behaviour, recognising difference and taking positive action. A range of activities accompany the resource exploring the various themes arising in the story.  It has been written and illustrated by Metaphrog, a graphic novel duo.