Author: Brian Foster

What has Traveller Education meant to you?

Over the past few year, ACERT has used its annual AGM/mini-conference to provide a platform for community members to share their experiences and perceptions. This year, we are celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the Plowden Report, Children and their Primary Schools, which laid the foundations of Traveller education and child centred education for the decades that followed. 

Display of silk-screen prints at City Hall, created in London schools for Gypsy, Roma and Traveller History month.

Most Gypsies, Roma and Travellers have stories about how education was for them, how they were treated, what they learned and how it prepared them for the rest of their lives. For most the challenges outweighed the opportunities, and it wasn’t plain sailing for anyone. We’d like anyone with a story to tell, to feel welcome to join us, to celebrate our achievements, recognise our failures and plan the way forward.

As well as pupils and former-pupils, students and former students, we’d also love to involve parents, teachers and staff of Traveller Education Services.

We hope things have improved over the past fifty years, although we recognise they have not improved enough and it has taken far too long. We hope the day will include some nostalgia, some success stories, a few laughs and some reflection on the lessons learned.

If you would like to attend, book your place here. If you’d like to participate, contact us  from the website or via Facebook.

The details for your diary are:

23rd September 2017 (10am – 4pm)
in
Waldo Williams Suite
Friends Meeting House
173 Euston Road
London NW1 2BJ

The legacy of Plowden

ACERT Mini-Conference and AGM 2017
23rd September 2017

The cover of the Plowden report

FRIENDS MEETING HOUSE
173-7 Euston Road
London NW1 2BJ

The Plowden Report, Children and their Primary Schools was published in 1967, 50 years ago and recommended, among other things, Education Priority Areas and Child Centred Education. The report included an appendix Gypsies and education and advocated targeted interventions and joined-up thinking to make sure that marginal groups were included.

157. The case of the gypsies illustrates another aspect of the policies required in educational priority areas. Improved education alone cannot solve the problems of these children. Simultaneous action is needed by the authorities responsible for employment, industrial training, housing and planning.

174(vi). Authorities and the Department of Education and Science should ensure that the needs of other educationally deprived groups, such as gypsies, which will not be picked out by the general criteria laid down [for Education Priority Areas], are not overlooked.

Bridget Plowden became the first President of ACERT when it was founded in 1973 and remained committed to promoting the education of Romanies and other Travellers throughout her life. The late 60s and early seventies was a period of Gypsy activism, which culminated in the Caravan Sites Act of 1968 and a growing recognition of the rights of Gypsies, Roma and Travellers.

ACERT plans to use the occasion of our 2017 Mini-conference and AGM to reflect on the progress that has been made over the past 50 years, at the same time as recognising how much more needs to be done. 

Please put the date in your diary, and watch this space for updates on speakers.