Category: ACERT Campaigns

Poor start to implemention of Government’s equalities commitments

The ACERT president, Lord Avebury, has written to the Education Minister, Nick Gibb to express our concern about the first two education commitments in the Ministerial Working Group progress report, both of which involved OFSTED. ACERT had a positive meeting with Christine Gilbert (the then Chief Inspector) last year, but it would seem that Sir Michael Wilshaw (the current head of OFSTED) has different priorities.

Commitment 1 reads: “Gypsy, Roma and Traveller pupils are specifically highlighted as a vulnerable group in the revised Ofsted framework, ensuring that school inspections will pay particular attention to their progress, attainment and attendance”.

The 2012 Framework makes no reference to Gypsy, Roma and Traveller children, or indeed to any other group of vulnerable children! The associated handbook for school inspection from September 2012 refers to Gypsies, Roma and Travellers in a footnote (15, p23) as those with protected characteristics, as defined by the Equality Act 2010. The previous version of the same paragraph in the evaluation schedule for the inspection of maintained schools and academies on p.5 explicitly included Gypsies, Roma and Travellers so the new version seems weaker than its predecessor.

Commitment 5 (p10) reads: “In line with its Schools White Paper commitment, Ofsted is conducting a survey on prejudiced-based bullying, which is now under way. This will involve inspectors talking to pupils about their experiences of bullying and the way in which it is handled in their schools. Bullying of minority groups will be picked up in this survey, and the results will be published in 2012.”

The survey report “No place for bullying” includes one specific reference to Gypsies, Roma and Travellers:  “A third primary school that had an annual influx [sic] of Traveller children for a short period of time prepared all pupils for their arrival, exploring the Travellers’ culture and aiming to ensure smooth integration and a lack of bullying.”

Not only do we consider the word “influx” as indicative of the standpoint of the authors, but also the opportunity to highlight the concerns of many Gypsy, Roma and Traveller parents about racist bullying has been missed.

The text of Lord Avebury’s letter is below.

Letter from ACERT President to Nick Gibb

Government progress report on Gypsies and Travellers published

The Government yesterday published its progress report called “Tackling Inequalities for Gypsy and Traveller Communities”.

This report will be discussed at the next ACERT Executive on 1st May after which our response will be published here. The Executive is open to all ACERT members (although space is limited).

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Letter to Eric Pickles

From Lord Avebury: April 28, 2011

ericavebury@gmail.com

ericavebury.blogspot.com

 

Dear Mr Pickles,

An EU Framework for National Roma Integration Strategies up to 2020 (Brussels, 5.4.2011 COM (2011) 173 final

The European Commission recently published the above referenced Framework on the situation of Roma (including Gypsies and Travellers) and advocating that all member States set specific targets related to integration strategies from now to the end of 2020.

You may know that the Department for Education took an important decision in 2009 to establish a Gypsy, Roma and Travellers Stakeholders Group so that the communities might be informed about and consulted on educational policy issues. I was asked to be its chairperson and willingly accepted.

At our last meeting on the April 13, the Stakeholders Group made a firm commitment to fully assist the relevant government departments with all the policy developments and inclusion strategies that will be necessary for the Framework to be satisfactorily implemented in England and Wales.

In terms of education, you will be aware from the information being presented at your cross-departmental Ministerial Group on Gypsy and Traveller Inequalities, that much progress has been made over the last 30 or so years. However, my group members, together with myself as the President of ACERT, are also fully aware that there is still much to be done to improve the educational opportunities for these communities.

The Stakeholders Group therefore requests that you will formally include them in all of the policy and decision making processes stemming from the European Commission’s Framework policy. It would be very helpful to have your assurances on this request so that we can start to work with officials in relevant departments on the important tasks that now need to be addressed.

The Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP,
Communities and Local Government,
Eland House,
Bressenden Place,
London SW1E 5DU

Letter Sent to All Directors of Children’s Services in England

Re: Gypsy, Roma and Traveller provision

For many years ACERT has campaigned to enable Gypsies, Roma and Travellers to access education and achieve their full potential. Over this period the work of Local Authority services has made a measurable difference to the engagement and attainment of these groups. However, these pupils continue to be extremely vulnerable to underachievement and are the lowest performing nationally at all Key Stages.

We are therefore writing to all local authorities to seek the following reassurances:

That financial cutbacks in your authority will not impact disproportionately on services supporting the inclusion and achievement of Gypsies, Roma and Travellers

That your authority will continue to monitor and reach out to the most vulnerable children and young people, particularly those who are highly mobile, are registered for Elective Home Education, are Children Missing Education, are Persistent Absentees, are excluded or are identified with Child Protection concerns,

That your authority will monitor progress towards closing the gap of achievement between Gypsy, Roma and Traveller pupils and other groups, evaluated in comparison with your statistical neighbours and national data (see DfE/NFER Research Report DFE-RR043 October 2010).

We would also be interested to hear how, in the light of funding changes, your authority is developing its policies to improve the situation of these communities.

ACERT aims to gain a national picture of the future provision and good practice for addressing the needs of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller children and young people. We will share the outcomes with the DfE and other interested parties in order to ensure that the needs of these children and young people continue to be met. We would also be pleased to offer training and advice to schools and local authorities to raise awareness of the challenges facing Gypsy, Roma and Traveller pupils, and develop effective strategies to improve aspirations and attainment.

We thank you in advance for your response.

Lord Avebury, ACERT President