Category: ACERT

In the field of education The Woman and Equalities Committee is recommending to the Government that:

• the Department for Education should carry out a complete audit of all local authorities to ensure that they have robust policies and procedures on children potentially missing from education, as required by section 436A of the Education Act 2006 and the Government’s own “Children Missing Education Guidance”.
• any local authorities that are found to have inadequate processes should be required to remedy them within six months of the audit.
• the audit should also inspect the procedures that authorities have in place for ensuring that home educated children are receiving a “suitable” education, including effective mechanisms for taking action under section 437 of the Education Act.
• the Government should consider piloting a pupil passport scheme with rapid evaluation to ensure that, should it be successful, it can be rolled out as quickly as possible.
• at the same time, the Department for Education should explore how such a scheme could be implemented across England and what the budgetary implications would be. Such a scheme would ensure that when children move schools or move into home education, their records and history travel with them.
• schools should, as part of their responsibilities under the Public Sector Equality Duty, be challenging race and gender stereotypes wherever they encounter them.
• Ofsted should ensure that inspectors are actively inspecting schools for gender and racial stereotyping or signs of sexism or racism from either pupils or staff.
• schools have a duty to proactively plan for how they will have conversations with Gypsy, Roma and Traveller parents about what relationship and sex education involves and what parents’ options are for their children, short of removing them from school. These plans should be explicit and Ofsted should take them into account during inspections and assess schools accordingly.
• there are multiple organisations in other fields that provide role models to speak and work with schools to foster good relations between groups.
• the Government should increase the capacity of these organisation to provide similar support for Gypsy, Roma and Traveller role models.

The House of Commons women and equalities committee published the Tackling Inequalities faced by Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communitieson Friday 5^thApril 2019.

The report confirmed that Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities had the worst outcomes of any ethnic group across a huge range of areas, including education, health, employment, criminal justice and hate crime, but little was being done to tackle longstanding inequalities.

The Conservative MP Maria Miller, the committee’s chair, said:

“Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people have been comprehensively failed by policymakers and public services for far too long. Access to education, health, employment, criminal justice, tackling hate crime and domestic violence – all these require services which differentiate between different groups who have different needs, and yet so many services are ill-equipped to support Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people.”

The report outlines a series of recommendations to address inequalities in healthcare, discrimination and hate crime, economic activity and education and was the conclusion of a two-year inquiry, which heard that students from Gypsy, Roma or Traveller backgrounds had the lowest attainment of all ethnic groups throughout their school years.

It also shines a light on prejudice towards GRT students in the educational system referring to evidence given by ACERT committee member Brian Foster on how schools can be so entrenched in their stereotypes that in their minds being a Gypsy or Travellers equates to poor attainment.

28th September 2019
Kings College, London 

Please put the date in your diaries. 

This year we have two main themes, “Turning the tide in inequality” where we will try and develop a strategy in response to the report of the Women and Equalities Sub Committee report on Tackling inequalities faced by Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities.

ACERT response is posted below.

Our aim is to invite speakers on the key areas highlighted in the report and through discussions with participants, try to develop a campaign for the forthcoming year. We must not let this opportunity pass!

The afternoon of the event will be devoted to youth engagement events.

Email: chair@acert.org.uk

Website: www.acert.org.uk

Ms Amanda Spielman                                                               March 27 2019
HM Chief Inspector
Office for Standards in Educatione-mail: amanda.spielman@ofsted.gov.uk 

Dear Ms Spielman,

Consultation on proposals for changes to the education inspection framework 

We are writing to you from our perspective both as Gypsy, Roma and Traveller community members and as professionals with long experience of supporting the education of children and young people from these groups.

We are, in general, happy with your proposals. We like, in particular, the increased emphasis on the curriculum and the separation of development from attitudes and behaviour.

We support the sections on race in your Equality Diversity and Inclusion statement where you state that:

“We are aware that evidence shows variation in the educational performance of different ethnic groups and that performance also varies between stages and phases of education, for example, some groups perform well at primary school but less so at secondary school.

The framework is intended to be a force for improvement in the education available for all learners, including those from all ethnic groups. The draft criteria are clear that the expectation is that all learners receive a high-quality, ambitious education.”

In the light of this, we are surprised to see that the new draft documents do not at any point specifically refer to Gypsy, Roma and Traveller pupils.

There is strong evidence that children from these groups have the lowest levels of educational performance at all key stages, disproportionately high levels of exclusions, very high rates of persistent absence and drop out and problems accessing school places at all key stages. Many of them suffer high levels of discrimination and bullying in schools from their peers and even from school staff.

On January 9 2019 Nadhim Zahawi addressed the parliamentary women and equalities committee enquiry into “Tackling inequalities faced by Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities”. He stated that there was a long way to go before his department will feel it is beginning to deliver for this group. He reconfirmed the commitment published in 2012 by the Ministerial Working Group on tackling inequalities experienced by Gypsies and Travellers, namely that:

“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”

In addition, he said that Gypsy, Roma and Traveller children were one of three groups – along with children with special educational needs and those in care – whose improvement was a priority.

The new framework should not delete the reference to these groups that was contained in the 2015 Framework. The situation has not improved since then. Moreover, small cohorts are not investigated by Ofsted inspectors but this should not mean that they are overlooked during school inspections.

It could be helpful for inspectors to consider, for example

• the school experience of those children who have not felt confident to ascribe their ethnicity and of those who attend schools located in areas of high anti-Traveller hostility
• reasons for children dropping out / opting for Elective Home Education
• access to education for children who travel seasonally e.g. with fairs
• failure to transfer to secondary school
• the many Gypsy, Roma and Traveller pupils not eligible for Pupil Premium
• the school’s relationship with the children’s parents and families
• provision for roadside children who may enrol for short periods
• whether the school curriculum affirms the history and culture of these pupils

We hope that you will take these points into consideration and that you will be prepared, after all, to highlight Gypsy, Roma and Traveller pupils in the final 2019 framework. 

You may also be interested to learn that neither of the categories Gypsy and Traveller of Irish heritage is included in the ethnic monitoring section of the consultation form.

Yours sincerely,

 

Lisa Smith, ACERT Chair, Youth Editor at Travellers’ Times and Global Leader for Young Children at the World Forum Foundation   

Yvonne MacNamara, CEO Traveller Movement  

Abbie Kirkby, Advice and Policy Manager Friends, Families and Travellers

Andy Shallice, Roma Support Group

Tyler Hatwell, ACERT EC and Education Liaison Officer, Showmen’s Guild of Great Britain London Section

Sue Mutter, ACERT EC and Coordinator Roma Support Group Early Childhood Education Project and former Gypsy, Roma, Traveller School Improvement Adviser, London Borough of Redbridge

Margaret Wood, ACERT EC and former Team Manager for Traveller Education, Cambridgeshire CC

Dr Hazel Marsh, ACERT EC and Senior Lecturer University of East Anglia

Tim Everson, ACERT EC and former Team Leader Gypsy, Roma, Traveller Achievement Service, Suffolk CC

cc.inspection.consultation@ofsted.gov.uk