Data provided by the DFE, in response to a request from ACERT, suggests that the gap between Gypsies and other pupils at GCSE is beginning to close, but that Irish Traveller achievement at 16 is flat-lining. Both these figures must also be read in the context of significant drop-out throughout the secondary phase and the substantial number of Gypsies, Roma and Travellers who change their ethnic identification.

ACERT asked for the data on the Gypsy/Roma group (red) to be split into pupils who have English as a home language (royal blue) and those who don’t (light blue). This method was used in the NFER study “Improving Outcomes for Gypsy, Roma and Traveller pupils” and broadly separates established Gypsy communities from more recently arrived Roma groups.

 

The data also suggests that:

• Gypsies, Roma and Travellers especially Roma start at a significant disadvantage.
• Roma are the lowest achieving group but the gap has narrowed in KS1 Average Points scores.
• Irish Travellers narrowed the gap at KS2 in Reading and Maths
• Irish Traveller Fixed Term Exclusions remain high, while Gypsy exclusions have fallen.
• Gypsies are narrowing the gap at GCSE (5+A-C E%M) but Irish Travellers are flat-lining; better picture 5+AtoG.
• Attendance for all groups has improved although Gypsy, Roma and Traveller attendance remains significantly below others
• Numbers of Roma in the school population have increased substantially but remain small as a proportion of total population
• Increasing numbers English First Language Gypsy/Roma in Primary, but not in secondary
• Dropout remains a huge problem and KS3 and 4

The full data and a presentation are available at https://acert.org.uk/education-data-2012-3/

ACERT has just been granted further Council of Europe and EU funding to run a second ROMED mediator training programme.

To attend the 3.5 day training course apply online here. The deadline for applications is midnight on Monday March 3rd

The first 3 ½ day residential session of this two part course begins on 26^th March 2014 at 4pm at Luther King House,  Manchester. The second 3 day session will be held in about six month’s time. In the interim, participants will be asked to undertake a work-based assignment using their learning from the course. Accommodation, meals and travel expenses are all covered. Applicants will need to obtain their employers’ prior consent to take time off to attend.

On Thursday March 27^th new participants, their employers and representatives from the public sector and local authorities will be offered the opportunity to find out more and to consider how ROMED could improve intercultural understanding in their own areas. Some of the original trainees and a representative from the Council of Europe will share their stories.

There will be discussion about how the  ROMED model could be further developed in the UK. The ROMED 2 programme, which is running in ten other European countries,  supports local community action groups to develop a closer dialogue with local and public authorities. There is a possibility that the UK might at some stage join in with this programme. For further information on the website.

On Friday and Saturday March 28^th  and 29^th  trainees will undertake the very participative ROMED training programme. These sessions will be led by UK based facilitators, some of whom are community members.

If you represent a local authority and would like to join us as a day delegate on Thursday March 27^th please contact info@acert.org.uk and I will send you further information. If you wish to attend and need overnight accommodation this may be available at Luther King House. 

The High Court has ruled councils must support disabled children in travelling families, even when they move to other parts of Britain.In a decision welcomed by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, the court ruled Worcestershire Council must support a three-year-old boy even when he is in another part of the country.
The boy, who has Down’s syndrome as well as other complex medical conditions, is part of a travelling Roma Gypsy family.

The family travels across England working at fairs during the summer, but is based in Malvern, Worcestershire, in the winter.

The council had declined to fund nursery services for the boy, known as Child J, while the family were travelling.

But Justice Edward Holman said there were ‘powerful submissions’ that it was unrealistic for Child J to access services from scratch every time the family moved to a different local authority area.

The judge said: ‘Everyone loves a funfair. They are part of the tapestry of our national life. But there would be no funfairs without the travelling families who own the rides and amusements, erect them, man them, and then take them onto the next pitch.

‘It must be a hard life and a hard working one, but it is a good life and an honourable one, which brings fun and joy to many people.’

He ruled that Worcestershire Council was able to exercise its power outside of its area, and should continue funding any provision it had put in place for the child.

Wendy Hewitt, legal director at the EHRC, said: ‘This important ruling means that this little boy, and others in similar situations, can now continue their traditional way of life without fearing the loss of essential services to meet their health and educational needs.’

Janna Eliot is a writer based in London of Russian, Armenian and Roma heritage. Her collection of short stories is not the traditional Gypsy, Roma and Traveller tales but contemporary accounts of based, one suspects, on actual events.

The stories range from that of Eva, a survivor of the concentration camps, who meets her sister from whom she has been separated for sixty five years,  Gabi, a Romanian Roma girl living with her family in squalid conditions in Italy, Peri from London who goes to the Great Amazing Romany Summer School in Serbia, Joey and his brother Mark, who enter a singing competition at Barnet Horse Fair, Zena from Russia who begs at the bus station and takes comfort by talking to a statue of the poet Pushkin, who was dark like a Gypsy, to young Irish Traveller girl Breed living on Dale Farm refusing to go to school for fear of being taken into care. 

Interestingly, for ACERT members, Lord Averbury makes an appearance in this story opening of the community centre on the site. Breed was expecting him, being a lord, to have ‘red robes and long white wigs’ but she says, “He was a grand talker though, and a supporter of the Travellers.”

Janna portrays her characters with sensitivity to their marginal position in society and her understanding and empathy with their culture and history. Some of the stories are harrowing, but at the same time she brings out the pride and resilience inherent in Gypsy, Roma and Traveller peoples. Janna has a good ear for language and her characters come alive through the dialogue. A  Romani/English glossary is provided following each story.

This collection of short stories gives an insight into Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities across the UK and Europe today and is highly recommended.

Review by Tim Everson

The Gypsy Piano Tuner – softback 104 pages

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