Future of the Stakeholder group

The Stakeholder Group met last in March 2015. In May there was an election and since then there have been no meetings. With ACERT’s support Baroness Whitaker wrote to the school’s minister, Nick Gibb, to ask when the group would be reconvened.

Ethnicity codes

The attached document from the DFE sets out a proposal that would allow schools to use the option of either “Gypsy” or “Roma” to give parents a choice thus hopefully increasing ascription and accuracy of data, while also minimising any burden on schools. Critically, by keeping the new categories (Gypsy and Roma) relatively close to the existing category (Gypsy/Roma) we can with confidence continue to aggregate data and thus there would be no disruption in our ability to compare changes in attainment/attendance over time.

ACERT supports the idea of taken account of first language in the analysis of data in order to assess the impact of language acquisition on achievement of Roma children but we were concerned that the historic link between Romanichal and other Romani groups should be recognised. Our reply recognises this point