Category: Education Network

Making Gypsies, Roma and Travellers visible in the curriculum

Richard Kerridge, History Subject Adviser at the Examining Board OCR, asked the ACERT Education Network to join him in pressing for a more representative curriculum when he spoke to our meeting on 26th April. In many areas, Gypsies, Roma and Travellers are often the largest minority group but they will not find themselves reflected in the curriculum.

Previously, Richard was a History teacher in Mildenhall and Ipswich, and as a fellow of the History Association (to which most History teachers belong) he developed a range of resources for teaching the history of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people with Helen Snelson,  PGCE History Curriculum Leader at the University of York and the historian Professor Becky Taylor.

Detailed lesson plans and adaptable teaching materials are freely available on the York CLIO website. There is a four lesson sequence that focuses on the history of Gypsies and Travellers from the start of the first industrial revolution period to the eve of the First World War. This is an appropriate focus for the KS3 curriculum There is also an explanatory article on the importance of including Gypsy, Roma and Traveller perspectives across the curriculum. There are also has a comprehensive collection of links to useful resources and podcast tasters.

Richard is keen to meet with ACERT members who are interested in developing and sharing materials across the curriculum.

Romani Archaeology Project

John Henry Philips, a guest speaker at the Education Network Meeting on 26th April, is an archaeologist, author and film-maker, of Romani heritage.

John Henry Philips

While living in Canada, he witnessed the treatment of minorities in Canada, where he was living, and saw parallels with the treatment of nomadic communities in the UK; their history is overlooked and their communities are underrepresented among professional researchers.

He attended the Romani Film Festival in Berlin, and recognised the importance of seeing people like yourself in creative and leading roles. He had previously volunteered on archaeology projects with veterans, and noticed the mental health benefits and pathways into Higher Education offered to participants.

In 2022, John Henry formed Romani Community Archaeology  with Stuart Eve, currently Director of Creativity at the Museum of London Archaeology. RCA is a not-for-profit organisation to engage with the complex history and deep culture of Romani in Britain by undertaking a series of archaeological projects, each one in close collaboration with modern Romani people.

Imari china is a style traditionally collected by Romani communities found at Thorney Hill

The current project focuses on Thorney Hill between Burley and Bransgore on the edge of the New Forest. In 1926, when Gypsies and Travellers were no longer allowed to camp out on the open forest, Thorney Hill was the largest of the seven compounds created with up to four hundred inhabitants at a time.

Numbers living there gradually fell over the years and in 1960, 22 second hand pre-fabricated homes, were provided for the remaining families. Eventually, all of the families were either moved into permanent houses in Thorney Hill or nearby Ibsley but the footprints of the prefabs were visible from satellite imagery in the dry summer of 2018.

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A large number of artefacts representing Romani use of the area are visible when walking across Thorney Hill Holms.

Horse liniment found visible on the surface at Thorney Hill

With initial investigation at Thorney Hill proving positive, RCA will return to the site at various stages during 2023. Working alongside the local Romani community, they will undertake fieldwalking, geophysics, and excavation within the site of the former compound. These phases will be documented through artwork, film, and a museum exhibit at the New Forest Heritage Centre.

Prior to co-founding R.C.A, he spent a number of years working in commercial archaeology and freelancing as a conflict archaeologist, before searching for a Second World War shipwreck. John Henry subsequently produced a documentary No Roses On A Sailor’s Grave and wrote a book, The Search, on the topic.

Most excluded minorities

GRT Access to Education HEPI Report 151Download

The Think Tank Higher Education Policy Institute, has published a new report on access to education among Gypsies, Roma and Travellers (Gypsy, Roma and Traveller) authored by Policy Manager Dr.Laura Bressington.

Laura will join our next Education Support Network meeting on Wednesday, 30th November at 2pm online.

Gypsies, Roma and Travellers: The ethnic minorities most excluded from UK education is an informative report that looks carefully at definitions and draws attention to the dangers of homogenisation – focussing sharply on the need for careful data collection and handling. In her own use of data she demonstrates that these communities are hugely underrepresented in Higher Education.

Evidence
  • Gypsy, Roma and Travellers of Irish heritage have the widest attainment gap in measures of pupils achieving a good level of development in early years education;
  • Gypsy, Roma and Traveller pupils have some of the lowest rates of attendance and the highest rates of permanent exclusion from schools;
  • in 2020/21, 9.1% of Gypsy / Roma pupils and 21.1% of Irish Traveller pupils achieved a grade 5 or above in GCSE English and Mathematics, compared to a national average in England of 51.9%;
  • young people from Gypsy / Roma and Irish Traveller communities are the least likely ethnic groupings to enter higher education by the age of 19 – just 6.3% of Gypsy / Roma and 3.8% of Irish Travellers access higher education by the age of 19 compared to around 40% of all young people;
  • Gypsy and Irish Travellers are the UK’s ‘least liked’ group, with 44.6% of people holding negative views against them – 18.7 percentage points higher than Muslims; and
  • Irish Travellers face a ‘mental health crisis’, with one-in-10 deaths caused by suicide.
Recommendations
For Government
  1. Improved Data Collection.  The current lack of information means that the full scale of the problem remains invisible.
  2. Funding.  The small scale project local project  funding available at the time of writing is inadequate to the scale of the problem which is a national one.
For Higher Education
  1. Access and Participation Plans such as the Higher Education Pledge which create a welcoming environment are to be welcomed
  2. There is a need to include the history and culture of the various Travelling groups in the curriculum. Including works by members of the communities and including relevant data can improve understanding of the different Gypsy Roma and Traveller communities