Category: Education

Thomas McCarthy – Traveller Story and Song

Thomas McCarthy

Thomas McCarthy spent his childhood travelling and living in Ireland and England and learnt his songs and stories from his family. He is internationally recognised for his wonderful authentic style of singing.

Thomas’ stories and songs are recommended particularly for children between the ages of 7-12. (Key Stage 2 and year 7)  His sessions are approximately 1 hour with groups of up to and around 30 children.

“Thomas builds a real rapport with groups. He doesn’t just sing and tell stories. He engages children in discussion and understanding around Traveller culture.” Eileen Mullervy, Lead Teacher, Lancashire Ethnic Minority/Gypsy, Roma and Traveller Achievement Service.

For further information or booking: email Nicky Snell at nickysnell@yahoo.co.uk or ring/leave a message on 01524 389574 or 07508389428

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Ofsted recommends more support for Roma pupils

Overcoming barriers: ensuring that Roma children are fully engaged and achieving in education has said that children from Roma backgrounds must be better supported to learn and achieve, after figures revealed the number of “Gypsy/Roma” pupils enrolling in English schools increased by 13.7% to 19,030 over the past year. The watchdog surveyed three local councils and 11 schools with a large intake of Roma pupils from Eastern Europe. Although head teachers reported no adverse effect on the achievement of other pupils already in their schools, some schools had struggled to get pupils to follow school routines and behave appropriately. Ofsted recommends that local authorities should ensure that there is a dedicated and knowledgeable senior leader who can push forward the local authority’s strategies for improving outcomes for Roma pupils. The report went on to note that some schools have felt obliged to meet the costs of lunches, uniforms and trips for Roma pupils despite not receiving funding to do so.

Some key points noted by ACERT include:

  • Strategies for including Roma are the same as used by Traveller Education Support Services and highlighted in the National Strategies Guidance, NFER research etc.
  • A few schools seem to have had a significant numbers, but overall there is nothing in the report to justify scare stories in some sections of the press.
  • Case Studies are provided from Manchester, but not Derby and Sheffield. Other case studies come from schools in Leicester and Kent (not in the focus areas of the survey)
  • There is strong endorsement of specialist support services and a powerful quote from a Roma support worker confirming the value of proactive rather than reactive interventions.
  • It mentions the problems for the schools and families resulting from their ineligibility for Pupil Premium.
  • There is also support for induction by high quality experienced qualified specialist teachers, and explicit criticism of Teaching Assistant led classes.
  • Concerns were raised about high levels of mobility, coordination across agencies and monitoring within schools.

Has Big Fat Gypsy Wedding affected your children’s education?

David Enright, the solicitor who led the successful campaign to challenge the Channel 4 “Bigger, Fatter, Gypsier” campaign has asked any families whose children have experiences abuse or attacks related in any way to the broadcasts or advertising campaign to contact him at d.enright@howe.co.uk or  phone 0800 157 7070

Alternatively send a message through ACERT.

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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