Tag: Roma

Early literacies research

ROMLIT-logo
Spyros Themelis introduces ROMLIT

What’s the focus?

  • Understanding the original, multiple and diverse literacies of Gypsies, Roma and Travellers
  • Recognising the role that children, parents, siblings, community members and early years practitioners play in early years literacies
  • Identifying and co-creating empowering practices working with Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities

What are we doing?

  • Learning about literacy approaches that Gypsy, Roma and Traveller children and communities use
  • Exploring the way Gypsy, Roma and Traveller children navigate different levels of literacy
  • Identifying strategies to promote positive relationships across communities and settings

How are we doing it?

  • Working across different regions of England with Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities
  • Looking at practice that take place at home, in education and within the community
  • Working in partnership with communities, settings and experts from across the UK
  • Producing materials that celebrate and support Gypsy, Roma and Traveller children’s needs.

Roma students co-create environment exhibition

Rosemarie Cisneros co-created an exhibition called IMPORT AND EXPORT with Roma young people in Sheffield.  There were secondary schools involved and is a great example of what is possible when schools support and create space for new ways of thinking about Roma pride and climate justice.

The exhibition was supported by the University of Sheffield’s Centre for Equity and Inclusion and the Romani Cultural & Arts Company as part of the GM6 Programme.

The exhibition includes a screendance work that is part of a trilogy linked to climate justice. The film is called OCEAN: Import & Export.

Rosa would be happy to speak with any schools or individuals to think about ways of reusing the work or expanding on the exhibition. 

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

Annual Report 2010-11

2010-11 represented the first year of Coalition Government and many challenges for ACERT.
  • The localism agenda resulted in changes to planning guidance which Lord Avebury, President of ACERT, said  would reverse a trend in thereduction in the proportion of the caravan-dwelling Gypsy-Traveller population who are homeless, from a quarter in 2004 to 17% in 2011.
  •  The impact of the Dale Farm eviction, supported financially by the Government, clearly signalled the new climate
  • The gradual extinction of Traveller Education Support Services and the reliance on the Pupil Premium to meet needs
  • The Inter-Departmental Ministerial Working Group on Gypsies and Travellers (but not Roma), led by Eric Pickles, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government.

ACERT sought to respond to these challenges providing information to parliamentarians, stakeholders groups and  government consultations. In meetings with ministers, OFSTED and the Children’s Commissioner, we sought to ensure that Gypsy, Roma and Traveller pupils remained on the inclusion agenda. We also worked with other organisations, such as the NATT+, ITMB and RSG, to develop effective and coordinated responses to developing policies.

Download ACERTAnnual report 2010-2011