School refusing to provide translator

My parents were both economic migrants. I wasn’t born in England but grew up here.

If you are becoming an economic migrant it’s ridiculous to not learn the language.

It’s also not putting your children’s best interests first. Since parents understanding what’s happening in school is in their best interests.

Its such an ill thought out and lazy argument, to assume anyone who has a certain opinion must all be the same, have the same experiences and same backgrounds

Way back in the late 90s I worked in a large-ish southern English town with a girl whose parents were born in Hong Kong. They had come to the UK in the early 70s and their kids were all British born and educated, my colleague at the time was about 20 or 21. Her parents spoke only the very minimum of English - hello, how are you, no, yes - that sort of thing. She regularly had to make phone calls at work to the bank, council tax people, hospital etc on behalf of her parents as they couldn't.

The parents ran a restaurant and dealt with Chinese speaking suppliers, their accountant spoke Chinese, they used Chinese doctors/acupunturists etc, their friends and social circle was all Chinese. They saw no need to learn English to any high standard at all, certainly no need for reading and writing in English. They relied on their adult children for everything, this was way before translation apps and google translate.

There are lots of communities like this, and lots of cultures where especially women/mums are not encouraged to learn English. But this is a choice and as I keep telling my kids, choices have consequences.

Quite understand why schools cannot afford to lay on expensive translation services for everyone.

I agree with this.

getting local volunteers in to help wherever possible can also connect those who clearly need help with others in similar circumstances or need.

it can help build the bridges needed to learn a language and instil the community aspect needed to get parents to understand that kids going to school is important.

perhaps some of the issues especially around mums is that their religion or cultural background means they need female only English lessons and that sometimes the men can prevent them from learning English.

It costs a bomb. I'm an interpreter. The schools have a budget and if they need a translator, they have to use agency, who add on fees. It's probably costing them £300 per translator, per day! Who's going to pay for extra costs? Tax payers? It's not a long term option, Learning English is far better. After all if they want to go to college/University or get a job, they'll need to know English.

‘British ex-pats who have moved to Spain who don't speak Spanish I am as critical’

Can I ask why you call these Brits ‘ex-pats’ instead of immigrants?

You not the only one to use this phrase so anyone can answer!

This thread is particularly illuminating, given the overwhelming majority of British people who only speak English, but who are clearly labouring under the delusion that if they were economic migrants to another country, they would magically develop the time, determination and resources to learn the new language.

And the people who are saying the authorities need to require language competence for residency/citizenship, that is already the case, but some of the school parents the OP is talking about will be illegally in the UK, so not under the official language rules, and probably working within their own community — the school presumably realises this, and, not being the Border Agency, doesn’t want to disadvantage their children educationally. Or consider it’s their job to shop the parents to the authorities.

It would seem that parents have been in the country long enough to learn some of the language.
Sounds like they aren't making much of an effort.
The education authority have made sterling efforts to help parents, it must cost a fortune and can't go on forever.

Can someone explain the ‘well English people don’t learn the local language when they move abroad’ argument.

I am sure plenty don’t. But how can you have distain for English that don’t learn the language of their new country. But also think it’s ok for people to move to England, not learn the language to the detriment of their own children.

That feels hypocritical

@Smorgs

I live in France and can confirm I've never been offered a translation service for anything at school.

Same here, and with regard to a previous post when it comes to matters medical our local hospital will certainly not offer a translation service either, even when dealing with matters/procedures that need your written/signed permission.

Do you mean older retirees that have moved somewhere sunny? As all the British people I know who have moved abroad (I know a fair few due to my husband's line of work) who have children have generally made an effort to learn the language that their children are being taught in. I mean why wouldn't you want to be able to speak the same language as your kids?

OP you say it doesn't sit right with you, but why not? What other area do you suggest they make a cuts back in instead?

We need to be insist that people@ living in this country for extended periods know the language and culture well before they apply for citizenship.

We already do.

OP there are other things the school could do. Often there are local radio stations broadcasting in community languages.

Messages can be passed via church / mosque / temple.

I don't mean personal stuff or information about 1 child but things like, "X school has year 6 parents evening on Y date"

It's embarrassing how many Brits don't even try.

For those complaining about expat Brits not learning the language - their host countries aren’t translating everything into English to accommodate it, are they?

Many don't. I still giggle at the sign in my local municipal office "We do not provide translation services, please bring someone to translate" in our language only. Like one sign could have been made in few more languages even just via google translate. I assume it was to put the point no translation at all forward or something

Children pick up a new language really quickly. If their parents make no effort, that’s their problem.

The money given to schools is to educate the children, not to support parents who are too ignorant to learn their new country’s language.

Schools can’t and should not be responsible for ensuring perfect equity and utopia. They are already doing loads and will be making significant accommodations within the school day, the onus should not be on them to also solve every issue outside the school gates.

For those complaining about expat Brits not learning the language - their host countries aren’t translating everything into English to accommodate it, are they?

Agree

I think everyone should learn the local language of a country they move to, regardless of circumstance. British ex-pats who have moved to Spain who don't speak Spanish I am as critical of as those parents the OP refers to.

However, the reality is different, and it is often the mother who is less likely to be competent or fluent in English especially if a SAHM. So I think the school has got it wrong with their decision, assuming they don't facilitate ESOL classes for those parents.

I think after all the responses we can agree this is a ‘nice to have’ rather than an ‘essential’

You can’t go to another country and make your language barrier someone else’s problem.

Anyone who hasn’t bothered their arse to learn English after years in the UK is unlikely to care about their kids homework / uniform etc either tbh.
Sheer laziness!

A lot of this really sounds like waste of time and money in an age where a parent can get a decent translation of a letter by taking a picture of the letter and running it through Google.

I just can’t imagine any school having the money to fund this level of translation. We do what we can and ask staff to come and interpret in really important meetings if they speak the relevant language (and there is a significant barrier to communication without them) but that pulls them away from other work. We just can’t afford to spare people for routine meetings. Translating all letters would be a nightmare… we have somewhere in the region of 100 languages spoken by our families. I believe the school communication app has some in-built translation where parents can select a language and it will run it through a computer translator. I don’t know how good it is or how many languages it offers though.

There just isn’t the money.

@Wishthiswasntmypost agreed.

Me too

Yes but it's not an equivalence. English is available because it's many people's second language. So if you were Chinese, for instance, living in Sweden, you might not speak Swedish but there's a high chance you'd speak some English, so it's worth having documents translated into English.

Would your family country provide the same documents in 50 or so other languages? Because that's the problem. It would be fine for the school to provide translations into, say French, if all immigrants spoke French as their second language. But there are loads of different languages and it makes it untenable for schools.

I honestly think this is a good way to get long term residents to learn English. I worked in a big factory with lots of Europeans and a lot couldn't speak much English. But they weren't bothered about learning because so many people spoke their language. Some lived here over 10 years. The ones that could speak English said they liked to speak with me as it helped them and found they struggled with their English before as no one spoke it to learn.

There's also a possibility that they can speak English but are nervous about getting it wrong. It took a good few months to get some people to speak to me because of this. But I had no issues with their English. I could understand and they grew more confident to ask me questions to learn more

I would actually learn the language of my new country if I planned to stay there, don't assume everyone expects English to be spoken everywhere just because they think people moving to the UK should attempt to learn it.

And yet a HUGE number of Brits living abroad don't speak much, if any, of their local language. I've even had a British person tell me they integrated in the country, when they don't speak the language! They say their local friends say they're integrated too. Yet those friends can't speak their own language when this person is around, because she doesn't understand. And she's lived there 10+ years. That's not a one off!

I'm not excusing anybody for not learning the local language, but the idea that Brits would do it and foreigners in the U.K. don't is flat out wrong!

Brits not learning languages abroad works well for me though, because when I speak and make some mistakes, it's all glossed over because "locals" are simply shocked that a Brit has even bothered to try!