School refusing to provide translator

A lot of migrants if arriving legally use what English or learn what they can to pass immigration tests and then return to their communities and generally not always don’t learn much English. Either families support them or they claim benefits if they’re entitled to them.

So it's better to let someone walk round the streets potentially infecting people with communicable diseases rather than spend money on making sure they have access to healthcare they can understand. Sounds foolproof.

So parents can do what the fuck they like and schools are just meant to pick up the pieces and take responsibility but nobody is allowed to question why or expect the parents to take responsibility? It is blatantly unfair to expect the school to take on infinite responsibility that the parents don't whilst at the same time saying we can't question why these parents aren't taking on the responsibility of their childs needs.

I don't even disagree that withdrawing some of the provision is idiotic, especially stuff like letters where they're a templated resource that has already been created and is just sent out en mass anyway, but I do think the school should have the right to put limits on the (expensive) resources they currently provide by default - they'll give parents a year of state funded translations when necessary while they get settled and find a support network but after that first year then the onus is on the parents to fund or provide the translator themselves. Why is that a bad thing? The school provides for the immediate need but long term responsibility for the parents understanding is put on them in the form of a set boundary of no more school funded translations in meetings after the first year.

Read my posts! Cultural norms can be challenged and changed but it takes time and patience with the community. Shouldn’t be left to the daughters to change it.

My grandad moved here via the Netherlands and France after having been brought up in Germany as a child. His father was dual national English French and his mother was German. They all spoke English at home as well as French and German.

When my grandad moved here I’m sure his English wasn’t perfect but it improved and he got jobs here and married. After a divorce he brought his DM over from Germany to help bring up his DD (my mum). Her English wasn’t her mother tongue but she knew enough to get by, read and write and have conversations, she was approx 60 when she arrived.

If they can do it, others can. And yes they didn’t have cultural issues but the older DM was too old to work (had been a SAHM/W), no social security and grandad’s other brother who moved here, and was a successful businessman, provided money to help with her care.

The problem is within certain cultures. I helped in a conversation class for woman, and we were often told by women from that culture that many of their friends would not be allowed to attend by their husbands.
One woman I know, a trained teacher in her country of origin, had been married off to an old widower in the UK. The conversation class was literally the only activity that she was allowed to participate in.
I find it heartbreaking but nothing is going to change for these women, living, as they are, in a misogynistic community. The hope lies in their daughters (as long as they are not married off abroad.

It doesn't matter why not. Just as it doesn't matter why some parents don't read with their kids every night and some send them into school with last night's McDonalds. The school's responsibility is to the child and the parents' responsibility is none of their business until it reaches proportions of illegal neglect.

(as it happens I think withdrawing provision to make an ideological point is cruel and idiotic by the head anyway, but that is not my point here).

No translators should be provided, the parents should pay if they want one.

Same with the NHS, its a health service not a translation service.

I had a Ukrainian living with me for a while, she spoke OK English but through her I got to know lots of other Ukrainians who didn't speak a word. One of them was a really extraordinary women. She had been a successful business women in eastern Ukraine and had lost her home, business and everything when the Russians came. She arrived with no English but spend six hours a day online learning, while her kid was a school using free resources she found herself. She treated it as her job. She then got a job in a chicken factory (which most of the other Ukrainians refused to do as it's a horrible job). A year and a half down the line, she speaks good enough English to do an office job in an estate agents. Now I know not everyone has the determination or character of this women (I know I wouldn't) but this women has done brilliantly and I'm full of admiration for her.

Of course it's the right move.

Whilst translators are provided there's no impetus to learn English.

I agree with this and many other similar comments. If you move to the U.K. to better your and your children's lives, then take some responsibility and learn English. I would do the same if I moved to another country where they spoke a different language. I don't believe anyone living in the U.K. permanently should be able to utilise our health care (what's left of it), benefits, schools, etc if they cannot out the effort in to learn English. By not learning the local language (this goes for anyone living in a country where they don't speak the native language) they segregate and restrict themselves to only associating and interacting with people from the same ethnicity & language. I'm not suggesting they learn English in an attempt to erase their own language, beliefs, etc. But they need to start learning the language and assimilating into the local community and nation as a whole so they can better understand the local customs, values, expectations, rules etc. It can't be all take and no give.

This is the same reason I dislike visiting and staying in overly touristy places on holiday. I refuse to go somewhere that is infiltrated with Brits where the area has been hugely altered to cater for English speaking people. Of course I find it helpful when I go on holiday to another country where the local language isn't English. But I always always make an effort to speak and understand the local language first.

But nobody is saying they have to learn to be fully fluent in English in a matter of weeks, just that they need to acknowledge that if they are not fluent then the onus should be on them to source a translator at their expense, not the school's. Doesn't even need to be a paid translator, a friend or family member can do it, but the onus should be on the parents to provide the translation as the default, not the school.

The school is educating the child, the school is setting up meetings to advocate for the child when they have issues with learning, the school is doing what they can to support the child so why can't the parents support their child by putting in the effort to get a translator so they can support their child?

There is an incredible number of free learning resources online if one can't get to physical courses.

It's odd (or bs) that we are supposed to welcome immigration because the reason that immigrants come is because they speak English, and have the gumph to come here.

Is it a uk thing to view non-English speakers as unfortunates who can't be expected to make the effort (or have the intelligence) to learn English? And we're talking about people who have been here for over a year?

The school is literally providing free English lessons…

Completely agree that we shouldn't be pandering or enabling these parents with to speak their own language. Frankly, I think it's poor parenting to not learn the local language of your child. But, none of that is the child's fault. The child is already disadvantaged by (after 5+ years in the UK) 'can't be bothered' parents and unfortunately schools have to step into the parenting role in many, many other situations for the good of the child.

My main concern about all this translation, basically on demand, is that it ultimately might not be helping and might be actively making things worse overall by enabling not speaking English.

I wonder if the council (or whoever) could actually pay the parents money to attend English lessons or pass exams? I know this will be met with howls of 'tax payers money' and rightly so. But tax payers money is being spent on this already and paying the parents to learn English might ultimately be cheaper and the parents speaking English would absolutely definitely be better for the kid. Giving people money has been shown to work in all kinds of situations. It even improves breast feeding rates and stopping smoking.

It would have been interesting to having voting enabled on this.
Fwiw it seems that we are an outlier on this and other European countries don't provide translation services. But I'm happy to be proved wrong.
And, no, if you move to a country, you learn the language. Or provide your own translator and don't whinge if the State don't spend £££s for you to have one.

If you say it's not the school's responsibility and the parents don't magically learn English over the summer holidays and still can't understand the language, who suffers the direct consequences? Is it the parents or the child?

And if the child is not being educated properly when the school could do something about it, that is an abrogation of the school's responsibility. They can't control what the parent does about theirs.

The school has a responsibility to the child but what responsibility do the parents have?

No-one saying "the school has a responsibility to the child" seems to answer the question of "Why don't the parents have the same responsibility?"

Why is nobody expecting the parents to advocate for themselves and be responsible enough to know that if their English isn't good enough for a meeting/official discussion then the onus should be on the parent to source a translator, not the school? Why should the school have to be the default for the translation service provision?

Why are the parents just assuming the school will source a translator for them as the default rather than it being on them to find a translator and asking the school to provide one only if they can't? It doesn't seem like the parents are contacting the school to say "My sister normally translates but she is sick, do you have someone who can translate?" they're just rocking up and expecting a translator to be provided for them, free of charge.

It's a stance of entitlement - I would never have expected English translators as standard when I lived abroad but apparently I am the outlier because I think that if I live in another country them it's my responsibility to either learn the language or be the one to source translations if necessary rather than assuming it will be provided for me.

There was a famous (in translation circles[ case in the USA of a hospital using a Spanish-speaking staff member to interpret for a Cuban-American patient rather than calling a professional interpreter. They made a mistake, the patient ended up quadriplegic, and it ended up costing the hospital $73 million in damages.

Paying for interpreters costs money, but kids should not pay the price for their parents' shortcomings and in the end helping the kids integrate and enjoy successful school careers will save society money in the longer term.

@melj you've just written a post explaining why it is not as easy as people on this thread are making out to learn a language and use it in a foreign country.

It is the school's responsibility because educating the child is the school's responsibility. That means its parents knowing what is going on.

But if my child was in that school where resources were scarce and there wasn't the budget for things that would benefit my child, I would be questioning why they were spending thousands of pounds on translation services for parents that had been in the country for years ...

And again why is it the school's responsibility? When do the parents have to take responsibility for their own lack of language and bring (or pay) for their own translator? Surely any good parent wants to do the best for their children so why would they not invest in their education by being proactive about ensuring they can ensure they understand the teachers in any meetings? Why is it just the school who has to work for the benefit of the child, why don't we put that expectation on their parents?

I have been that parent in a foreign country who didn't fully understand all the official meetings/paperwork but I did not expect the organisation in question to provide translators for me at their expense as the default. If they had them available then great but if not then I fully expected to have to provide my own translator whether that was a friend or paid professional.

I have also been the "unofficial English translator" at a Spanish school who had English children whose parents didn't speak a word of Spanish. It's not an easy job - firstly I'm not trained in translating so it's exhausting having to actively translate for an extended period of time - plus there is always situations where phrases/terms don't translate well so you have to think up a different way to phrase it without losing the context and underlying message. Then there's the fact I'm put in a situation of being the "messenger" for often difficult or awkward messages so anger/upset/ire was directed at me because I was the one to actually tell the parents that their child was XYZ that they didn't want to hear.

Plus then there's words/phrases that imply understanding of context - as someone said upthread the word "inset day" is just known to mean "your kids don't come to school today" but if you say that to someone from another country they may not know what the term itself means -so you also have to clarify that people understand the meaning of words or phrases without coming across as patronising, which can be difficult.

Then you have the fact that those meetings took me away from either my own classes, my planning/prep time or my own free time and I never got that time back, all to do a job I didn't sign up for but was voluntold to do purely because I could speak two languages.

For the exclusion i would hope warning in the request for the meeting. So the person could bring interpreter.
But having a tricky child it generally doesnt come out of the blue. There will have been issues ongoing at school.
The need for translation in hospitals is different as language there complex and important. And often emergency. Letters home from school generally arent.
re inset days - i had never heard of them having gone private.
And often parents miss them here.
and often whatsapp is how they find out

If the parents had to put their hands in their own pockets to facilitate this, they would learn English a lot more quickly.