to avoid a primary school that has a high proportion of traveller children

[APeePleaseBob]

I live in a catchment area for several primaries so when we were thinking about schools for my DS we started be looking at Ofsted reports for the closest ones.

One of them got a 'good with some outstanding features' report but in the school make-up section it said it had a high number of traveller children in the school. It is near a well-known traveller site so this makes sense.

I have to confess this put me off and I didn't even go to see it. We have since made our selections elsewhere.

I still think about it though - AIBU to be put off? Would you have felt the same?

Oh no, they were the booby prize biscuit in my family.
Hard as rock you know.

Lest your kids won;t have to go to any dancing classes - can be taught to dance like hookers in the play ground.

I think I would avoid it but I am honest rather than politically correct.

What has being Asian or Disabled got to do with the price of fish?

To be brutally honest I would probably have felt slightly concerned; I don't know anything about traveller culture except some pretty obvious stereotypes, and I would have had slightly increased nervousness at my son going to any school with a big group whose culture I knew nothing about. HOWEVER I would still have sent my ds there as I don't believe in trusting to 'gut reactions' when you know they are based purely on prejudice.

similarly ridiculous prejudices. thats all

"To be brutally honest I would probably have felt slightly concerned; I don't know anything about traveller culture except some pretty obvious stereotypes"

and so your child will have grown up without your ignorance of a culture he is increasongly going to come into contact with

Bored, OP?

You can still get those in ireland RealEyes but they have been re-christened Party Rings. [bsmile]

realEyes you most certainly can sill get Iced Rings.

Folks round my way call them Party Rings

Aren't they just the best when it comes to biscuits?

ahh my son went to a primary in london with some traveller children in the early 90s

the kids were very sweet and savvy

i love the fact that my children mix with children from lots of ethnic backgrounds now

imagine if all the middle class white children went to the same schools

would be like a massive tory pary

OP - what exactly are you worried about?

Are you racist?

MadamCastafiore - Do you really need the concept of prejudice against ethnic / disadvantaged groups explained to you?

Well I never Beach Holiday

What a superb X Post situation

Party Rings a-go-go!

You have decided OP, what are you hoping to get from this thread?

I thought traveller children were not from a different ethnic group. Are we putting them in a different ethnic group now? Isn't that a bit separatist?

If this is real, OP you'd be right to worry about high pupil turnover. Also much primary NC needs high input from parents to keep standards up so a moving population wouldn't necessarily offer that or is less likley to than a static population.

Other than that, don't know. Don't know ay travellers.

[bbiscuit] katiekitty! Isnt it good we bought our Party Ring culture into the mix on this Iced Ring thread? Turns out despite the different names - they're all just biscuits underneath..

i dont think its unreasonable, but thats probably because i grew up with travellers repeatedly trashing the local green bits.

Well my son went to a school five minutes from a big traveller site. I assume many of the kids went to the school. I say assume because I dont actually know. They all just looked like kids to me.

I mean no-one tried to sell me heather in the playground or nicked the wheels off my car. Didnt see any yr 3's wearing tassles either.

So I suppose the school must have been clean

What a load of old bollocks and how they hell can anyone defend an OP like that?

PC? I would rather be accused of PC than being scared of my children mixing with children from a minority group.

Oh hang on, no, wait - unless they were from some neo nazi sect.

YABU

You did not even go to see the school

(biscuit)

that is all

I went to a primary school that had a high traveller child intake in the 80s, and to be honest we used to exclude them in the playground because they used to kick the living shit out of us. I don't know if that was a feature of traveller culture in the eighties, but as a child who frequently had my marbles simply taken off me by various children, and never any children that weren't traveller's children, I'd have told you to look for somewhere else.

NOW I'm all for inclusion, the majority of adults are. They don't have to be in the playground with children who are appallingly badly behaved and violent for no damn reason, and who aren't in the school for long enough for the teachers to do much about changing their behavior.

No i don't kitty but I think the issue most people have is the lack of integration of the travellers and the media image they have which to most is unpaletable.

Call it racist if you want - I really don't care about your opinion, as normal on here I think people would rather be PC than honest.

People are so dumb. This could be a pretty big issue. It's worth talking about. The only way to identify and dissolve prejudice is to improve a knowledge base.

Immediate conviction and sentencing (accompanied by unamusing banality) just makes people dig in.

Thers a pink (watered-down red) and yellow one that would have been a great Lib-Lab Party Ring. It was probably a failed attempt at subliminal propoganda by the manufacturers. Shouldve had Justine serve them to Nick Clegg....

Yep, it doesn't matter if you're pink or yellow, or just plain old blue - life can be one big ol' party