to wonder if this is really happening? parents are being asked to confirm if their kids are British born.

[someonestolemynick]

A few messages popped up on social media today by parents whose school asked them to confirm if the child in question is foreign born. One friend said this was being done by all schools today.
I don't have kids and am an EU national.
I have been disappointed by the referendum result but have adopted a "Wait and see" approach.
Yesterday's announcements of companies having to list foreign employees coupled with today's rumours is really freaking me out.

Have you been asked today to confirm your child's nationality by their school? Aibu to be fucking terrified?

Effic, are you saying that the census does not include any question about where the child is born or what nationality they have?

Because you haven't listed those, and that's what people are getting hot under the collar about. Rather than questions about whether they need SEN or EAL provision.

Did you just leave those questions out? Or is it a fiction that the questions are being asked?

A friend who works in the school office has been doing the data entry for these forms. The database, seemingly the one used by the whole borough, has a drop down menu with the options being
England
Wales
Scotland
Northern Ireland
Other

Which seems to defeat the point of the whole exercise.

Usual bureaucratic fuck up waste of money and upsetting for many too.

The holocaust isn't the only example. The Cathars, a 'heretic' Christian sect in medieval France, were required to wear yellow crosses before they were targeted for extermination too.

It is exactly the same forces at work now with the same old dodgy players. They'll get what they want (they think) but will never understand why their populace gives up from underneath them and doesn't respect them for what they have done.

Their answer to any perceived social ills is to do it again.

*I absolutely agree with everything you've just said but these are common trophes, politics works like this all the time.

Personally, I think that's about making sure that people don't ask to many questions about the way the economic system works - who wins and who loses. Divide and conquer.*

Economic downturn is frequently linked to the rise of fascism. For a more recent (and possibly less reflexively emotive comparison), there's the Golden Dawn movement in Greece. That was somewhat stemmed by the anti-austerity coalition that then took power, but during the worst of Greece's austerity measures, their version of the National Front was most definitely on the rise. This is an observable pattern throughout history. The normalisation of these types of arguments as "just how politics works" is part of that pattern.

A minority group is scapegoated as the reason for economic downturn, then dehumanised so that the erosion of that group's rights does not cause mass outrage. The underlying motivation may simply be to pacify the masses, but they've done it by creating a group it's fine to treat appallingly. And...that's an environment where very bad things can happen.

Do I think that we are definitively headed towards fascism? No. Do I think we are creating a situation where it is more possible for fascism to arise? Yes.

Do I think Theresa May wants to murder EU citizens? Absolutely not! Do I think that if her government ultimately the normalises hardline xenophobia, someone with much more toxic ideas might take power?

I don't know. But I think it's more possible and that's scary.

Bumpertobumper - your friend appears to have been using the wrong section, or else the school hasn't applied the Summer upgrade to SIMS (or whichever management system they use). The section with the options you list is 'National Identity', but there is a section further down for Nationality, which enables you to add one or more from an extensive list. There is also now a drop-down menu for Country of Birth, again with all the countries listed.

Effic - the school census is actually taken every term, and not all items returned are used for funding. None of the new items concerning nationality, country of birth and proficiency in English will be used for funding in the current census.

But it is how politics works and I think the people who are most at risk here are those who are truly on the margins, refugees fleeing war who have no where else to go.

Ideological cuts then scapegoating of the poor and EU migrants including a narrative of the two groups competing for rationed resources I think has resulted in a reluctance to engage with the migrant crisis. There is no simple answer to that but I think that some of the steps that might otherwise have been considered by the government will have been viewed as measures a significant proportion of the electorate would not have tolerated.

I think a combination of alarmist clickbait 24 hour rolling news and a perception that those on the margins are not being listened to makes it easier for the far right to creep with their "the mainstream doesn't care about you" narrative.

I think the worst thing that can be done is to shut down conversations. Recognising historical precident is vitally important but I don't think suggesting that we're on the brink of 1938 German is particularly helpful to debate. Otherwise we end up with two sides on opposite extremes shouting at the other and it's harder to get to a middle ground.

This time last year I'd never have believed the the prospect of President Trump could ever be a possibility.

It's a horrid thing to do retrospectively but seriously, shouldn't a country know basic details about the population? Is it always xenophobic when there is no data at all? I havent lived in the UK for years, everywhere I have lived including the US and Germany have insisted on ID and details on paperwork.

Exactly Hysterectical

When I mentioned upthread all the doom-mongers who said in the aftermath of Brexit that they were going to try to emigrate to the USA, Australia etc, do they honestly believe these things wouldn't happen there? They'd happen more not less.

What is it, day three of this discussion and people who presumably have never completed a passport application, obtained a job or seen a census form are STILL banging on as if they were living in the Fourth Reich?

Australia is the most racist place ever! I did 4 years in Texas and they were kittens in comparison!

What about people with dual/triple nationality?

I always write "British" for my kids as their dad is British, but they were born in a country that gives nationality to anyone born there.

And I am from a country where nationality is given through the mother.

So they have 3

Their birth certs are in a foreign language.

They have never been asked for it for school.

To me it is amazing how little paperwork is required here in the UK.

Even in Germany, as a EU citizen, I had to fill out an afternoon's wirth of paperwork when I lived there.

In Holland, you need to carry ID

In Brazil and Mexico there were reams of paperwork! And much more institutionalised racism.

The UK is the only country where I have lived where you carry no id and have access to healthcare and education with no questions asked.

Compared to much of EU, where DPOB is recorded on your ID card, which has to be flashed for just about everything and all details recorded by anyone/everyone; UK - even with this in the school census - is remarkably unintrusive.

And outside EU, will no longer face any 'encouragement' to introduce ID cards. Or have to join in an EU system of handling immigration from outside EU.

The UK is the only country where I have lived where you carry no id and have access to healthcare and education with no questions asked.

do me a favour BabyGanoush get that printed onto a large banner and fly it on a plane over London will you?

I am finding all this hysterical hand wringing and thoroughly irresponsible doom mongering about the where the UK is heading to be tedious and ridiculous beyond belief.

Yes we had forms we had to fill in. I don't think we had to provide birth certificates though.

Every country I have lived in has needed attested copies stamped by the Ministry of foreign affairs or embassy of the country you are applying to work or.live in. Maybe that's how they manage to provide education and health care that isn't failing.

My ds is in year 9. I had to say what our home language was on the form i filled out just before he joined year 7. That would give you a fair idea of someone's nationality - or at least narrow it down - eg if you speak Finnish at home the chances are you come from Finland. That does not mean the child was born there or does not have British nationality, but a picture can emerge.

I can't remember if we were also asked for nationality, we might have been. We didn't have to show a birth certificate.

I really don't think this info is going to be used to round up EU citizens and deport them and i don't think British citizens are going to be deported from the EU - but in both cases living there might become more difficult eg access to services unless a sensible reciprocal arrangement is reached. I am not sure at the moment if it will be - but maybe the posturing politicans will shut up and let some negotiators with brains do the job.

slotted - well said

Try being married to a member of HM Forces who has to have a security clearance, and then there might be grounds for complaint. They want parents dobs, addresses, places of birth, occupations, plus our siblings, and they want bank statements, mortgage statements, credit card statements etc.

I think people are working themselves up to a frenzy about nothing with this.

We were asked to fill in a form asking about their nationality.

scaryteacher Do you really not see a difference between applying for a job that needs security clearance, and sending your kids to school?

This is the census, as others have said. Schools have to give so much information to the Department of Education on a particular day in October, and at other times during the year. It all seems a bit OTT as half the figures are probably never looked at or used. I can see that some might be handy for forward planning, but it also needs remembering that schools have to get funding for coping with children who can't speak English. I don't see the problem - what is wrong with saying where you were born? Nobody has suggested that you will get a one way ticket back there, as given the amount of immigration Britain has had over the past couple of hundred years this island would be half empty.

There is a census that all schools are required to do, I believe it is new. Schools also need to ascertain a pupils first language and when they came into the country as for the first 3 years a pupil has been in the country they are entitled to extra funding about 3000 per year for primary and 7000 per year for secondary - not to be sniffed at!

Yes we had a form to complete when DS started school and it asked details of nationality and where he was born as well as religion