Dd, 17, asked by school if she had Bristish passport

[Sadusername]

DD just let it slip that she was asked to go to the school office to declare whether or not she has a Brisitsh passport. Only young people with foreign names or who "looked" foreign were asked. I am furious. Feels like the beginning of a slippery slope....

My Dd joined in the sixth form. But I asked a parent whose child had been there since yr 7 and they had never been asked the what passport their child held. I will ask if they had to provide birth certificates at an earlier stage.

Neither, it was because you didn't complete the census.

I did get the census letter but ignored it.

I suspect this is WHY your DC was asked.
I suspect they haven't asked everyone because their parents have returned the form either completed or with declined written on it.
So now they are chasing those who haven't completed them.

Wearying.

Can you please explain if my dd was asked to the office to declare what passport she had? Was this due to her Mediterranean skin tone or her east European surname?

It depends how you want to come across, I suppose

Sadusername - this is information is new from this academic year only, for all pupils. So others won't have been asked in previous years regardless of how long there, etc.

All school will have been asked on the data forms sent home at start of the year. The children being asked will be those who did not return the forms or did not fill out the section.

I'd hazard a guess that the parent you spoke to had forgotten exactly what they answered as part of the census.

Did anyone ask why they wanted to know

The school census this year requires schools to collect the country of birth and nationality for all pupils. Note that parents/pupils do not have to supply this information. The DfE points out that there is currently very little information available to indicate how effective schools are for foreign nationals or to measure the impact of foreign nationals on schools. This data, along with proficiency in English, will allow the DfE to see if these pupils or the schools they attend face additional challenges.

Without this information the DfE has no idea whether there are any problems. If the data reveals that foreign nationals are underperforming or that schools with large numbers of foreign nationals are underperforming this will allow the government to decide whether some kind of policy response is needed - increased funding for foreign nationals in schools, for example.

If you will ignore requests for information...

The letter I got said that by default all students were registered as being born in UK and we only needed to let them know if dd had been born abroad. We live in a fairly non diverse part of the country.
So I was a bit surprised by school showing such initiative in asking pupils separately about their passports.

I don't get the amateur dramatics here OP.

You chose to ignore the census

Your DD was called to the office to clarify, along with others whose parents probably ignored the census.

What is there to be 'furious' about?

If it really is foreign looking/sounding kids being asked only, I'd be bouncing round there tomorrow with a right foul mood on.

Our DCs are Bulgarian and were asked about it a few weeks ago for the school census, but everyone was asked. If it was just them I'd be fuming. They were upset enough as it was, feeling like people were questioning their Britishness.

I would be irate if asked on account of skin colour or name
But has she been asked because the form wasn't filled in? Crap of them because it's not compulsory, but are they asking kids whose parents didn't fill in the form? Your op made it sound like they are not doing forms and just asking the kids....

To be fair the census letter said you only needed to contact them if your child wasn't born in the UK. So when I say I ignored it, I chose not to tell them she was born in Australia. So I still feel perturbed that that she was 'chosen' to be scrutinised further.

why would the school need to know? sounds like lunacy to me

Bowie that's quite a confusing second paragraph.

data.gov.uk/dataset/school-census

I wouldn't worry my ds1 whom is 3 had a letter to ask and provide his passport number. The mentioned it's a legal requirement

I had a call last week from the head of our primary asking if DD is ever exposed to other languages other than English, she said that she was asking all the "dual heritage" kids (dont get me started on that phrase!). I said that she doesnt at home, but given there is a high percentage of eastern Europeans at the school, she has heard other languages in class, and so did my other non mixed children.

That pulled her up short and I was then asking about the other kids too :o

feeling like people were questioning their Britishness.

But you just said they were Bulgarian? So they're not British!

Sadusername, you really are determined to be offended here.

You chose not to respond so that are following up. Presumably because her teacher knows she was not born in the UK.

Oh ffs... Op, you cocked up on the census front. There is no racism or whatever the fuck you think is going on here. Your daughter wasn't called down because of her skin tone or surname, she was called down because you didn't do the census. The same way I was called last week because I didn't submit a form to my son's school.

Stop looking for a bloody drama and reason to whinge.

Clam, I would rather not be offended, not sure if I need to be.

Despite my foreign sounding name, in over 50 years have never had to prove my Britishness more than anyone else. It just seems a bit of a Co-incidence that only students who looked foreign were asked.
I suppose a more generous interpretation might be that they were trying to attract some kind of extra funding if they could identify more EFL students.
They did recently offer £50 towards uniform for any students that claimed FRee school meals, as they could then get a pupil premium.