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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To not want to provide my DC nationality and country of birth to school?!

271 replies

SoDownSoGone · 11/01/2017 14:05

What will the government do with the Country of Birth and Nationality?! AIBU to not provide this info?!

OP posts:
SapphireStrange · 11/01/2017 16:44

our form teacher asked us to put our hands up if we weren't born in the UK.

Not quite the same as an official, schoolwide policy of filling in a form for the government.

Manumission · 11/01/2017 16:44

wife my objection to the while "armband" schtick is that it's lurid (it is referencing mass murder after all) and thatvit spreads alarm amongst people who might have a lot to lose but don't necessarily follow politics, read broadsheets or have fluent English. Not so bad for those who can go and do their own reading but not everyone can.

JigglyTuff · 11/01/2017 16:59

potnoodle - it's not bullshit. They're asking for extra information they haven't asked for before. I've had a child in school since 2010 and this year is entirely different.

I have never ever been asked what country my child was born in before. This is a new question.

wifework · 11/01/2017 17:43

Piglet I'm of course extremely sorry about your family.

There must be a point, though (and I'm not saying this is it. I don't know.) when it's OK to ask yourself if events are beginning to follow an undesirable pattern from history? Otherwise how do we learn from it and make sure it never happens again?

Does the fact that people react so strongly when government intentions are questioned and criticised mean we should stop doing it? I don't think so.

I think that gathering this specific info at this specific time is worrying given what else has happened and is happening in the world. I don't think I'm wrong to say I think that - in fact I think people doing so is the only safeguard we have against history repeating itself.

I'm not suggesting people should agree with me - but surely ASKING yourself is never a bad thing?

Manumission · 11/01/2017 17:55

Does the fact that people react so strongly when government intentions are questioned and criticised mean we should stop doing it? I don't think so.

wife the strength of the reaction is because the same offensively OTT things keep being said over and over again about the same census. This must be the 12th thread on MN alone. It's getting quite old now.

If anything is afoot it's likely to be going on elsewhere entirely while so many people are providing such a convenient distraction with the paranoid hooha about the school census.

wifework · 11/01/2017 17:57

Ah. I gave MN a break after Brexit. Only just back and with a namechange.

I hold my opinion, but take your point about shutting up about it. ;)

Manumission · 11/01/2017 17:58

I gave MN a break after Brexit.

I wish I had your good sense Smile

noblegiraffe · 11/01/2017 18:18

because the same offensively OTT things keep being said over and over again about the same census. This must be the 12th thread on MN alone. It's getting quite old now.

Well, most of the threads about the data collection were around the time of the Autumn census when the data was being collected. People were concerned that the data was being collected for nefarious purposes and lots (including myself) were reassuring them that the data would be used to improve educational outcomes, that the data was being collected for DfE purposes.

It was only in mid-December that the leaked letters showed that the people who had concerns were in fact correct, and that the DfE had been strong-armed into collecting the data by the Home Office for immigration purposes, and that originally the proposals by the Home Office had been much stronger. There was at least one thread at that point.

Given that we're now approaching the next census point, I think it's good that there's another thread about this, so that people can be provided with updated information if they missed the December news, and to be told how they can use the January census to remove their previously provided country of birth data if they now feel uncomfortable about providing it having been told the background of the request.

JigglyTuff · 11/01/2017 18:21

@noblegiraffe - thank you for your posts on this thread. They're eloquent and objective.

Manumission · 11/01/2017 18:28

That doesn't really address the 'offensively OTT' part giraffe (the references to armbands, yellow stars, 1930s Germany)

noblegiraffe · 11/01/2017 18:54

manumission yeah back in September when the original threads started I was on the other side, arguing that the DfE wanted the data to improve educational outcomes, that it was a benign data collection exercise and thinking that people who were wanging on how sinister it seemed were paranoid.

Then it turned out that they were right. This was about immigration and using schools as border patrols, not about education research.

So tbh, posters who are sensitive to this sort of thing had the right of it, and it is correct to point out the potential consequences of ignoring warning signs. "It could never happen here" isn't a good enough reason to drop vigilance.

noblegiraffe · 11/01/2017 18:57

In December we also had Marine Le Pen in France proposing the end to free education for the children of illegal immigrants.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-38249570

ForalltheSaints · 11/01/2017 19:16

You could put down the country as it was known in the middle ages.

RustyBear · 11/01/2017 19:26

Wouldn't work, Forallthesaints - the country of birth has to be chosen from a drop-down menu, not written in, so it would just get updated.

Manumission · 11/01/2017 19:28

giraffe can you really not see the enormous gulf between mass industrialised killing and the disputed approach to educating the children of illegal immigrants?

It's such a nasty, hyperbolic and unwarranted comparison particularly as truly universal education has such popular support.

I'm all for being on guard for worrying trends. But this is the most offensive game of "the boy who cried wolf" imaginable. And we all know the danger in crying wolf.

LittleBooInABox · 11/01/2017 19:33

Oh my days, and my giddy aunt all in one.

Complete the form or don't. But, people creating something out of nothing like this is in my opinion suspicious.

It makes no difference if they know or if they don't. Personally I think your being a little bit "tin foil hat" about it!

Jesus Christ on a cracker!

noblegiraffe · 11/01/2017 19:33

Of course there's a fucking huge gulf between mass industrialised killing and using schools as immigration control centres. No one is disputing that Hmm

But Nazi Germany didn't suddenly set up concentration camps and exterminate Jews out of nowhere did they?

Manumission · 11/01/2017 19:37

But Nazi Germany didn't suddenly set up concentration camps and exterminate Jews out of nowhere did they?

There are a couple of really good books about how they did it actually, How they designed the administrative systems and gained the willing cooperation of the populace and a huge civil service. It took more than a question on a census.

noblegiraffe · 11/01/2017 19:37

particularly as truly universal education has such popular support.

They come over here taking our jobs, make it so that we have to wait weeks to see a doctor, take all our school places...a few Daily Mail sad faces later and see what people are saying.

Manumission · 11/01/2017 19:39

Every time the possibility of deportations for an under 18 is mooted giraffe, there are big local media pushes, petitions etc and the schools rally around. I don't think denying under 18s a schooling has much support. I really don't.

noblegiraffe · 11/01/2017 19:42

It took more than a question on a census.

Of course it did. No one is saying that it didn't.

But there is a difference between 'This census question is fine, it'll just be used for education research' and 'This census question has been put there by a Home Office that apparently has the same ideas about schools as Marine Le Pen, and they want to use the data against illegal immigrants'

The census question was advertised as the first. It turned out to be the second. Why are more people not fucking angry about it?

noblegiraffe · 11/01/2017 19:44

Deprioritising the children of illegal immigrants in terms of schooling (the updated plan when the Home Office found out they couldn't deny schooling to kids) was about putting those children bottom of allocations list, behind siblings, behind those in catchment, behind everyone else.

I'm sure that would be pretty popular in some areas.

MollyHuaCha · 11/01/2017 19:48

I have lived in a few countries. The bureaucracy in this country is loads more manageable than in the other places I have lived.

In one country, in order to enroll DCs at school, we had to provide passports with evidence of other countries they had visited, residence permits, loads of passport sized photos, evidence of DCs having childhood vaccinations and fill in an 8 page form for each child. And parents' passports and residence permits had to be handed in too along with parents' employment contracts and salary details.

noblegiraffe · 11/01/2017 19:48

Also worth bearing in mind that the person in charge of the Home Office when all these plans were being drawn up is now running the country.

Manumission · 11/01/2017 19:48

Well fortunately I don't think it would be voted on at a local level so the illegal child migrants of Medway are quite safe. These extreme policy proposals won't just get waved through.

The Maeine le Pen references are a bit OTT themselves