School refusing to provide translator

[CapturedLeprechaun]

I'm on the Governing body for a school with a really high proportion of kids with English as a second language. It's over 80% of their pupils. Many of the parents speak little or no English at all. There are some families who have been here 5+ years where one or both parents speak no English at all still, and even a "your child has no PE kit, they need to wear their PE kit on Mondays and Wednesdays" wouldn't be understood.

The school always use translators for meetings with parents - either a staff member who speaks that language who is available, or else they have a telephone translator service that they pay for, so the phone is on loudspeaker and a translator translates the conversation.

This is done for all parents evenings/ attendance meetings/ SENCO meetings etc for parents who don't speak or understand English.

Important letters like school trips/consent forms are provided translated in the three most common languages spoken.

The school offers English classes to parents, one held in the school one morning a week in the hall, one held in the evening each week.

School has now said translators will only be provided to parents whose children have been at the school for less than a year. If your child has been at the school for more than a year and you are unable to understand English, no translator will be provided, due to staff shortages and costs, and you have to bring a friend/family member who can translate. Letters will only be provided in English, and parents can use the translate feature on google if they need to.

On the face of this, does this seem a reasonable decision? The head has announced this and I don't know why it doesn't sit right with me, and I can't really articulate why. It has a lot of support from the English speaking parents, but it feels... divisive, I guess? And most likely children who will suffer. Currently trying to weigh up whether this is something I should raise, or accept this is a reasonable step for the school to take.

So what sort of multiculturalism are we to integrate with? There are people in the UK from all over the world, I can't be expected to integrate with each and every culture, particularly when some are diametrically opposed to the host culture or another culture. What do you want to do in this respect? I can't be expected to know what is expected in various cultures, when we now have so many? Just the same as I can't speak the 40 plus languages that were spoken in the borough where I last worked.

Why do you think it's xenophobia?

Have you ever moved to one or several different countries? Did you expect them to bend over backward or were you reasonably keen to make the efforts needed to integrate?

And do you think this should be the same for English speaking people moving to non English speaking countries? That the state should supply and pay for translation/interpretation services for them?

Lots of posters on here have described their experience living in non English speaking countries and have none of these services provided.

Is personally not use France , or Germany as a model for immigration

the Paris vibe and suburbs are utterly soul destroying me me as a Londoner
how NOT to do it

England’s not perfect but the simple fact is the children ultimately benefit from this

which was ops concern

totally get that they can’t do it as no budget

but the fact they did - it was a kind thing

Exactly. It’s also not just Brits who struggle after years of language lessons, it all depends on the quality of those lessons.
I learned English at school and was even considered pretty good at it, but I only learned it properly once I started socialising with native speakers and later moved to the UK.
I know plenty of people in the country where I went to school who’re not confident at all about their school English.

If it is a budget issue that's one thing. It's still unfortunate though. Someone should not be working as a headteacher in a London school - or as any kind of educator in London - if they have made this decision based on an ideology.

It is in the interests of the child's education for their parents to understand what is happening at school. For the school not to assist in this is a dereliction of duty. You can say that the parent is negligent if you want but the fact remains that the CHILD should be central in this, just as if a child comes into school without proper clothing because the parent hasn't provided it the school will take steps to provide it.

My Dc's has 43 first languages, so how many translators do the school need to employ to cover all of them.

Budgets in schools are no where big enough to cover all the costs.

The responses on this thread are bizarre and make a whole host of uninformed assumptions about people’s circumstances.

From your explanation there is one point that I would focus on as a governor. The proposal is to withdraw even support that can be provided at no additional cost (I.e. the letters that already exist in translation. That specific part of the proposal therefore has nothing to do with the budget. In fact you could even argue it will add costs as staff will need to spend time removing people from mailing lists. The only reason for doing that therefore is if the school: (a) agrees that it is the school’s duty to apply negative pressure to families regarding language learning (so not just positive opportunity like language classes but withdrawal of an existing service AND (b) that this is an effective means to apply that pressure (I.e. they have some evidence that withdrawing this provision will eventually result in an increasing language proficiency amongst families rather than, say, a breakdown of communication between school and home)

It is entirely appropriate for the governing body to discuss in detail those two points and decide whether this is the right way forward.

Where there is an extra cost for translation then the two points above still able but there is the added factor of budget. The decision about these steps should therefore include discussion of the points above and should consider concrete figures about cost as well as the views of staff who have acted as translators, local agencies who work with non-English speaking communities, and families themselves.

In short, we can argue all day long about whether people should learn English and how quickly they should be expected to do this. That’s not the issue though. The issue is much more specific - should the school take these specific steps for these specific reasons and what cost/benefit analysis has been done to support each proposed step.

The school has probably been enabling the parents and given them comfort that there isn’t need to learn the language.

school budgets are also cut to the bone.

but there must be a compromise surely or a transition? There are clear messages that go out from the school that are standard like pe on cans y day. Could they not just have these translated so messages can be sent - language wouldn’t change that much year on year. Also every year there are standard letters, could these not be translated as a template and a date (for example for parents evening) be inserted as necessary?

*apply not able

What a sane, rational and clear post @PumpkinSoup21 .

wow your head is an arsehole.

I totally get that he can no longer pay for translation services. I get that budgets are tight, but the examples you have given are actually shocking.

letters exist but we won't send them out
staff members who could translate are not allowed in the meeting for a child being excluded!!

These are deliberately provocative moves which will disempower the parents and it is the childrnen who will suffer.

I am an ex governor. I would kick back hard against this, that the school will support every parent as far as it is able with the resources they have, so if we have a letter in that language we will send it out. If we don't and can't afford to make a new one, then parents will need to use google translate etc.

Any meeting of concern (eg to exclude a child) school should make every effort to provide a member of staff, and if they can't pay for that then they should be asking mum to bring someone who can translate.

our community is multi lingual, there are often friends and relatives who have better english and can help if given enough warning to come in.
Pehaps their last paid for translation job could be a generic letter which says - you must attend xx meeting and bring a translator!

I have also lived overseas so I do see the other side, I always assumed it was up to me to either understand or to take a translator with me, and that included helath appointments

I think the recurrent insistence that immigrants who don't learn English "can't be bothered" is pretty xenophobic.

The majority of immigrants who speak little to no English are women. The barriers to learning are often gender based, such as caring responsibilities preventing them attending classes or making it harder to integrate into a new community to practice their new language. There is also the level of existing literacy in their native language, which again is likely to be lower in women depending on their home country. Functional illiteracy may prevent you from knowing the class exists in the first place, and have more difficulty learning whilst there. There may also be familial opposition - if your husband prevents you from attending classes then you cannot learn.

If these women and mothers are the women who communicate with school (and if, for example, your husband has prevented you from learning english due to your need to stay home and be responsible for the children) then yes, there is more likely to be a language barrier.

The actual issue of school funding a translator is different as if the money isn't there, then they can't. But there's some pretty crappy attitudes on this thread!

yeah yeah, my husband learnt English when he moved here too. I know loads of people that HAVE learnt English on moving here. and I know people who haven't for whatever reason. but if there is a letter already created in their language being sent to other parents at no cost, why WOULDN'T you just send it to them?? why would you just be a wanker just for the sake of it. to make their day a bit more difficult and teach them a lesson?

I agree with the head’s decision - a year of translations is very generous actually. In what other country would you receive this if you were to move there?!

For the PP’s bringing up Brits living in Spain, I would say that it’s equally unacceptable for them to not bother learning Spanish, why would it be any different? And if their children attended a Spanish school, you can be sure as hell they wouldn’t be getting letters translated into English ffs.

I have seen similar working for the NHS in London. Patients often live here for 10+ years and cannot even understand 'Hello, How are you?'. It's a deliberate unwillingness to integrate, which is very sad. Some communities are good at integration, and learning English, and others are very bad at it.

By providing all these translation services, we are facilitating this situation. I can understand the school saying that it's not sustainable anymore.

NHS staff from abroad say that in their home countries, no translation services are provided, everyone is expected to learn the language (and they do as a result)

we had mum's at my daughter's primary school that couldn't speak much English. they cooked amazing food for every single school event. you don't need to be fluent in English to be valuable to your community/society. why go out of your way as school head to alienate parents and make their lives more difficult. if it's a matter of finances that's one thing, but it clearly isn't in this case. and even if it is, there are ways of explaining that aren't there

Don't the letters need amending? It's not exactly the same letter for years, is it?

I dont think it should be school's responsibility to translate. Surely if you move to the UK its your responsibility to learn the language.
On the other hand its possible the amout of interaction between the school and the parents is much bigger than people from other countries might expect. I think in some places people still just send the children to school and leave the school to it.

yes, OP explained it as a mail merge template with fields like trip/date/time....it's being updated everytime for parents that have been at the school/in the country (?) for less than a year. but parents are being removed from the mailing list after a year because the head thinks that they should have learnt English by now. it's zero effort/cost to keep them on that list

I speak 3 languages well. And 2 futher ones at a lower level.
But as soon as you get into any conversation with new vocabulary, it can be like going back to square one.

Many words used within a school context are actually quite specific to that context. I am thinking of the woman whose son was being excluded and just running through all the vocab that she might never have come across in her 1 year of english learning that the head allows.
Same with an SEN meeting, or even head lice letters!

I get it's the template, but even templates need occasional updates in the regular text. That's what I meant.

Who the hell can work in the UK and claim benefits without speaking English?

Many benefits advice agencies provide translators too

Of course it's not automatic that immigrants will be on benefits, though not speaking the language will certainly restrict their employment opportunities - unlesss they aim to work in a monolingual sweatshop I guess

Not sure why the head is doing this.

An easier way would be to have the standard letter in English and then send an attachment covering all the languages (Pashto, Polish etc) to the parents who need it. It helps those families feel included.

The same way British immigrants abroad work- they a) do jobs that accommodate the level of local language they have b) do roles that don't require the local language