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.

I'm also interested to find out why you think that requiring all parents to have an understanding of the local language is "divisive". It's exactly the opposite, surely. ? The school is doing plenty already by the sound of it.

By giving them a year, yes I think that's fair. If you live in another country you need to learn the language and in a year you can acquire a decent level of fluency if you immerse yourself. These days you need to pass English proficiency even to get a spouse visa so those who are not recently arrived refugees should be competent in the basics

It’s not a schools job to parent the parent.

There's no money in the budget I would guess. It's crap and its unfair but wouldn't be the first time Iv seen primary age kids translating for mum or dad.
I know what you mean about feeling uncomfortable, these children will be disadvantaged by their parents not being able to speak English.
You could try approaching local community groups that might have volunteers willing to help out at important parents meetings as a translator, you might find parents in the school willing to help out too. As for letters home I would agree that translater app would be an OK solution.

Sorry if you live in England then you need to learn English!!

I think this is reasonable and am blown away by the school's efforts to accommodate people thus far.

The parents can go to the English lessons that the school provides do that they will understand the language.

People should integrate if they come to this country. I believe that the children will also benefit if their parents can speak English too.

Not what you asked but could the school do some community outreach type work where they can get volunteers from the biggest communities and who can work with the school to translate or at least summarise key documents?

As a member of the Governing Body you must know about budget constraints. It's crap but you shouldn't be blaming the school.

The school's reasonable. All that must cost a fortune.

Only quoting this one because it seems to be the lone voice, so I fully accept that the consensus is the school is behaving reasonably here.

It's a London borough school in a fairly deprived area - 40% FSM, and their "persistent absence" (e.g. less than 90% attendance) is 33%, which is huge compared to nationwide figures.

I'm stepping down at the end of this term anyway, my kids no longer attend this school and Governing body is a thankless task for a whole lot of work.

But I just felt uneasy about it. The new Head, in a bid to improve attendance, has taken a zero tolerance approach to prosecuting for school attendance, and has passed ten families over to the LA to take to court for non-attendance. This is a potential £2.5K fine. I guess I just don't really know where the line is in a sort of "if parents are being taken to court for their child's non attendance and risking a 2.5K fine or three months imprisonment, so they even understand this?!" sort of way.

I can totally accept the money isn't there, and I don't really know what the solution is, I just felt uneasy about this sort of zero tolerance approach, and I did wonder whether NHS/police would provide translators still for important matters, regardless of how long someone had been in England for.

Given the squeeze on school finances, it's hardly surprising that the school can't afford this for everyone. If you think it's the wrong decision, what would you have them cut instead? The reality is that they almost certainly can't afford to carry on as they are. So either they cut the interpreting services or they cut something else (staffing? resources? premises maintenance?) that might have a more significant impact on the education of the children and/or their health and safety etc. I don't imagine that they have many options.

OP, what cuts would you prefer to see so this could continue to be funded?

Can you explain what’s decisive about asking people who live in England to learn English? Would you expect the previous level of support to be in place for your family if you moved to another country for years on end?

Not unreasonable at all.
It's not like the old days, there are so many free online translation resources nowadays. The parents can just bring their phones will them. Also, I don't know why the school is giving language lessons to the parents. Again, there are so many free recourses online for learning, it's a choice on the parents part not to bother.

At work we sometimes have to provide a translator and use a service to do this, on average it costs us around £150 per hour of service, less for common languages, more for rarer languages. If the school are having to pay for this service rather than being able to use staff that have the ability to speak several language, then it is a big expense.

I'd be fairly confident that the LA will offer a translation service for this type of letter.

I agree, its the right move. Its rude to live permanently in a country where you can’t speak the language imo

I think what they have offered and continue to offer is exceptional.

It may be worth translating the handbook into some key languages.

the only time I would ensure an interpreter is there would be for safeguarding or serious disciplinary action.

we have some parents who support non English speaking in our Chinese community and another family whose aunt always joins on Zoom for parents evenings to interpret.

our school app has translator available and I often see “translated by ten parents” so it is used.

Wow the ignorance on this tired is palpable.

There are many many reasons why people can't learn a different language. Maybe they never went to school, and cannot read and write in their own language or maybe their family were murdered or hometown bombed and they have ptsd. Maybe they don't want to be here? This would just push them further away and make them less likely to engage.

I've seen the fallout of a teenage kids translating for their parents. It gets messy.

Have you ever thought that these people would love to be able to communicate to others? It's exceptionally isolating not being able to speak the native language.

You are right to feel this doesn't sit right OP. It doesn't.

Some off these children and parents been here 5+ years and still don't understand basic English surely this is because they don't want to put any effort in to learn it, school even offer English lessons to them but they refuse. I completely agree with the school they barely have a budget as it is.

I don't think you are being unreasonable to be concerned.

I can understand why the school is having to do this with budget cuts but there are ways around this eg putting information on a webpage and ensuring the website has translation tools.

Unfortunately I think a post like this attract all the types of people who have never lived abroad, or been an immigrant or have had to learn language to a fluency enough to deal with bureaucracy (and who all think if you are in England, you must speak English but would never think of learning Hindi or Urdu if they moved to India).

Like some colonial hangover

When we lived in Portugal there was no translation provided either in educational or health settings. It was expected that you learn the language or take along someone to translate with you. I speak Portuguese and remember going along with friends who couldn't to deal with the school admissions process. All information from the school was in Portuguese only.

There was one consultant in the hospital who used to speak to me in English but she was from South Africa originally and English was actually her first language.

In this case the school do seem to have done what they can and I suppose that there just isn't the funding to carry on providing translation services.

Yes. I am thinking of all our immigrants, sorry ‘ex-pats’ who have lived in other countries for years without bothering to learn a single word. They just send their kids to English-speaking schools instead.

I am a translator and have lived abroad, and I agree with you.
You wouldn’t expect someone to be fluent after a year, and some may need quite a lot of help. But when someone has lived in a country for many years, surrounded only by people of their own culture making no attempt to learn the local language, it’s not right. I would be afraid of having to navigate the medical system with zero language skills.

The Head adopting a zero tolerance policy might have something to do with Ofsted. I heard something on the Nicky Campbell Show on 5 Live this morning where a Head from a Manchester primary school who had allowed absences for visiting relatives abroad had his school downgraded from Outstanding to Good. Everything else was outstanding.

I agree with most other people. The school is going above and beyond and 5 years is plenty to learn conversational English. That said, my BiL has been living in Spain for 17 or 18 years and still only knows a few words of Spanish. My sister is fluent and their DS is bilingual but BiL (whose idea it was to move out there) is hopeless.

This seems to an approach worth taking on board, it's already a tactic used for health information in certain areas as well.