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 agree. Theres simply no money, my friend moved abroad, it was up to them to learn the language, no support was given, they are all fluent now, theres lots of apps dvds classes.

Exactly LaDamaDeELche. Couldn’t agree more.

I would suggest that the service be used for the most vital meetings for all, such as SEN meetings which involve complex language. Taking this service away could be discriminatory.
Stop with the letter translation service. Google translate can be used.
And visual posters for reminders such as PE Kit. Twinkl is a good source of posters and resources in lots of different languages and is a cheap subscription service that school could buy.
Sounds like the school does a lot already to help but times are tight and resources are scarce.
I worked for over 30 years in EAL schools and all these things have eroded badly over the years, but parents also have to do their bit to try and learn some basics.

Parents not attending free language classes reminds me a bit of when our local GP surgery started doing Saturday morning surgeries in response to people saying surgery hours were inconvenient for working people.

The Saturday slot was abandonned after 6 months because it was barely used - in fact I'd not heard about it until it was cancelled [this was before mass texting so probably would be better advertised now]

Similarly the health clinic offering appts in the evening wasn't attended at all

I lived abroad for years. The country where I lived provided extensive help for foreigners who didn't speak the local language, including interpreters when needed. DH and I learned the local language and at different points, we both benefitted from employment opportunities that related to supporting other foreigners who didn't speak the language. So the UK is not the only country that does this kind of thing. In fact, I would say that the country where I lived actually did far more to support foreign residents because there was not an assumption that they would speak the local language in the same way that we generally expect people to speak English.

Has anyone tried to find out why parents are not attending the free classes or are we just going with the lazy and entitled narrative?

I learnt English when I was in kindergarten, English definitely is not my first language. Language is the thing that you have to speak/read/listen everyday. My reading and writing skills is fair, listening is improving, oral is poor because I’ve got no local friends here. I feel nervous and my tongue twists when I am talking to school mums. I do afraid of speaking “weird English” that make people cannot understand me or misunderstand me.

People like us cannot only rely on translator. My 4yo son is my motivation to pick up English again. Now I learn English by watching news, Netflix (I had done all 10 seasons of FRIENDS and now has been watching Harry Potter), scroll through IG (many people teaches languages by self role playing), and go here the forum to not only read and write but also to learn more about the culture, in order to avoid being impolite accidentally.

It's a good question isn't it

Beyond the lazy and entitled immigrants, the socially conservative husbands keeping mothers cloistered at home, poor mental health due to poverty/trauma/war, conflict with work commitments, not being aware of the classes etc there are probably a multitude of other reasons

How you'd find out I guess is another matter

Texting just 30 parents to confirm yes/no to attending a childrens party gets lots of non-responders - let alone sending 400 texts in the right language to the right person with a question requiring more than a yes/no answer to people of unknown literacy

Not impossible but not easy

And maybe it's already been done OP didn't say either way

I agree that it’s almost always to do with diminishing resources, and this sort of thing should be centrally or at least LA funded.

Still taxpayers' money, whoever is funding it.

We have some children in our school from Ukraine although definitely not 80% and had no translators. We used Google translate and now after less than a year the children understand English brilliantly and often help translate messages to their parents 🙂

Who do you think should be doing this though? School staff are pretty busy and it's not a quick thing to do, is it?

Being disengaged from your child's education is not limited to parents from immigrant communities, its a fairly widespread phenomenon. It's always tempting to think schools must provide the universal panacea for societies ills but yhe fact is they can't and they need to concentrate on their job which is educating the children under their care.

Children interpreting for their parents is NOT good practice for the eight millionth time. It is inappropriate in a lot of cases and there is some evidence that it is harmful for children, especially older ones: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_brokering.

Who should find out why parents aren't attending? I would suggest it could be something the board of governors / PTA could look at rather than the hard-pressed staff. Or working in a team with the local council community engagement team.

It’s not a governors matter. Their role is strategic. It’s not something they have any means to investigate. They also don’t have a role in deciding how a school operates with parents on a day to day basis. This is down to the head.

LAs don’t have money for this. At a parents evening, Dc are often there anyway. It’s perfectly ok for them to talk to their parents. However a school cannot reach every parent. They rarely get all parents engaging who do speak English! So you do what you can, but school money is for educating Dc, not helping parents who won’t engage.

DCs are there to help translate....yeah cause of course the kids will tell the absolute truth if there's a problem lolol

The schools dont have the money for it so it doesnt matter if it is best practise.
Even if they do have the money it is not the remit of providing education to the child.
and technically not even educating the parent. It is unheloful to the child and family and wider community.
techni cally parents evening are optional for parents so if they choose to not learn enough to understand that is up to them.

just agree to discuss issues in writing

Parents evenings and interpreting are definitely not matters for the PTA or governors!

Learning another language is very hard especially when you're trying to make ends meet but after 5 years they do need to make an effort to understand the basics of the school letters etc. I think it's tricky but it sounds like the school has done a lot so far and maybe some people are taking advantage of that because it's a lot of effort to integrate and learn an entire new language when they probably don't use it any other time.

But it impairs the quality of healthcare, and that impacts not just the person who doesn't speak English but everyone else as well.

I started to learn BSL after going to A and E to do an ECG. A lovely couple where there, she was having a heart attack, her husband had forgotten his glasses, they were both Deaf.

No one could even ask for a name and address, let alone tell them what was happening.

If they move somewhere with a different language learn it! It’s unacceptable not to. Also English as it is computer language is the most common second language taught in non English speaking countries. And before you jump on me, English is not my first language, it’s not the second language I learned either. However the first second language taught where I come from has now been English for the last 30 years. Some schools still offer Latin as well as it’s required for certain jobs.

Urgh! Just learn English. Just attend the free classes.

and sod all thought given to why this might not always be as easy as it seems.

Also people seem to have missed the school is offering English courses for the parents. There are loads of these out there for free everywhere you go.

But as it goes you can lead the horse to water you can’t make it drink. It’s like people signing t&cs before reading them. you agreed that you read and understood those now you have to live with the consequences.

The school is helping by providing interpreters for the first year and free language lessons, but the the effort needs to come from both sides.
Schools don’t have infinite resources to pay for interpreting services for years and years.
My family were immigrants, I know exactly how hard it is to settle and integrate in a new country, but it’s still necessary to make an effort.

I've been thinking about this a bit, the parents don't have to learn English to get by in the UK. I make no moral judgement, its just a fact, they don't have to learn, translators/interpretaters will be provided as needed forever. So really, if its hard, why should they bother.

Sounds reasonable to me. When we moved to a country with a different language, we expected to have to speak that language. If you don't speak the language of the country you are living in, you will always be isolated and at a disadvantage. (Well-off ex-pat Brits in some countries being the only exception I can think of, but even then, they are actually missing out on a lot of what the country they are living in has to offer!)

I think that the parents actually owe it to their children to learn at least conversational vocabulary, and they are getting free lessons for that. There is always Google translate for letters, and there are likely to be translation services available for very formal matters (eg local authority matters).

I accept that some people find it harder than others to learn new languages but most people can learn the basics, and acquiring at least some basic skills in English will probably also help them in other areas of day-to-day life - and even perhaps open up new opportunities for them.

I do think, however, it would be worth finding out why parents aren't engaging with the lessons currently on offer - wrong place, wrong time, wrong teachers etc? Perhaps there would be a better take-up if the classes were run by a community organisation of some kind rather than the school? I also think that it is a bad idea to rely on the children to translate for their parents.

The only justifications I can think of for providing translation services is in the NHS (where lack of communication is going to cause serious problems all round) and in the police/court system.

I think it's reasonable, particularly when the school is offering EFL to parents and the one year intro period.
However, when I worked in education in East London, admittedly a good while ago, a big problem was mothers not being permitted to attend the college to learn English by their husbands, including female only classes and classes at local community centres, so I am concerned on that front.