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 with others who've said these parents need to find a way to translate communications themselves. Budgets are tight. If I moved to a country and didn't speak the language, I wouldn't expect that countries education system to pay to translate stuff for me.

I do agree they should be learning to speak the language. I was at school with a little Korean boy. With him being in nursery so young he picked up English quite quickly. But he also learnt his parents to speak English.

Clearly you don’t know many immigrant English families ,English folk lives in Spain , Portugal , Greece , Cyprus , Italy etc for decades and don’t speak the language at all ! And all of the above countries offer a translator if needed for school , hospital etc

I've got family that moved to Wales. They've admitted themselves they have given up trying to learn the language.

I think the governing body should refer this policy change to a lawyer. I would be concerned that it might amount to indirect discrimination on the grounds of race since it is bound to have a more adverse impact on people of different national origins. As governors you should also consider - do you need and equality impact assessment for this change in policy?

From a utilitarian perspective, the governing body should be asking - is the school going to improve the outcomes it’s scored on if it spends this translation money on other things? Or is the lack of communication going to lead to poorer outcomes and additional expenses that are not ameliorated by the freed up funding?

From a more general ethical perspective, on being annoyed at the parents because they haven’t learnt English despite living here -
I have a bit of sympathy with this, though would point out that it isn’t always an easy decision to move country and learning a new language later in life is extremely daunting for most people. But the people you’re serving are the children, not the parents. And the children are not responsible for their parents’ lack of action to learn English. The ones whose parents don’t learn English are likely to be hindered by that and to have that disadvantage compounded by the school refusing to take steps to communicate clearly seems unfair. If I were in charge of policy on a regional or national level I’d be interested in funding research to see if such a policy would actually encourage more parents to learn English and so improve outcomes, but I don’t think that’s a position you can reasonably take unless there is actually evidence it would work like that.

Yes, it feels like it has xenophobic (wrong word?!) undertones to it, rather than "budget".

Like I said, 40% of the pupils are FSM. It means that the school gets an approx £300K EXTRA A YEAR in pupil premium funding. The translator phone service costs last year was £1.5K, the rest is done through staff members translating, so it's hard to put a "cost" on that. But if pupil premium funding is meant to be spent on ensuring these vulnerable pupils can access education in the same way as other pupils, translating services seems a good use of money to me.

Also, I dispute that the head is entirely doing it for budget reasons. If a letter about a class trip is going out, and little Jonny moved from Poland 6 months ago, he will get the letter in Polish. Little Anna in the same class, who moved here 18 months ago and whose parents also only speak Polish, will only get the letter in English (despite the fact that there is a translated copy available because it's been done for Jonny!) as the school rule is "after 1yr you will not be given a translated letter, you need to do it yourself".

Ditto for headlice letters etc. If the school are giving it to some kids in their languages and have these letters available, it makes sense to give it to all kids, because that's a hell of a lot more likely to eradicate the headlice if the parents understand what they are reading!

I think the Head is of the opinion "not learning English is lazy, so tough", with no thought about why these families might not have learned English yet (being isolated by a spouse/unable to read or write in their own language etc).

But as I said, my kids left the school YEARS ago and I'm leaving the role at Christmas, so maybe this is a battle I just don't fight, and leave the school to it.

I’m an expat in a non English speaking country and I think the school have been more than reasonable! The parents should have made an effort to pick up the basic language within a year and of course they don’t have the budget to pay for a translator for those parents who don’t make an effort! When we have issues at school with language we simply use Google translate. It’s really not a big deal. Even letters can be translated using an app which allows your to photograph text and convert it to your native language. These translators are often very accurate these days and when there are small errors, it’s easy to figure out what was meant. I can’t believe the school was paying for a translator and not the parents in the first place.

And yes, the ideal should be to learn the language. No excuse not to with all these free apps and websites these days - tutors aren’t even needed. I learned our local language using a free app!

What are “(mostly) economic reasons”? Just curious.

People could bring their own translators or set up a voluntary scheme.Can't blame the school if money is tight.

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

After 5 years I think if someone wants to learn the language and communicate with others then they would be at least
be making some discernible progress

I don’t see how not being able to read or write in your native language would impact your ability to learn another language even if it was just verbal communication so you can ask someone to read the letter.

I think the school have done a huge amount to help people but some people don’t want to communicate with anyone outside their community.

So you say this to all the Brits who live in Spain and can't speak a word of Spanish?

Seems like the school could keep a load of stock letters in many languages that can just be reused forever eg

bring PE kit on M T W Th Fr
written in several languages, teacher just has to circle days

trip on Monday, bring coat (or teacher an circle from a list of provisions like hat or whatever.

i can’t imagine any school having enough money for translators.

by year 2 or whatever, the school will have taught the child basic reading, so I guess if letters are written in very basic English with pictures, then the child will be able to tell the parents what it says.

I’ve worked for two companies who wont offer translation services, and we deal with non English speakers, due to cost. So we turn people away now.

I think that if they get a year of lessons and interpreters, it's not unreasonable ' that'spretty generouscompared with most schools, i would assume. If the school already has translated letters, it seems unreasonable not to use those, but then I guess you have set s precedent and people will always expect it.

I do not think Welsh is quite the same, because there are very few monoglot Welsh speakers, especially over the age of 5. (I am currently at uwch level as a Welsh learner, so I'd be fine. Or at least, I'd get by.)

I can't imagine going to a country and not picking up the language. Even with less than a week's holiday in places like Budapest, I usually find I'm starting to pick up some words, like "street" and "restaurant" and if I were living there, I'd want to understand what was going on around me.

I had to laugh at the irony here.

I've lived abroad, as a child and an adult. Was at school in a different language all the same.

I knew English ex-pats who didn't learn the language in 3-5 years. But I was semi-fluent in 6 months, had friends who could translate, so did my parents. They weren't fluent but could get by. By one year in, we could all deal with this kind of thing.

However:

It was a Latin alphabet
My father worked outside the home
My mother had decent money and was allowed hobbies, friends, an outside life
We had access to language classes
There were no education or other barriers
We're all extroverts who chose to be there. Not trauma-impacted, introverted refugees

A year seems very little. Typically refuges take a coupe of years to move from subsistence level lives and that's often about language. Two years is probably more realistic. Sex and sexism are really important. Are women being offered women-only classes, at convenient times, with childcare for younger children? This was very helpful when I did education classes for Somali immigrants. I did them at the school after drop off so it was so convenient. With snacks and childcare and so accessible you'd fall over it. Teach the women and the whole community benefits. Everyone learns. Teach the men and you'll help them work outside the home.

@Roja7 India has about 24 official languages (not dialects but languages), so learning Hindi or a Urdu would only serve you in the North, generally speaking. Hindi is not actually the national language.
That said, I take your larger point.

I think it is fine, I used to organise a parents evening BSL interpreter for a parent whose first language was BSL, because it was always hard for her to make contact and build rapport with staff, but other parents were expected to organise translators for themselves, which was something that was easy for them to do by using friends or family members. We simply couldn’t afford it. I did also use to help with form filling eg FSM applications and secondary transfers for those who wanted me to because I felt that that was part of my job.

I think it’s more than reasonable , it’s not a bottomless pit .

Could it also be an attempt to further encourage parents to learn English? Surely this would benefit the pupils as well as the community as a whole?

I agree that any immigrant should make an effort to learn the local language, especially if their children attend school there.

However, I find it hard to get over the immense irony of a bunch of British people berating immigrants for not learning the local language, really. I have lived in 5 countries and spent time in a dozen others, and the one and only nationality I always see refusing to learn the local language when they emigrate are... you have one guess... yep, British. They often spend decades in another country and are often unable to mutter a simple basic word in the local language, and on top of that, often complain that the locals don't speak English to them!. They spend their lives making friends with the group of English-speaking expats, send their kids to English schools, look for businesses that speak English, refuse to even try the local food and look for fish and chips instead... Come on guys, have a bit of self-awareness.

Some of the refugee families I work with find learning English excruciatingly difficult. Someone mentioned in this thread that "English is one of the easiest languages to learn"... That's ludicrous. English is one of the hardest languages to learn as an adult - save for Asian languages, due mainly to the different writing -without a basic knowledge of it: it is written in a completely non-phonetic way, its grammar rules are broken more times than kept, and the variety of strong, thick accents even within the realms of a single city in the UK make it really hard for someone to understand or to try to start a conversation. In other countries, English movies are often dubbed to the local language so no, most people around the world don't watch English TV series and movies... what an ignorant, preposterous assumption to make! On top of that, the British in general are not the most sociable or easy bunch to approach I have to say, nor the easiest to befriend. Just look at how many members here even refuse to answer the door when you knock, or start a conversation with a stranger... imagine a friendly refugee neighbour trying to socialise?

So yes, "people in the UK should learn to speak English", but please make an effort to empathise and be kind, because your country is far from the best model on "expats who learn the local language".

Yes, budgets are under pressure. But as a PP says everyone ends up losing when schools don't provide translation services. There are reasons people don't learn English -- often they are too busy working to learn. I understand the budget issue (try moving to America where schools have a legal obligation to provide translation services, though not for every meeting: my district's website is in 7 languages including Amharic!) but people are very dismissive of the need for translation a priori.

In my district we've had an influx of Central American parents who not only do not speak English, they don't speak Spanish well. They primarily speak Mayan languages and don't have high levels of literacy. It's very hard for them, and it's not easy to find translators either.

It's hard on children when they're forced to interpret for parents. it puts them in awkward situations and there's the potential for kids to lie.

Indeed; the ignorance and racism on this thread is shocking. The kids will be worse off / disadvantaged further.

I can see both sides.

Translators / interpreters can be expensive.

But it is possible to live and work in some parts of the UK with little to no English (Wesh, Gaelic or Irish).

I think standard letters should be available for things like parents' evenings, if they are on file and you can just add a date and print then that's fairly easy to do.

It isn't always easy for people to learn a language, the school are offering lessons but can a parent bring their younger child(ren)? Do they have a babysitter for the evening class?

ESOL teaching has been cut to the bone.

I worked in a college in Staffordshire, I didn't work in the ESOL department but the ESOL classes were mainly attended by the wives of Gurkhas.

They didn't have a lot of resources outside the classroom or class outings because they lived in the same place (married quarters) as other Nepali speakers.

These women were highly motivated to learn