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.

At my dc's primary school in Scotland there were 46 languages spoken. Not sure how on earth a school would provide that many translators!

That's surely another reason for the parents to be more proactive learning basic English then.

Schools have no funds and interpreters are super expensive so this is a fair decision. People need to learn English if they live here.

My first thought was that this was not unreasonable. Why would the parents not speak English? Why should the school pay for translators?

Then I realised that I moved to Wales twelve years ago. My child attends a Welsh medium school. Along with a third of the parents, I don't speak Welsh. I've picked up a few words - enough that I'm quite pleased with myself, to be honest - but not enough to follow a parents' evening o'r read aetter about a school trip. Luckily for me, every letter is bilingual and every meeting etc. at the school is in Welsh first then English. I'm very reliant on this and would be a bit lost without it.

On this basis, I'm a bit conflicted.

I am a non-native speaker of the country I live in and it would be laughable for them to provide translation services at all, let alone after the first 6 months. They need to learn the language!!
There are lots of non-native speakers here due to wars etc and the kids get extra lessons but the parents need to step up. It’s not the school‘s job for goodness sake. They need to do it for their kids and to be happier and more integrated. It’s not rocket science!

Using translators in schools and in LA's cost a fortune. Getting letters and forms translated in other languages is very expensive. I know, I used to book the translators and send off literature to be translated. I'm in full agreement with the school. Sometimes parents can bring other family members or friends to translate if they want to. I worked with the parents of some children who'd been in this country for many, many years and hadn't learned any English.

My grandparents are Welsh but don't speak Welsh, my mother is Welsh but doesn't speak Welsh, I'm half Welsh and dont speak Welsh.
Only 28% of Welsh people can speak Welsh 😂

All these people who say "just learn English it's easy" .. English is not easy actually. It's got a lot of irregularities and if you speak a completely different language it can be tough. I speak several languages and also lived abroad with DC in a country with a tough language to learn (different alphabet as well) and I struggled to read after 3 years of classes (admittedly was working so only did a couple lessons a week) and my reading age was around that of an 8 year old. Speaking/comprehension was better and I absolutely could have coped with "PE kit on a Thursday type" conversations but I would not have been able to have a detailed conversation about my DC and learning challenges for example.
I borrowed friends and colleagues for important conversations e.g medical.

So in answer to your post @CapturedLeprechaun I think the school has to make savings where it can and this seems a reasonable suggestion. However, I think the school should continue to provide the service IF the parents are unable to find someone to help and IF the conversation is on something that is complex and non standard or sensitive. I think the risk of not being able to have these conversations properly is too high.
For standard stuff they can rely on previous copies of letters and/or apps and that is quite reasonable.

Don't be conflicted. Only 28% of people who were born and raised in Wales can speak Welsh and even less can read and write Welsh

I would actually learn the language of my new country if I planned to stay there, don't assume everyone expects English to be spoken everywhere just because they think people moving to the UK should attempt to learn it.

This is one of the reasons that so many economic migrants want to come here. We are seen as a soft touch.

Reading your email about costs though, are letters actually still sent out rather than emailed or put on a school app? Because if the foreign language ones (translation made for Johnny not Anna) were online then that would be easy, surely. Also if correspondence is all electronic then it's easy to copy and paste into Google translate (I know you can take a photo/scan live but copy paste is still the best). Assuming Google translate is good for their languages.

The issue about native literacy levels or even being able to write Latin script are very valid. The thing is, it's not the school's responsibility to teach parents this. It's a bit like the police refusing to attend mental health crises: as it's not their task, they aren't given budget or sufficient training for doing it. It also masks the actual issue. It could be that by stopping filling this gap it's painful in the short term but actually highlights the issue and possibly funding can be allocated to someone who can adequately tackle the problem. And if anybody thinks these parents should integrate, then it's something that will require some money and expertise to achieve.

hmm, my kids attended schools with high rate of non-English speaking parents. I am not aware that they paid for translation services. it was done via staff and family/friends. in the face of it, I think that's an ok approach and financially sensible. BUT, from what you have said, it sounds like the HT is motivated more by 'fuck you, you should learn to speak English'?

tbh, I'm more horrified that he is taking a zero tolerance approach to absences. I think fining and imprisoning parents is grotesque

It's too expensive as others have said, I worked in the public sector before retirement. On any day I could deal with umpteen people who either spoke no English or who had no competency in the language. It was costly and time consuming to get an interpreter, if letters had to be given in a different language it cost more. I dealt with several people who spoke languages that were rare and getting an interpreter for those languages demanded booking in advance. One language ,there was only one person on the books of the agency who spoke that language. If he wasn't available we were stuck. Yes,I know English isn't easy to learn,but honestly the public sector can't continue to do it for ever.

Google translate is absolutely incredible and more that sufficient for “bring PE kit on Wednesday” . I support translators in hospital when it’s life or death but in schools where it’s not time or life critical, and funding is scarce, I completely support the school’s decision.

I would actually learn the language of my new country if I planned to stay there, don't assume everyone expects English to be spoken everywhere just because they think people moving to the UK should attempt to learn it.

And yet a HUGE number of Brits living abroad don't speak much, if any, of their local language. I've even had a British person tell me they integrated in the country, when they don't speak the language! They say their local friends say they're integrated too. Yet those friends can't speak their own language when this person is around, because she doesn't understand. And she's lived there 10+ years. That's not a one off!

I'm not excusing anybody for not learning the local language, but the idea that Brits would do it and foreigners in the U.K. don't is flat out wrong!

Brits not learning languages abroad works well for me though, because when I speak and make some mistakes, it's all glossed over because "locals" are simply shocked that a Brit has even bothered to try!

I honestly think this is a good way to get long term residents to learn English. I worked in a big factory with lots of Europeans and a lot couldn't speak much English. But they weren't bothered about learning because so many people spoke their language. Some lived here over 10 years. The ones that could speak English said they liked to speak with me as it helped them and found they struggled with their English before as no one spoke it to learn.

There's also a possibility that they can speak English but are nervous about getting it wrong. It took a good few months to get some people to speak to me because of this. But I had no issues with their English. I could understand and they grew more confident to ask me questions to learn more

Yes but it's not an equivalence. English is available because it's many people's second language. So if you were Chinese, for instance, living in Sweden, you might not speak Swedish but there's a high chance you'd speak some English, so it's worth having documents translated into English.

Would your family country provide the same documents in 50 or so other languages? Because that's the problem. It would be fine for the school to provide translations into, say French, if all immigrants spoke French as their second language. But there are loads of different languages and it makes it untenable for schools.

Me too

A lot of this really sounds like waste of time and money in an age where a parent can get a decent translation of a letter by taking a picture of the letter and running it through Google.

I just can’t imagine any school having the money to fund this level of translation. We do what we can and ask staff to come and interpret in really important meetings if they speak the relevant language (and there is a significant barrier to communication without them) but that pulls them away from other work. We just can’t afford to spare people for routine meetings. Translating all letters would be a nightmare… we have somewhere in the region of 100 languages spoken by our families. I believe the school communication app has some in-built translation where parents can select a language and it will run it through a computer translator. I don’t know how good it is or how many languages it offers though.

There just isn’t the money.

@Wishthiswasntmypost agreed.

Anyone who hasn’t bothered their arse to learn English after years in the UK is unlikely to care about their kids homework / uniform etc either tbh.
Sheer laziness!

I think after all the responses we can agree this is a ‘nice to have’ rather than an ‘essential’

You can’t go to another country and make your language barrier someone else’s problem.

I think everyone should learn the local language of a country they move to, regardless of circumstance. British ex-pats who have moved to Spain who don't speak Spanish I am as critical of as those parents the OP refers to.

However, the reality is different, and it is often the mother who is less likely to be competent or fluent in English especially if a SAHM. So I think the school has got it wrong with their decision, assuming they don't facilitate ESOL classes for those parents.

Agree