To think amount of Roma and Traveller children withdrawn from school underage needs to be cracked down on?

[Jane379]

Two things have made me think about this.

One was the recent thread on Venezuela Fury, Tyson's daughter. Her situation appears slightly different as apparently she did receive tuition online but it made me look into the wider situation.

I know there has been improvement, and that many Roma & travellers families don't do this. But it shouldn't be allowed in the first place. Yes, some who do may homeschool their kids properly, but how many?

There needs to be more regulation of homeschooling.

Why do Roma & traveller kids often slip through the net? Is it sometimes linked to families moving around so children move from one LA to another?

There' nothing wrong with kids preferring to pursue technical options than academic, or living the travelling lifestyle. But school would give them a chance to choose.

In the Uk the kirpan is allowed. Larger blades are not allowed.

I can understand the desire to keep "toileting" away from food stuffs in a small space.
But I can't understand why people use parks as toilets.

But not all parents can successfully hoe educate their children, so surely there should be certain criteria, standards and checks?

It should never have been. If we were to go and live in another country we would have to abide by their laws.

👍

We could make Home Education legal only if the parents can prove they are able to provide a suitable education, and all children receiving home education should be monitored.
No British girl should be growing up functionally illiterate, but with excellent caravan cleaning skills.
A 'culture' that wants that is not worthy of respect.

@aberamagold But wouldn't that be argued to be discrimination in itself? Who would you perceive as being able to "provide a suitable education?"

Glass houses and stones. Look at the rate of exclusions and alternative provision, British values are not to give every child a good start in life and no-one bats an eyelid over all the 16 year olds leaving school that can't read we just pretend they aren't there.

Protection under the Equality Act is protection from discrimination. It doesn't grant any exemptions from the same laws that apply to everyone else.

The fact that idiotic DEI policies have given people authorised to enforce the law the impression that some people can do what they like as its 'their culture' is a disgrace.

If everybody knew that travellers had to obey the same laws as the rest of us, they'd probably find they face a lot less 'discrimination'.

Completely agree.

How would that work when LA's can't even provide suitable education for some children with SEND and parents feel like they have no choice but to home educate?

@aberamagold There are also many non-traveller families out there who "EHE" but in essence fail to provide their child with any sort of education.

The trouble is they may have to obey the same laws as the rest of us, but as we know, they often don’t!

The legal definition of a suitable education in terms of home education is "it achieves that which is sets out to achieve". This is to cover for differences in culture/ability/faith/finance

@Councilworker Exactly. So "I am home educating my child to become a professional gamer" passes.

The 'nimbys' probably just want rules on planning permission enforced.
The same rules that apply to anyone else who fancies buying a plot of land in the country and setting up home on it.

So many factors that could be improved by better maternal education.

Disapproving of other people's cultural practices is not racist.
Not all cultures are worthy of the same respect.

I admit it is many years since I watched the documentary so I can't remember the full details. I don't know if it was a planning permission issue or not.
I do remember it did change my views on some traveller communities as this particular group really did seem to want to settle and stay put and I couldn't really see a reason why they couldn't stay and get on with their lives.

Not the original point of the thread but I recently dated someone whose kids were being brought up with traveller traditions (he was only half traveller but his ex was fully). His ex's eldest daughter - his stepdaughter - had just had a baby.

His 13 year old daughter still fully believes that if you want a baby then you just turn up at the hospital and ask for one. I'm being completely serious.

Me personally I would prefer my child to know if someone was behaving inappropriately with them, and also would like to give them some explanation around basic biology before they spend their wedding night confused and in pain.

What I have learnt from this thread is that lots of people have never really had any meaningful interactions with the GRT community or ever worked with them, interacted with people and just form their own opinions. The discrimination and persecution that this group have faced both historically, and in the present is really shocking. Some understanding of this would really help moving forward but racism still seems acceptable towards this community.

As a CP social worker, having support from an amazing GRT team in my city, the issue is often not the family but a complete lack of of understanding of cultural nuance or recognisation of parental experiences growing up. Primary school fine, as soon as they hit high school, it all goes to shit. Refusal to book interpreters for meetings (costs money), not working restoratively- because they just need to be told, expecting parents who grew up under a regime of extreme prejudice and brutality from state agencies to just fall in line, understand the SEND process etc

The increasing lack of tolerance in this country and the need to scapegoat the most vulnerable is exhausting. The right wing media just whip up a frenzy and highlight any crime committed by 'others'. In the real world, bad people, are mainly born and bread in the UK with 'British Values' whatever they are. They also commit domestic violence and kill their partners. They get involved in drunk fights and commit GBH and kill, then there the are drug dealers, not nice people whi are involved in criminal exploitation, drug smuggling, people smuggling etc. Do not kid yourself these are all foreign gangs. Then the huge numbers involved in white collar crime which totally dwarves benefit fraud......

I think that's a very good thing. Children are not allowed to be children these days with the whole world constantly pushing adult things onto them. From triangle bikinis to pornographic advertising, hardly anything is child friendly anymore.

If you think girls get to the point of getting married with absolutely no idea what's what then you're mistaken.

I think you must be talking about Dale farm. Some of the travellers had planning permission to be there. ( And didn't actually travel anywhere). But others built on land without planning permission . Same as anyone else if you want to build somewhere you need planning permission. Why do travellers get special exemptions
The official traveller site at oak lane is still there
And btw the school is crays hill primary which hasn't closed down at all and is still nearly all traveller kids. None of the" nimbys" as you put it would send their kids there through choice

So true, I'd say that you don't really need meaningful interaction to recognise they're people just the same and prejudicing a whole group is always wrong. None of this does anything to support anyone

Again, not the only ones are they? Neighbours built something different from their planning, happens all the time. Most people that ignore planning regs are not travellers