To think amount of Roma and Traveller children withdrawn from school underage needs to be cracked down on?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

My primary school had a lot of traveller children - some stayed permanently but many dropped in and out. I think you may be right OP that it can be hard to track them since they move around.
There was a really bad situation once where two traveller families had a big fight in the playground at hometime. About 40 people were involved. They had to lock down the school and the police took ages to come. It was really frightening.
I imagine the school were quite pleased when those kids moved on!

There’s evidence that turbans provide a level of head protection similar to motorbike helmets (not full face helmets obviously). In fact a turban called the Tough Turban was invented that is advertised as being as good as helmet. Just food for thought…

Exactly this. Thank you for the clarity.

I have just looked this up, and it seems - unbelievably - to be true.

The fact they are travellers is incidental. No "may be" about it that I can see. What is it about being a traveller that you think makes travellers more likely to be rapists? Lower school attendance can't explain it, if we're to believe the reports of rampant misogyny in schools.

NC for this. Travellers don’t home educate. I worked in a position that put me in close proximity to many sites and families. Literacy is extremely poor, many can’t read or write at all. Any paper work is ignored - bills, appointments, court summons. Girls are married young and there are huge problems with domestic abuse which is never reported. They can’t escape, they have no skills and nowhere to go. Look at statistics on travellers dying young - mental health, depression, suicide all ignored - they just hold lavish funerals but never tackle the underlying issues. Crime is rife and disputes between families are settled their way. There is huge mistrust of outsiders known as ‘gorjas’ or country people.

I'd like to see rules on home education generally. Rules that are enforced, standards that must be met.

🙁 Is that higher than other ethnic groups? Any stats on causes?

They are the ethnicity most likely to be racially abused and bullied in school, most likely to be excluded, and most likely to have parents who also found school a hideous, hostile environment. Parents are fairly likely to be illiterate and understandably wary of the racism of authority, and therefore struggle to navigate the system and support their children. Tbh, every GRT kid who makes it through the doors of a secondary school (primary is easier) is already doing something pretty brave.

I think homeschooling should be illegal partly due to working with GRT kids extensively, but the school system has also got to stop failing these students so badly.

Penknives have also been used to kill people https://www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/exeter-murder-trial-10-pocket-8636346

This is the first instance I have ever heard of where a Sikh has used their dagger to harm, I would argue their risk is on the level of a penknife, i.e. close to harmless the majority of the time.

I think the biggest change to knife laws we should be implementing is for knives sold to have rounded/ blunt tips- there is no need for kitchen knives to have the sharp points that make them capable of stabbing.

Kitchen knives are infinitely more likely to be involved in a fatality. Why don't we focus on making the ones for sale less harmful?

From my own experience- huge mistrust of medical experts, little pre natal care, no vaccinations, reluctance to attend appointments, can’t read basic information including prescriptions and medical leaflets.

The law is the same for everyone. Parents have the right to home school or provide alternative education for their children rather than schools

The problem is this is barely regulated. Parents have no legal obligation to provide information to the local authority to prove their provision to the child. They dont have to engage with the visits.

The minute you question home schooling you get a pile on and how fabulous home schooling is.

Their culture and refusal to integrate is what fails them.

I was a governor at a school with around 10-15% traveller kids from a settled site in the village.

Very very few of the kids went to secondary, boys mostly starting work immediately and girls helping on the site. All had pretty good attendance at primary. One family within the site had a lot of attention from social services, and the kids in that family did attend secondary, I think because there was more visibility. The girl is now in sixth form, which is a really great outcome but unusual for the site as a whole.

The head had a pretty good relationship, which helped attendance and engagement I think, but obviously not enough to manage getting them all the way through education.

I think there is lots of validity in that, but also not ignoring that if some of the GRT kids are aggressive and badly behaved, when other kids challenge that or teachers challenge and discipline, it will be claimed that this is occuring out of racism

Well said!

Travellers opt out or only partially opt in to formal education for many good reasons. Traveller children experience a lot of bullying (ie anti traveller racism), which is seen to do more harm than is worth the gains of school. Traveller lifestyles and values often make consistent attendance impossible - a family funeral for example, a 6hour drive away, might mean spending a longer time in that area, to be with the wider family and community. I don't think that's a bad thing. And much of the work travellers do doesn't require formal education.

I have a degree, and if my kids want to go to uni, I'll be happy to support them. But if they don't, and want to earn a living in a trade or spend their working lives bringing up their own kids and supporting working siblings and all that, I'll be just as happy. As long as they pick good partners and they have enough money to live well, I don't think a degree or a few a levels matters as much as I used to think it did.

Their culture is as valid as any other culture. Why don't you integrate with them instead?

Traveller culture is known to often (not always) be misogynistic especially towards non Traveller women as I said above.

I don't know about Roma who are a separate group. I think there are similar issues with school attendance though.

I didn’t realise those three filthy rapists were travellers as I hadn’t seen that mentioned.

Passionatelu agree with the first paragraph!! Not sure I agree that homeschooling should be illegal, but I can see why it's worth considering. But mandatory education needs to accommodate a range of cultures and the lifestyles that go along with that.

A thread about attacking the travelling community, you manage to get the hat trick of going for halal meat?? ( have you read about Kosher practices?) And the Sikhs…. Racist racist frickin racists in plain sight.

Yet again @mumsnet allows racism, misinformation and bigotry.

Cease-pit of hate and racism

Ok but can we try not to derail into the knife issue? There's already several threads on that

This has been the main focus of my job for the last decade. Home education being deemed unsuitable for kids because there is non going on and then getting them back into school. My council was very proactive and dealing with EHE and assesment of it long before the recent discussions.
So we allocate places to these families, issue school attendance orders, take it to court for failing to register the child and then refer to social care for educational neglect and then the family moves and the kids are still out of school. We do border checks to see if Roma families have left the UK, we follow up leads from health and the police about kids being out of school and do home visits. We try every single thing to get these kids in school and it still doesn't happen. So please do tell me how to enforce it.