What do you say to people who blame immigration for the fact school places are in short supply?

[Lottielou7]

Of the few people I know who voted for Brexit, they are adamant that school places are difficult to get because of immigration. The one who says it the most has 6 children! I can't stand this scapegoating. Personally, I think birth rates have risen generally. My friends and I all mostly have 3 children. I'm an only and as a child of the 80s people had mostly one or two.

So what do you say in response when people come out with this old chestnut.

Personal experience does not trump data, personal experience by definition is a very narrow "experience" of the circumstances.

One person saying:" I didn't get my school place because the immigrants kid did" does not mean therefore that ALL school shortages are because of immigration, or that school shortages are experienced by the majority of the population.

87% of primary school children get their first choice.

You're right Fawful & Smallfox - I'm in a shit temper and should have expressed that differently.

Sorry
(Genuine)

This is not the only thread I've been a knob on today.
Apologies.

Don't worry, it happens to us all.

The reason I was snippy/sneery towards Evelyn is that she got my back up with her response to my original post which accused me of feeling entitled when it is clear, I think that what I was saying is that someone with 6 children should be able to appreciate that birth rates have risen. and I'm particularly irritable because of a slipped disc wtf does that actually mean? She was the one who used the word 'foreigners' first and then other people accused me of having the opinion that all Leave voters are racist when I have never actually said that.

People see what they want to see.

I thought Gove, blocked building of schools, so its ironic for him to be complaining about pressures.

It's OK MangoMoon (I've done worse once (or was it twice? )

As far as I am aware, the building of new schools by LEA's was blocked and left to the private sector to do so through the academies program. This has been done, but in many areas free schools and academies have been built where there are already surplus places. This is not always the case, but many areas in need of extra places have not seen new schools open, despite need.

In 2010/11 it was known that we would need extra places for Primary and that the trend for falling secondary school enrollment would start to be reveresed from 2015.

There has been sufficient "planning" time, however pointing to the general trend of 87% of students getting first choice primary and 80% of students getting first choice secondary, this doesn't indicate a massive shortage of spaces.

There are areas under pressure which needed further funding but these have been impacted by national government policy, not "uncontrolled immigration" as the increasing birthrate/population density in these areas would have created an extra need anyway.

"I don't know how everyone can go on about use of stats when there were never going to be any stats for the amount of EU 'uncontrolled' immigration."

Cause the stats indicate how many children there will be in the UK in say 5 or more years time, they are taken from birth registrations, not census data. The vast majority of children to an immigrant mother (the way we measure this) were born in this country, far, far fewer were brought with their parents as immigrants, in fact so few that their impact on school places would be negligible.

I'm sick of this constant bleat of "controlled immigration" cause you know what, the immigration that we can control is higher than the "uncontrolled" EU element and it varies quite considerably from year to year (30,000 more this year than last) , we don't know how many children these immigrants are going to have either.

The points about "controlling immigration" because of the pressures on services are nothing more than an attempt to cover a much darker and more nefarious opinion with one that might possibly be acceptable.

Funny too, how predictions about the future are dismissed when its convenient by the brexit camp, and expert advice ignored, yet when you want to use it to support your point you're quite happy.

Can you link to the Hawking predictions? The ones I find are from this year in the Guardian where he is broadly supportive of immigration or the one from last year where he says the Human race won't last 1,000 more years if the population is left to grow.

Nothing like the "SCARE MONGERING" you do.

She was the one who used the word 'foreigners' firs

There isn't actually anything wrong with the word 'foreigners'. It's a perfectly serviceable word.

We sometimes seem to have surrendered it to the racist right and use long phrases like 'non British nationals', 'EU passport holders' or sometimes 'foreign nationals' to edge eccentrically around it.

The sarcastic MN 'forriner' usage is a different matter. That wore thin a long time ago.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1572262/One-in-five-babies-born-to-migrants-in-UK.html

Immigrant mothers are having far more children than their British counterparts - fuelling the biggest rise in population since the 1960s baby boom.

The proportion of births to foreign mothers is up by a third since 2001 and by almost half since Labour came to power.

www.standard.co.uk/news/one-in-five-babies-born-to-a-foreign-mother-as-the-population-booms-6672257.html

The birth rate was driven up by large numbers of women in their 20s and 30s becoming mothers, along with an increase in the number of migrant families in the UK.

The number of non-UK born mothers was about 26%, according to the ONS.

The Public Administration Select Committee warned last month that migration statistics are "little better than a best guess" and could be out by tens of thousands

^^ Yes, a baby boom in part down to out of control immigration.

Our closest school is 70% Non English speaking and its not a mixed cohort its mostly Eastern European.

I guess the Blair government had the good fore planing to allow for this and ploughed money into building new schools to accommodate the people they invited here? We have had play ground built over to provide new classrooms, and a brand new school and more in the pipe line.

"Immigrant mothers are having far more children than their British counterparts - fuelling the biggest rise in population since the 1960s baby boom"

Immigrant mothers have 2.1 babies on average, UK mothers 1.8, not really dramtically different.

"Yes, a baby boom confused in part down to out of control immigration. "

No it isn't there has been an over all increase and only 25% of the babies born are down to mothers that are non UK citizens. Think about that for a second, how many are born to UK fathers?

"Our closest school is 70% Non English speaking and its not a mixed cohort its mostly Eastern European. "

Anecdote, blah, blah, blah.

87% of school children get their first choice primary school, 80% of secondary students too.

We knew about the baby boom as early as 2010, if there are school shortages in some areas it is down to national government decisions.

Oooh, can I here that dog whistle?

news.sky.com/story/1126105/biggest-baby-boom-for-40-years-in-the-uk

www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-511171/Maternity-units-turn-away-British-mums-immigrants-baby-boom-costs-NHS-350m.html

Last summer, a maternity crisis hit the county of Berkshire as a direct result of the rise in babies born to immigrant mothers.
It led to the temporary closure of the maternity unit at Heatherwood Hospital in Ascot because hospitals in nearby Slough and Reading could not cope.
Heatherwood's midwives and other staff were needed in larger hospitals and its maternity unit shut on August 5.
Its staff and mothers moved to Wexham Park Hospital, near Slough, where an extra 150 immigrant babies were delivered.
Heatherwood re-opened its unit on October 1.

Professor Philip Steer, editor of the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, said: "The Department of Health has been taken by surprise.
"The demographic change, the sheer numbers, has in some areas increased very substantially without there being any forward planning really to allow for that
Only last year they published a review of maternity services which didn't include anything on the impact of migration

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/5362209/Baby-boom-nation-as-births-reach-highest-level-for-36-years.html

A new baby-boom is under way as the number of children reaches the highest level since 1972, as an increase in older mothers and immigration fuel rise.

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7215624.stm

The NHS is spending £350m a year to provide maternity services for foreign-born mothers, £200m more than a decade ago, the BBC has found.

Immigration has raised the birth rate so fast that some units have closed, so that midwives could be moved to areas of urgent need

A unit in Ascot, Berkshire, shut for two months in 2007 because staff had to be transferred to Slough.
The NHS says it is working to "build in" the extra capacity needed.
Other maternity units have turned expectant mothers away because they could not cope with unprecedented increases in the local birth rate.
When Labour came to power, the NHS spent around £1bn a year on maternity services, with one baby in eight delivered to a foreign-born mother.
Ten years on, spending has risen to £1.6bn, with almost one baby in four delivered to a mother born overseas.

You haven't proved anything with all of that,

Immigration has increased yes, they are young people they are going to have children. They pay taxes too.

The fact that the children's births are easily recorded should make it easy to prepare for school places too.

You do realise those articles you linked to were from 2008 ?

what should those of us who are here, totally legally, do?

not send my children to school?

They are half English (via their father) maybe they could alternate days?

I am a citizen now too, since the mid 2000s- am I still an immigrant depriving people of what us rightfully theirs?

when some posters describe us, we sound less like people, and more like an infestation

it is actually kind of awful to think that there are definitely parts of the population that regard you as verminous, because you were born somewhere else

you are not you, hardworking, employed, whatever- just some kind of resource drain

when some posters describe us, we sound less like people, and more like an infestation 

it is actually kind of awful to think that there are definitely parts of the population that regard you as verminous, because you were born somewhere else

Which word is it you mean?

sorry, was I unclear?

reading some posts on this thread, news stories, posts on Facebook, Twitter, and yes, people who have said, guess you're going home now (I've live most of my adult life here, 15 years, I thought this was home) I have come to feel that yes, many people seem to think people who have immigrated to this country are at best an unwitting drain on resources, at worst, a kind of infestation, malignant.

I hope my feeling really threatened and depressed didn't make you feel bad though I apologise if it did.

Yes, you're unclear.

Which posts/posters on this thread have invoked imagery of verminous infestations?

I don't see immigration as the problem. I see government underfunding as the main issue.

BUT, I don't think the statistics match people's RL experience.

It said above , statistics, something like, roughly :
the 75% British,
1.8 % this, 1.2 % that.

Our local schools aren't like that. Nowhere near 75% British. Much lower than that. We have a large proportion of other nationalities. Both parents are of say Malaysian or polish or other nationality, the children are too, born in their native country, now moved here. Both patents are working, not claiming benefits.

It's not their fault. They are some sort of 'migrant scum'.

But the class is certainly not 75% British.

I am non-UK born due to the fact that my British father was serving in the British armed forces overseas when I was born (accompanied by my British mother). I therefore have British nationality (since birth), but on any census, I'd count as born outside the UK. This is not unusual for the children of British servicemen or British diplomats. I really resent this term "non-UK born mothers". I mean, congratulations, you were born in the UK due to the fact that your parents happened to be here when you were born, or their job (serving this country) didn't involve living outside the UK. I'm no less British than the next person, but I wasn't born in the UK.

Given that I'm non-UK born and dh (who hasn't lived in the country he was born in since he's was 10 yo) doesn't have British nationality, maybe our children are exactly the type preventing children of UK born parents getting into schools. We'll gladly leave and head back to whatever country we "come from" if only someone would explain where that is

But as previously said we need to use stats because individual experience is not the broader picture. Sorry

I hope my feeling really threatened and depressed didn't make you feel bad though  I apologise if it did.

You see, people on the 'correct side of the immigration debate pulling that kind of slimy stunt and the slimy stunt above, really, REALLY aren't helping.

Just have the conversation.

What kind of person alleges that there's been imagery of vermin when there hasn't? You must know what history you're invoking.

But as previously said we need to use stats because individual experience is not the broader picture. Sorry

Absolutely-bloody-lutely.