Good school but child is a minority

[Eudaimonia11]

This is so bloody awkward! Please be kind.

DD is in Year 9 at the best school where we live, it has great GCSE results and it’s quite a well sought after school. The problem is she’s the only white kid in her classes and one of only about 5 white kids in the whole year.

She has friends at school but doesn’t feel like she fits in - the school is predominantly Muslim and we’re not. She feels so lonely outside of school as none of her friends are allowed to socialise. She’s started army cadets which has definitely helped but she still feels lonely and wants mates to just hang out with at weekends.

I went to a secondary school that was pretty much 50/50 white and Pakistani/Bangladeshi. Most of my Asian mates couldn’t hang out outside of school but I did have two friends who were allowed out and we’d walk around the shops on a Saturday afternoon or I’d go to their house (they weren’t allowed to come to mine). It was nowhere near as bad as it is for DD.

Her school have a “Culture Day” once a term which is approx every 6 weeks where DD says she feels excluded and is made to feel bad about being English. She says every single time, she gets comments from people making fun of her for having no culture. Instead of the well-intentioned day being about celebrating diversity, it seems to be a day where DD feels like crap.

There is a teacher who makes jokes in Urdu each lesson (not about DD!) and that makes her feel more excluded. I experienced the same at primary school when I was the only white kid in the class, I remember how much it used to upset me but I didn’t tell anyone. Mr Hussein, you were horrible!

DD did have a school friend who she would go out at weekends with but she’s moved quite far away so they’ve lost touch.

DD is begging me to let her move schools. She’d have to travel by bus to get to the nearest school that is more mixed and that school isn’t as good.

I don’t want her GCSEs to be affected just for the sake of her having friends that don’t ridicule her for being English. I’m also worried about her starting a new school where she doesn’t know anyone halfway through Year 9. What if she gets bullied? What if it’s worse than where she is now?

But I can see how much this is all affecting her. She’s gone from enjoying school in Year 7 to hating it in Year 9.

What should I do?

I guess it depends what you find more important.

DS is at a boys grammar in which white boys are the minority. He has lots of friends but no, they're not having sleepover every weekend and I really don't see a problem with that at all.

I'm happy he's in one of the best schools in the area and I'm not sure I'd swap him out without trying everything to make him understand how lucky he is.

What should I have said in my OP and what should I not have said? I started saying white but that’s not really what the issue is - neither DD or I give a shit about what colour skin her classmates have, it’s not a skin colour problem. But you’re saying that me saying we’re English is also wrong.

My kid is being discriminated against at school. This is wrong. She wants to move schools because of this and because her school friends don’t socialise outside of school. I’ve held back due to the school’s GCSE results. Helpful people responded saying “bloody move her!” This is what I was leaning towards so I’ve decided to get on with it and move her.

You have equated English with being white. Yeah, no.

Move her, keeping her mental health intact is worth more than exam results. I moved my DD, she didn’t fit, her new school wasn’t great academically but she got what she needed, and has remained a confident happy girl, still in contact with friends she went on to make, support from parents is needed rather than being told to get on with it.

So you are Asian & English? Could a white person from any European/Western country be Asian if they went to live in a country in Asia? Would their children be Asian because they were born there? I am English, if I moved to Japan for example and made my life there and had a child there, am I and my child Japanese as well as English?

Your OP was fine. But you subsequently said this:

It’s not right that English kids are made to feel unwelcome at schools in England!

The Muslim children at your DD’s school are almost certainly English. That they are from a culture (not even to do with religion - we have a similar thing round here which is cultural, not religious) that doesn’t allow the kind of socialising that’s standard for white British kids.

I agree, move her. Friendships are so important at this age and to be excluded by peers and teachers is a terrible experience. Shame on the school for allowing teachers to exercise prejudice in class.

In what way?
They are under no obligation to socialise with people from outside their own community. I don't agree with it but they can
And how does someone "behave like they are English" exactly?
OP needs to move her DD but not due to anyone not having UK Values

@Holluschickie so I should have said white and not English? But then that sounds like the issue is that she’s white and wants white friends which isn’t true. Her best friend that left school is black and reading between the lines, I think she left for the same reason as my daughter!

I too would move her. DS had trouble in the last year of secondary, if if had been earlier I'd definitely have moved him. This was a very mixed, city school; he'd always had friends from many ethnic & religious backgrounds. As soon as age 17 he came out as bi-sexual to a few close friends, all of a sudden 3 muslim 'friends' were bullying him online, spreading rumours at school & threatening him when teachers couldn't see or hear. I was appalled & so disappointed. He's the loveliest, kindest boy & it broke him for a bit.

Thankfully school were rapid & hard with their response, & respected DS's right for other teachers not to know. He thankfully had enough lovely friends to help him, & did excellently in exams- he's at uni now & never needs to see them again.

Unfortunately there seems to have been a change in these friends as they got older: more expected of them in terms of attendance at mosque/ religious responsibilities/ tutored in what was accepted & what wasn't, which seemed to exclude anything other than heterosexuality. We'd welcomed them all into our home over the years & it's a horrible feeling.

We live in a very multi-cultural city & I could never have imagined this would happen, but it's a reality in a modern Britain sadly.

Does anyone else feel there is a difference between ‘British’ and ‘English’?

We had a similar experience in a predominantly Mirpuri Pakistani girls school.

The Pakistani parents do not want their girls mixing with non Mirpuri Pakistani kids because they think they are a bad influence. So they do not let the girls meet up outside school. They are also not wild about in school friendships. The lingua franca outside the classroom is Urdu or Punjabi and a large proportion of the teaching staff also speak those languages, hence the in jokes. This means that non Mirpuri Pakistani families avoid these schools and the problem for anyone remaining is compounded.

The demographic is very different to that in academically selective schools where there may be a majority of Asian children but they are not Mirpuri Pakistani and are often more open to friendships with non Asians. And at least in those schools you come out with a decent education.

Of course. Every Welsh and Scottish is British but they never will be English. And an English man will never be Welsh but both of them are British:) ) ). You can be even British Chinese if you are a citizen and you live in UK e.g. for the last 30 years.

I agree. So what’s everyone getting eggy with op about using English in the way she has?

This is such a horrible situation for her. It’s a disadvantage to all kids when schools become like that. My ds is in a school that is predominantly Asian but it’s mixed and he has friends who are from many different cultures. There are the cultural jokes and teasing but when you’re in a mixed school, you have “backing” when you’re teased so it doesn’t go too far and it doesn’t feel lonely.
Move her.

It is hard to find the right term but maybe English with White British heritage is accurate? This doesn’t make any comment about religion though. Maybe just describe her as non-religious (implied in your post) non-Urdu-speaking for the purposes of writing to the headteacher. I think it does sound like discrimination. Many definitions of racism would say that only a member of an ethnic group that is generally discriminated against would experience racism, not someone who more generally in society would be a member of a more powerful/privileged group. So if you want them to listen and change I’d avoid calling it racism because this might detract from your important point that she has been subject to discrimination.

Word salad. Everyone knows what a English means in the context of the op.

Because they don't understand the difference between citizenship ( not only in the passport meaning) and nationality.

Exactly. By " English" we mean 1. born and raised in England and can be a child of Chinese. <Or> 2. Born in Dubai but at least one if his parents was English. And his dad could be black English.

This is not that simple that white= English.

I would not send my child to a school like this whatever the GCSE results are.
What were you thinking?
Yes, move her asap.

I think it depends if the minority is isolated or not. My son' s best friend is Indian. And it totally doesn't matter to them. But the friend groups at the school are totally not depending on the ethnicity and are rather...random.

Move her. She needs to happy to thrive

I don’t agree with this at all

@GypsyQueeen oh it was a right palaver! The landlord put the rent up a crazy amount so we had to move house quickly as I couldn’t afford the rent. As a single income household, it was difficult finding someone willing to accept me as a tenant. I had to go wherever would have us. I tried to get DD into the grammar schools but she didn’t score high enough on the entrance exam.

It can be quite different for boys in some cultures
DS kept and continued with his friendships with boys from Muslim families at school but DD wasn't able to.
DD had 2 close friends who live in our street as well but once the Muslim girl turned around 10 she didn't have the same freedoms as the other 2 girls and now the other 2 have no contact with her at all despite us all still living close together