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 copy pasted above. One more thing. You would not pass the citizenship test.

I assume the good grades come from not hanging outside the home at weekends but doing lots of homework, revision and maybe tutoring from older kids. Found quite a few families doesn’t want to say this aspect of good grades out loud. It is not just cultural but more family pressure, we knew an English family that only did birthday parties and very busy on weekends, to find DC at 8 years did 3 hours of English and creative writing tutoring every Saturday and lots of extra academic works and book reviews. Parents wanted Oxbridge and top universities focus.

I can’t find a source for your definition.

i routinely get around 78% on mock citizenship tests.

That sounds shockingly discriminatory. Of course people can speak other languages in education! Especially multi lingual people.

Stop getting offended. If op said it’s not acceptable that a ‘white English’ child is excluded in a school in England, then you would have problem too and called her racist. So she refer her child as English.
I am also from South Asian background, I think it’s hypocritical of our people to claim to be English when it suits them. How can a person claim superiority over their ancestral culture while making fun of English to not have culture and then feel offended for assuming people from so called inferior culture are not thinking of them as English.
Culturally English kids with ancestors from England are more English than kids born in England but who make fun of kids like OP’s dd as her culture is English saying it has no culture.

I think bigger problem is people raising their kids hating the English culture but also wanting to claim being English. Op is right it’s her child should not made to feel ashamed in a school in a country her is feeling excluded.

At least it’s not discriminatory to people speaking local language.

Yes move her, but also you have been really unreasonable by not reporting this before to the school, but also externally. I would also report to ofsted.

Regarding the teacher making jokes in a different language (that is not in the context of a foreign languages lesson), i’ve seen several examples of this being reprimanded in some of my workplaces, when 2 colleagues have been speaking a language other than English to each other.

fhey are under an obligation to integrate and they are clearly not.

UK Government guidance (GOV.UK) — "Nationality and citizenship definitions" (Home Office, “British citizenship: what it means”)..Confirms that “English” refers to a person from England (by birth or heritage), while “British” is the legal nationality.

No.

Yes

Quote (from GOV.UK):

> “There are different types of British nationality. Being a British citizen is different from being English, Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish — these describe where you are from within the UK, not your nationality.”

That’s the key point — “English” is a regional or cultural identity, while “British citizen” is the legal nationality under UK law.

Oxford English Dictionary (OED)

Definition of “Englishman”:

Quote: “A man of England; a male native or inhabitant of England.”
Source: OED Online (entry for Englishman).

“Native or inhabitant” covers birth (native) or heritage/residence (inhabitant) — meaning someone born in England or belonging there by family or long-term settlement.
GOV.UK: distinguishes English (regional identity) from British (citizenship).

OED & Cambridge: define Englishman/woman as a native or inhabitant of England.

UK Office for National Statistics (ONS) — National identity and ethnicity

Quote: “National identity is self-defined and may relate to a person’s place of birth, passport, ancestry or cultural background.”

Source: ONS – National identity and ethnic group

This means that identifying as English may come from birth in England or English ancestry/culture. This is most credible source because it measures it

Encyclopaedia Britannica

Quote: “The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak the English language and share a common culture, history, and ancestry.”
Source: Britannica – English people

Britannica clearly connects being English with both birth (native) and heritage (ancestry, culture).

It is repeated across many more sources: parentage and land where you were born. Nowhere it is stated that you havebto be white and that your parents have to be white or even English.
+
As I said
And there are sources which say that "Identification". Well as I said above I identify as a Polar 🐨 Bear

How does OP or anyone know which kids are born in the UK and which not?

You don't get to tell me what I find offensive or not

OP is talking about English as an ethnicity. So your children in saris heading off to celebrate Djwali are NOT just as English if we are discussing English as a shared ancestory, culture, and history.

There is nothing wrong with acknowledging that.

She's also said " English kids born and raised in England". That's us.
Like it or not. Not, i think.

I will leave you to your arguing about definitions. If your child feels left out in any school or you don't feel at home with the culture of the school, move them. Simple. You don't have to get into a " my children were born here" argument.

DH (dual Uk and another EU nationality) says he is British but not English.

Omg you people are ridiculous. The op was not racist in the slightest. Her daughter is a white, english kid and is being excluded as the only white English kid in her classes at a predominantly muslim school. She's not trying to offend anyone! I'd move her immediately.

As everybody advised her to do.

This is what it was like for us brown kids in the late 70s at school.

There were three other non white kids in my year of 240 in Yr 7. Plus one mixed race (black/white) boy who was horrendously bullied. I hated it and moved schools in Year 9 to a much better school academically which turned out to be even worse with racial bullying.

I'm from Muslim heritage but am an atheist. I wouldn't send my kids to a primarily Muslim school.

My other half is white British and when we lived in London, she was quite conscious of the potential issues of having a mixed race atheist child with an Islamic surname going to schools with a large proportion of Muslims.

English with Anglo Saxon /celtic heritage.
or white British.