Bid to lift Traveller pupils off the bottom

Gypsy, Roma and Traveller pupils suffer notoriously poor outcomes. Only 12 per cent achieved five or more GCSEs grade A*-C last year, compared to 58.2 per cent of the general school population.

Moreover, almost half are eligible for free school meals and children from this group are on average four times more likely to be excluded from school than other pupils.

Earlier this month, a report by the cross-government ministerial working group on addressing inequalities experienced by Gypsies and Travellers announced a range of measures to improve education for children by tackling discrimination and poor school attendance. But professionals who work with and represent Gypsies and Travellers fear the proposals could fall short.

Current legislation protects Gypsy, Roma and Traveller parents who need to travel for work from being prosecuted if their children do not attend school regularly.

Report’s proposals
One of the report’s proposals suggests repealing that legislation, because it has inadvertently given “tacit consent” for Gypsy and Traveller pupils to miss school.

Anthea Wormington, a member of the National Association of Traveller Teachers’ policy and strategy group, warns this could make life harder for some families.

“That for me is the most worrying part of the report,” she says. “The law is there for a reason as it understands their need to be mobile. To repeal it would adversely affect a very small minority of Travellers, particularly those working in circuses and fairgrounds that need to travel for work.”

Another measure proposed is a new virtual head teacher pilot for Gypsy, Roma and Traveller pupils, similar to the model already used to work with looked-after children.

But Matthew Brindley, the Irish Traveller Movement in Britain’s (ITMB) policy and research officer, believes the scheme is ill-advised. He argues that the government should instead protect funding for councils’ Traveller education services, which mirror much of the planned role of virtual head teachers, but have been hammered by public sector cuts. The ITMB has evidence to show that 24 out of 127 councils have scrapped their Traveller education services and at least 34 others have cut staff numbers.

“What families do not need is a pilot,” he says. “They need a well resourced Traveller education service.”

Wormington believes virtual head teachers will face “a tough job” in areas without such services. “Traveller education services have built up relationships and trust between families and schools. Without them, virtual heads will have to start from scratch,” she explains.

Chris Lee, programme development manager at children’s charity Ormiston, believes the government “has missed a trick” regarding bullying.

The report acknowledges that bullying is blighting school life for Gypsy, Roma and Traveller children, but fails to propose any solutions. He believes that schools should be required to learn about Traveller communities in personal, social and health education lessons.

Alternative provision
On school exclusions, the report makes a pledge to include Gypsy, Roma and Traveller children in the government pilot to give schools responsibility for educating excluded pupils.

Ormiston is piloting a 20-week photography course, called Life Through a Lens, involving 18 Gypsy, Roma and Traveller children at risk of exclusion or who have been permanently excluded. The charity argues this is the type of alterative provision that schools and local areas should consider commissioning.

“It teaches literacy, numeracy, art and social skills using photo-graphy,” Lee says. “Eight weeks in and there have been no dropouts.”

The report’s overall focus of increasing schools’ responsibility for supporting Gypsy and Traveller children has left Gill Brown, community worker at the London Gypsy and Traveller Unit, unimpressed.

Instead, she argues that the government should invest in outreach work. The report says that schools can buy this support in, but Brown points out that it does not direct them to do so and fails to acknowledge the successful outreach work already carried out by Traveller education services.

She says: “Without a strong commitment to outreach work, I fear many Gypsy and Traveller children will simply fall through the net.”

Commitments from the ministerial working group