Ivatts, A. (2006)

 

“The Situation regarding the current policy, provision and practice in Elective Home Education (EHE) for Gypsy/Roma and Traveller children.” Report commissioned by the DfES.

 

Ivatts Report The Report: Comments:  Critique: Members also commented: Further Criticisms:

 

 

Ivatts Report

 

The Report:

 

This research report can be read here

Report may be found here: http://www.dfes.gov.uk/research/data/uploadfiles/RW77.pdf

 

 

Comments: 

 

Comments upon "Research and Advice Commissioned by the DfES on the situation regarding the current policy provision and practice in EHE for Gypsy, Roma and Traveller Children, by Arthur Ivatts." 

 

Below is very much a first draft attempt to look at the Ivatts Report on EHE for Gypsy, Roma and Traveller Children. The reason why home educators may benefit from looking closely at it is that we may find that we can challenge many of the assumptions, both explicit and implicit, and therefore may rightfully question the conclusions and recommendations that arise from these assumptions and "findings".

 

Feedback, criticism, input, and more data from anyone who has contact with travellers would be very gratefully received. For example, how do travellers feel about the report? Would the recommendations suit them?

 

There are plenty of issues in the report which could be looked at. Here are some of the ones that I have had a chance to discuss with travellers and two support workers so far:

 

Critique:

 

From the Executive Summary, Page 3.

 

re points 1.1 and 1.4. Is it the case that there is a marked increase, year-on-year of the number of Gypsy/Roma/Traveller families opting for EHE?

 

From my research so far, the reports vary. Traveller Education Services (TESs) seem to be very pro-school and anti-home ed. They do seem likely to report that there are many Travellers falsely claiming to HE. However other people I have spoken to say that this rise in false HE claims amongst travellers is not happening and that the numbers of traveller children who are electively home educating is tiny. These people report that it is actually the case that many traveller families have emigrated, because of the problems with planning permission, because the Eastern bloc imigrants have taken their jobs here, (jobs being paradoxically easier for them to find in the Eastern bloc) and because their children are being forced back into school under threat of fines. The numbers of EHE traveller children we are therefore talking about are tiny, and getting even tinier.

 

The fact that many traveller families feel excluded by government prohibition to the point where they feel compelled to emigrate suggests a certain hypocrisy underlying the government's claims to maximise inclusion for all. In fact it appears that they are actually managing precisely the reverse by excluding some members of the population.

 

Any actual growth in the numbers of traveller children out of school is, according to my informants, a result of the increase in the number of traveller children who have been excluded from school. It is reportedly these excluded children, not the EHEd children who according again to my informants are doing very well, who are drawing the short straw educationally not least because some Traveller Support Workers have been expressly told not to work with these children because such work may seduce them away from schools. These children are often meant to be attending special pick-up units, which are popular with travellers but are very poorly funded.

 

1.5 "There has always been reluctance by many famlilies within some of these communites to send their children to school, and particularly to secondary school. There are many good reasons underpinning this reluctance."

 

As a way of showing that there may be some unfounded prejudices in this report, some of the people I spoke to said that there was no such reluctance on the part of traveller famlies to send their children to at least reasonably well functioning schools where their children will not be bullied, and in turn become bullies and where they will not be exposed to drug culture. Indeed many traveller families have been sold the line that schools can be made suitable for their children, that they have actually bought it, and only subsequently find that this simply does not bear out. These families often stick doggedly with the schools as a result of promises that things will improve, but this can and often does leave their children with a legacy of bitterness, poor educational results, and/or a history of being bullied or turning to bullying by way of retaliation.

 

1.9 (page 4)

"Twenty five (25%) of responding LAs do not have a written policy on EHE. While most LAs provide families with initial and post registration advice, only 2 gave practical help in the form of educational materials."

 

Whilst Home Educators everywhere have never expected any help from LAs, the implication in the above paragraph seems to be that there is some significant barrier to these families (here the Traveller families) who are in dire need, accessing educational support from the state. This struck the TSW I spoke too as somewhat ironic. She has very good relations with Travelling families in her area. She is a traveller herself and understands their culture and their needs. She is well qualified herself and well placed to support the education of Traveller children. However, she has been expressly told not to support children of school age, because she (and other TSWs) have been seen as seducing children away from the school system. Her funding to support school age children has been removed and she is now only permitted to work with pre-school children.

 

It appears to us in the Home Educating community that far from thinking creatively on the matter of how genuinely best to solve the problem of meeting the educational needs of Traveller children, that the policy has been simply to force these children into school on promises which almost universally have not been realised, these promises being that schools will be made a more conducive place for learning for GRT children.

 

1.13 It should be noted that only 56% of responsible officers within the sample LAs had attended in-service training on EHE and that only 36% had attended any training/briefing on Gypsy/Roma and Traveller communities. This research finding raises serious doubts about the quality of professional judgments being made by officers during initial and or monitoring/inspection visits to families from these backgrounds.

 

To which our contacts would say "I should say so" and not just from the traveling communities either. Home Educators everywhere find that LA officers are often completely unable to make anything like an informed judgment about educational provision. Firstly, they simply cannot hope to form such an opinion in a short visit. Secondly, children who opt to HE are a highly varied bunch. Children with educational anomalies are often the ones most dramatically failed by the school system and who therefore end up being home educated. An LA officer not only has to be an expert on the educational needs of a standard, white child of average ability. He will also need to be competent to make this judgment, in a short visit, on any number of different learning styles and abilities and on any number of different cultural backgrounds. Home Educators repeatedly find that LA reports which are written about them, are deeply inappropriate and insensitive to the real educational needs of their children.

 

Given this diversity, and given that unless the LAs propose to significantly intervene in the lives of HEors, (a process which in itself will be deeply damaging to many HE families), it is hard to see how the DfES can seriously believe that LA officers are best placed to make the call about educational provision. Rather than expensively train up people who will remain compromised by the need to respect family privacy, and to allow education to flourish without their intervention, would it not be better to properly fund workers who can really get stuck in with families who are struggling? Why widen the net to check up on all HEors most of whom would get by much better without LA intervention, and instead fund people like the TSW I spoke to who had superb relations with her clients and who could genuinely improve their educational provision?

 

For all these reasons, we suggest that the Recommendations, 6.10 on Page 23 where it states that

 

f) all children registered under EHE are assessed on a regular basis in relation to expectations of educational progress should be reconsidered.

 

We also would like to make the more general point here that all of the requirements to share information is having a negative impact upon the relationship of workers such as TSWs with their clients. Once clients realise how far afield their personal details are being reported, they stop sharing usually THE most significant information, such as a drug addiction, since they realise that they may be severely compromised by providing information such as this. This enforced secrecy obviously impairs their relationship between support/ health workers and their clients, and means that that is much more difficult for the former to offer appropriate services. Some TSWs actually choose to put their own jobs on the line by promising not to report such data and we can understand this. Far better, it seems to us, to have key workers in sensitive positions, maintaining an ethic of confidentiality and therefore being able to offer appropriate help, than to have a mass of informed professionals, all with different agendas, who are unlikely to be able to offer the most appropriate help.

 

By way of a conclusion, we think it necessary to realise that schools are still, despite the best efforts of many of them, failing to provide an education that is suitable to the age, ability and aptitudes of Traveller children and are not necessarily the best answer to the problem of educational neglect. Schools fail Traveller children because they find they are bullied there, that they develop methods of self-defence, such as physical violence, which then gets Traveller children labelled aggressive and uncontrollable. These children are then excluded and with funding removed from TSWs and with limited funding given to Special Pick Up units, their educational needs may be further neglected, though the Traveller Support Worker mentioned that where a family does fail their children, it is often the case that the rest of the Traveller community will help out. In addition, school fails Traveller children who often have special educational needs and we must realise that even the author of the movement to get children with SENs in to schools has recently changed her mind about this policy, c.f Baroness Mary Warnock's recent recantation of her proposal to enforce a policy of "inclusion".

 

It behoves us, rather than to insist on heavy regulation of Traveller HEors, which risks forcing them back into schools under threat of fines, where the children often become alienated, do not achieve a satisfactory education and which results in other negative outcomes, to think of more constructive and creative ways to solve the problem of educational neglect.

 

 

Members also commented:

 

 

 

• Ivatts report shows no understanding of how home education works:

 

• A suitable education is one which prepares the child for life in his/her own community. Home education which is situated within the rhythms and traditions of the traveller community is more suitable for some traveller children than school education is

 

• Child labour is prevented by existing laws and there is no need for further action

 

 

 

Further Criticisms:

 

For Further criticisms of the Ivatts report, see Sometimes its Peaceful: http://sometimesitspeaceful.blogspot.com/2006/11/situation-regarding-current-policy.html

 

See Carlotta's critique, In Answer to Ivatts: http://daretoknowblog.blogspot.com/2007/01/in-answer-to-ivatts.html

 

Carlotta blogged, Possible implication: http://daretoknowblog.blogspot.com/2007/01/possible-implications-of-ivatts-for.html

 

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