Earlier this year during lockdown, Travellers pitched up in Ham and left a trail of damage and waste behind them.

This is a reflective piece about their situation by Councillor Penny Frost, chair of the Education and Children's Services Committee on Richmond Council and a Liberal Democrat councillor for Ham, Petersham and Richmond Riverside ward.

It is Penny's second piece for us; you can read her first report on the education landscape and what it will be like for schools in 2020/21 here.

Our lovely open lands in Ham and Petersham prove to have a magnetic pull for the Travellers who reach our borough for a 'stopover' as they travel across the country.

Every spring, several groups of between 3 and 6 families pull onto our open land to stay for a few days or weeks as they travel across the country to reach places where they can work.

There are no transit sites for Travellers across the whole of the London area, and I don't know where the nearest equipped transit site would be for them.

So far this year we have had more incursions than usual, and these visits are a difficult time for our local residents, who are distressed to see quantities of litter and worse left in the areas where the Travellers have been staying. However, this year, the Travellers' incursions have highlighted to our community the problems faced by their families during the Covid-19 outbreak, with no access to the normal hygiene facilities which we would take for granted.

I have always been concerned to see the number of families with young children who set up short term camps in Ham, and wonder how these children can access any education when they spend so much time on the move.

As a result of this, I have carried out a bit of research on Traveller education with the help of our borough School Improvement Adviser, whose responsibilities include liaison with Traveller communities.

Educational outcomes

Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities (referred to in this blog for brevity as GRT) have significantly lower educational outcomes than the rest of the school population, with just over 10% of Gypsy and Roma children, and 21% Irish Traveller children achieving GCSEs at the end of KS4.

The Traveller Movement cites discrimination and marginalisation experienced at school as a reason for this, and teachers mention their frustration at long periods of unexplained absence from their schools, and problems of holding onto their students for long enough for them to complete their GCSE courses and take their exams.

But school represents the GRT community's best chance of providing their children with the skills which will make them economically useful, and enriching their lives with wider opportunities to participate in the world around them.

Discrimination and marginalisation

Interviews with young adults from the GRT community indicate that despite schools having robust anti-bullying policies in place, they will have suffered taunts in the playground and isolation in the classroom.

Blame for thefts inside school or in the local community are regularly laid at the door of this community. Young people whose home community may have different value systems within the family can find themselves in conflict with authority figures when they do not conform to the school's expectations on uniform, punctuality or behaviour in class.

Younger children whose whole life has been spent in the relatively cramped conditions of a caravan or trailer may not know how to approach play areas, play with jigsaws or build with Lego, and their disadvantages will be very apparent to their peers.

Older children may lack home access to Wifi and laptops, and this has had a significant effect recently as schools have locked down and many of the best resources for home teaching rely on access to the internet. Lack of internet connectivity also has an important bearing on the life chances of young adults who have left school but have the potential to continue their studies online.

Connectivity is important across every aspect of family life now that so many services are carried out online; school applications and school newsletters are just two examples.

Absence from schools

The highly mobile lifestyle of GRT families is exacerbated by the shortfall in site provision, and families will often have substantial periods of time on the road to take up seasonal employment.

GRT children have a home school, known as their base school, where they are registered and where they are expected to spend at least 200 days of education. It is the responsibility of the base school to track families onward to the schools where children may be temporarily resident. In practical terms, this often proves impossible, and children may be away from their base school, and missing their education, for significant periods of time.

But it is critically important that GRT families feel welcomed and comfortable in their base school and in temporary placements. Every child has a right to education, and this may be the best and even the only chance of education some GRT young people will have.

Good practice schools

The Traveller Movement's Good Practice Guide (April 2019) identified some key ways in which schools have successfully worked with their local GRT community, and highlights the importance of teaching a curriculum which includes reference to the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller history and background, so that we all develop a greater understanding of the GRT community and develop education opportunities for them that may help them to break the inevitably narrow patterns of their life spent so much on the road.

Many thanks to Penny who contributed this piece for Richmond Nub News.

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