Traveller Children and School Admissions and Attendance
Traveller children have the right to be treated on the same basis as any other child.
They are entitled to equal regard, respect and to equality of opportunity.
Admission and Enrolment
 Gateshead LEA has a legal duty to provide a school place for all children who live
in, or come into Gateshead
 Traveller parents can express the same preference of school as any parents
 The Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 requires schools and local authorities
to promote racial equality
 Wherever possible, where the family is extensively or highly mobile, there should
be minimal delay in admitting Traveller children in line with normal admission
policies and procedures.
 Schools will need to be sensitive to the fact that Traveller parents may feel
apprehensive about leaving their child, and that apart from circus and fairground
families, highly mobile Travellers will usually not know how long they will be staying
in the area. A Traveller pupil should be placed on a school register on the first day
of attendance.
 Where possible, school secretaries should encourage Gypsy and Irish Traveller
parents to feel secure in recording the ethnicity of their children as WROM
(Gypsy/Roma) or WIRT (Travellers of Irish heritage) as appropriate. Schools need
to be aware that the term Traveller refers to ethnicity, lifestyle and culture
rather than to accommodation as many of Gateshead’s Travellers are housed.
 Some Traveller parents may need support with literacy when completing the
admissions form.
What is a base school?
Some Travellers, usually Showmen (fairground) or circus, have regular and
predictable pattern of seasonal mobility. The children attend the same school for a
set period each year, often during the winter, and will move to a different school or
series of schools for the rest of the year. The school that the pupil attends for the
greatest period of time when they are not travelling can be regarded as the base
school.
There are several wintering sites for Showmen in the North East region. However
Gateshead does not have a wintering site for Showmen but from time to time circus
and fairs visit the borough. Sometimes these families will choose to enrol their
children in a local school while they are in the area. These pupils will be dual
registered with their wintering school.
There are also groups of highly mobile Gypsy and Irish Traveller families who may
have base schools elsewhere.
Dual Registration
To protect Traveller children from having a fragmented educational pattern, the pupil
registration regulations allow Traveller children to be dual registered. The school
they normally attend while not travelling is regarded as the base school, and in most
cases is the school that receives the funding. Traveller children travelling away from
their base school may register at other schools on a temporary basis. When a
Traveller family arrives in an area, it is important to ascertain whether there is a
base school, and if so to inform the base school that the Traveller pupil is dual
registered.
Base school should keep the Traveller pupils on roll so that their place within that
school community is secure. In such cases, the base school should record the
Traveller pupil’s absence while travelling as authorised, and as an authorised
educational activity once the pupil is enrolled at another school.
Where a pupil may be registered simultaneously at two schools, only one school is
eligible to receive the funding. This is normally the base school.
PLASC
Traveller children should be included by the school that they are attending on the
census day.
If there is a base school, the base school should include all Traveller children known
to be returning, regardless of whether or not they are attending on the census day.
If a child is at school on the census day and is also registered at a base school then
they should be recorded on both schools.
Register Coding
The absence code T on most registers denotes Traveller child travelling: this is a
code of absence and not one of ethnicity.
When Traveller children are registered pupils at a school and are known to be
present either at a site, official or unofficial or in a house and are not attending
school, the absence should be investigated in the same way as that for any other
pupil. If a school is satisfied that a family is genuinely travelling and the family has
indicated they have every intention to return (this can be verified with the TES) the
code mark T can be used.
If the absence is for any other reason, whether unknown, unauthorised, medical etc,
then these are the codes that should be registered as for any other child.
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Some leeway can be offered with regard to absence for families who have moved
from, or been evicted from a Traveller site.
Where a family indicates that they will be returning at a later date, the school
should mark the register as T for travelling. If the family does not return within
40 sessions of the indicated date, the pupils name should be taken off roll
retrospectively 4 weeks after the date of the last attendance in line with The
Education (Pupil Registration) regulations 1997 and the TES informed.
Attendance
The special position of Traveller families is recognised within the Education Act 1996
which protects Traveller parents from conviction if the parent can demonstrate that:
o He is engaged in a trade or business of such nature as requires him to travel
from place to place and
o The child has attended a school as a registered pupil as regularly as the nature
of the trade or business permitted
o When the child has attained the age of 6 years, he has made at least 200
attendances (i.e. 200 sessions or half days) during the preceding twelve months
The purpose is to protect Traveller parents from unreasonable prosecution for the
non-attendance of their children at school. It does not mean that part-time education
for Traveller children is legally acceptable, nor does it relieve parents of their legal
duties to ensure that their children are receiving suitable education while not at
school.
‘In general, the aim should always be to ensure that Traveller children, in common
with all other children, attend school as regularly as possible’.
The responsibility for improving attendance is a multi-agency one, working
collaboratively to improve attendance in Gateshead schools. With this in mind it is
important for schools to recognise and log correctly the genuine reasons for
Traveller absence. Travelling families are no more exempt from the need to provide
legitimate reasons for absence than any other family. Records of attendance/absence
should be verified and documented accordingly. In general, the aim should be to
ensure that Traveller children, in common with all other children attend school as
regularly and as frequently as possible. – 200 attendances should not be regarded as
the norm or the maximum. A difficult balance has to be struck between, a need for
action in individual cases in the interests of the child and adopting a sensitive and
sympathetic approach which recognises lifestyle and cultural traditions of the family
concerned.
The Traveller Education Service in EMTAS with Education Welfare monitors
Traveller pupils’ attendance through requesting data on a termly basis from the
schools that Traveller pupils are known to attend. Families with identified poor
attendance are encouraged to raise the pupils’ attendance. The national attendance
average for Traveller pupils is currently 75%.
If the school has concerns regarding a Traveller pupil’s attendance, in the first
instance, for highly mobile families living on sites, the Traveller team in (EMTAS) may
be able to clarify the reason for absence, but in general absence should be brought
to the attention of the Education Welfare Service Access & Inclusion in the same
way as for any other pupil.
The TES works closely with Education Welfare to ensure visits are made to families
that provide a sensitive approach, which recognises the lifestyle and cultural
traditions of Traveller families while encouraging an improvement in attendance.
Where there has been uncertainty, it is advisable for the school to inform the TES
immediately and keep the pupil on roll until the TES has had an opportunity to make
enquiries and to clarify the situation.
If a Traveller family remains in the area but states that the child is staying in
another part of the country, the TES or Education Welfare officer should ask the
family for an address and point of contact so that the local TES can be informed and
a local EWO/ESW can assure school attendance.