Definition
Historically, Travellers have been marginalised and excluded from society. This means that they have not always had access to school. Even today, there could be as many as 12,000 Traveller children not registered. Most LEAs have a centralised Traveller Support Service (usually referred to as TES) that aims to work closely with schools and families in order to ensure access and to raise the achievement of Traveller pupils.
Commentary
Funding for Traveller Education Services has been available since the 1970s but the introduction of a new grant in 1990 saw a rapid growth in the number of TESs. In 2000, the Ethnic Minority Achievement and Traveller Grant replaced this funding mechanism and in the following year, a separate specific grant for Traveller education was reintroduced in the shape of the Traveller Achievement Grant (TAG).
TESs work with Traveller families and with schools, helping families to find school places and to understand how the education system operates. Schools are encouraged to be inclusive, building on the skills, knowledge and ways of thinking which Traveller children bring to school. Traveller Education Services provide support for all groups of Travellers including Gypsies and Roma, Irish Travellers, Fairground showmen, Circus families, New Age Travellers and European Roma seeking asylum. This includes families living on sites as well as housing. Being housed does not mean that a family ceases to be Travellers. Even for the more settled Traveller students, the education system can start to fail them at the time they transfer to secondary school.
TESs work at all levels within the education service: they try to ensure that LEA policies and practices include the needs of Travellers and other mobile groups, and advise schools on ways of working which will encourage Traveller families to become actively involved and entrust their children to them. Most TESs contribute to INSET and develop resources, and also work with teachers, helping with the assessment of pupils, working collaboratively, taking whole classes and groups, and sometimes working intensively with individual children to address a specific learning needs. They also make planned time-limited interventions which aim to effect changes which can subsequently be sustained by the schools themselves.
Resources
Naylor, S and Wild-Smith, K (1997) Broadening Horizons: Education and Travelling children. Chelmsford. Essex CountyCouncil
O’Hanlon, C and Holmes, P (2004) The Education of Gypsy and Traveller Children. Stoke onTrent. Trentham Books