Education I: Issues
Raised
Many of
the community have children at schools
and great interest was expressed in
issues surrounding education. Many of the
community emphasised praise for the
schooling system whilst some reported
they have had extremely negative
experiences. The following issues were
felt to be the most important:
Catering: Halal Meat (See
appendix 1)
Parents felt the issue of diet was
very important and that the non-availability
of Halal meat has a significant
impact on their children's diets. Issues
raised include:
- Effectively
children become forced
vegetarians at school as meat is
not Halal.
- Some
schools had given out dietary
requirement forms to children on
enrolment, however schools had
later responded to requests for
Halal meat by stating that it is
unavailable.
- It
was felt there was not sufficient
knowledge of Halal food needs
among catering staff. For
example, on occasions meat would
be removed but not the gravy, or
there were indications that food
had been fried in animal fat.
Bullying: Bullying
was a serious area of concern for
parents.
- Reports
of bullying ranged from name
calling to physical
assaults.
- There
had been mixed experiences of
dealing with cases of racist
bullying in schools. Whilst some
cases had been handled adequately
it was felt that schools would be
more comfortable tackling other
forms of bullying (e.g.
sectarian). The need for training
in handling cases of racist
bullying was outlined.
- Concern
was expressed that racist
attitudes were not coming just
from children themselves but were
being reinforced by the parents
of bullies.
Parents
evenings: Concern over accessibility
and communication
Participants raised the issue of parent's
evenings. Parents evenings have clearly
been designed in correlation with the
access and communication needs of the
majority communities in mind with the
following adverse impact on the
community:
- Communication:
Due to language barriers
there were often communication
difficulties between teachers and
parents. There was no provision
of interpreters and often
children themselves were left to
translate.
- Access:
Parents evenings are held by
definition in the evening. As the
majority of the community work in
the catering trade, this is often
a time at which they cannot
attend.
Non-denominational
schools
The
community is largely Muslim. Some parents
had sent their children to
non-denominational schools, however they
found that such schools had a very strong
Christian ethos and did not cater for a
multi-faith community. Parents thought it
was important to offer an alternative to
Christian morning assemblies for children
of other faiths. Teaching about other
religions other than Christianity within
religious education classes was also
considered important. Permission not to
attend Christian festival events was also
considered important.
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