Manchester Schools (The EU)

[DenisLawBackHeel74]

Great post OP.

 

[idahoblues]

Interesting post, good luck and hang on in there

 

[masterwig]

The OP is the equivalent of a doctor saying "I'm here to make people better but I don't want to treat the seriously ill, it will affect my patient survival rate and their treatment is expensive".

I appreciate that having students from around the world makes your job more difficult. But the problem here is the way the schools are judged, not the intake. You said yourself that they are all expected to reach the same standards and level, something which is going to be very difficult when the language barrier is there.

Schools where there is a large number of students with English not as their first language should receive more investment and assistance. Maybe even have children reach a certain standard of English before they are placed in the mainstream school system. We should be negotiating with the EU for subsidies to pay for this. If our system is educating EU migrants then we should be recompensed for it.

My school was 99% white British kids who mostly lived on the same estate as me. I would have learned a lot more about different cultures and countries if it had a more mixed intake. What a great place to learn not just maths and English but get a wider perspective on the world and mix with people from different backgrounds. Foreign students can enhance our education system, it's not all negative.

I will never begrudge a child getting an education just because they were born on one side of a line or bit of water. We can be proud of our schools in this country and should continue to invest in them.

 

[Ancient Citizen]

I didn’t want this to get lost in the toing and froing on the referendum debate and I think it’s worthy of a read/debate in its own right.

I teach in one of Manchester’s most deprived wards and thought the general public may want to know how the EU has impacted on my/other teachers’ ability to actually do what we’re paid to do: teach.

When I started my teaching career, there were very, very few European migrants willing or wanting to settle in the areas I taught: Ancoats, Wythenshawe and Gorton. Classes were mainly made up of children from white non-working or very low income families. That brought (and continues to bring) many difficulties. But language was never one of them. In the relatively short period of the last ten years, I’ve witnessed a sea-change in the schools’ demographics. Increasingly, as is the case with my current school, staff are expected to teach children who bring a multitude of languages and cultures into the classroom. We currently have over 45 languages spoken at my school, the overwhelming majority being European. Staff, particularly in the early years, where the children have no English whatsoever, are left to battle in a system that demands ALL children achieve the same, irrespective of language, income, other influences. So they spend inordinate amounts of time trying to get these kids up to speed - searching the internet for resources in a multitude of languages. . Teaching Assistants are brought in to “shadow” these children, at massive cost to the school budget (your taxes, your wages), just so we can hope to get these children anywhere near speaking our lingo and accessing the English curriculum.

Over the last few weeks I’ve been on home visits for children about to join our Nursery. Families cramped into overcrowded houses, all needing help from the school, the doctors, the council, and many other local services. And almost all these families have arrived, from central, west and north Africa, via Italy, Germany, Spain, France etc. Why that route? Simple - it gets them the magic key, the golden bullet, the EU passport. And so, my school, my staff, have to pick up the pieces of this open-door policy. I’m dealing, daily with families turning up at our school, DEMANDING places. And, as they’re “European”, by and large, they get them.

I attended a meeting last week very near the Etihad, where over 40 local Heads and Deputies had to sit in a room whilst the council placed dozens and dozens of children newly arrived. Looking at the papers that accompanied them:

Last school: unknown Madrass in Pakistan
Nationality: French
Languages spoken: Urdu

But, as always, they hold the magic key, the golden bullet - the EU passport. So, they’re no longer Pakistan’s problem; they’re no longer Bangladesh’s problem; they’re no longer Italy’s problem; they’re no longer Portugal’s problem. They’re mine. And yours.

The system is absolutely creaking; we’re running at full tilt. The pressure on schools is ridiculous. And I put the blame right at the door of the EU. It created a monster called migrancy. And it’s come back to haunt us. Tenfold.

As long as we remain in the EU, YOU will be paying for the likes of me and other school leaders to traipse, every 3-4 weeks to council meetings, to have the newly arrived migrant kids and their families sent to whoever/wherever they’re told to go. You’ll have no say in this matter. Schools won’t either. And it’s costing YOU a fucking fortune. In time, energy and resources.

What I’ve written is the tip of the iceberg.

There can be only one vote in this referendum. The vote to control our own borders; the vote to control our own services. Vote OUT.

So here we have it, from the horses mouth, (sorry about the analogy Johnny), someone directly on the front line. The only counter I
ever hear to this enormous problem that is straining public services is it's the governments fault for not investing more, as if continually throwing
money at a situation that grows ever worse will improve things, no matter how much is spent; we could solve the problem now with money, but then another
multitude turn up and we're back to square one.

 

[Why Always Ste]

Excellent post @johnnytapia
I was voting OUT before I even read this post, but even more so.

Blues... get yourself to this website: http://www.voteleavetakecontrol.org/organise

And register your interest. Within days I've had a guy from this campaign who dropped off a few thousand leaflets, and I spent Tuesday
Putting them through the doors of the estates around my area.
It may not be a big contribution, but even if one person see's the leaflet and votes out then it's been worthwhile doing this.

Display a poster in your window voting out.

My GF is a substitute teacher/assistant in Gtr MCR, she regularly see's overstretched classrooms, 35+ kids in classrooms
and this results in her words in a poor standard of education as the resources aren't there to teach that volume of students.

Smaller class sizes equates to more attention given from the teacher to the pupil. This is fact.
True it doesn't guarantee better education, but it certainly does provide more time per pupil.

As for the cultural argument... Give over, schools I went to were full of Asian/EE kids, yet %99 of the Pakistani kids would stick together, as would the Indian kids,
And only the Black kids would knock about with us (the white kids, and i'm including a few polish kids who'd integrate with us)

I only ever properly experienced different cultures when I started travelling, going to countries in Asia and so on.
In this country it's a closed shop, and people tend to stick to their own...
Try and integrate with minorities in this country, you're looked at suspiciously and questioned.
No word of English is spoken until they want your money, only then their English is amazing.

Time to control who's coming in more, and if the person who's coning in can fit a skills gap and contribute to our society then welcome this person in by all means.
Be it a Polish dentist or a Indian Chef.
Thorough criminal record checks on these people... No papers? send them back.

I'm aware of lads who've done all kinds of serious crime over in EE countries, have fled and come here, and with a different name, are literally anonymous and yet work here.

No fucking checks and it's embaressing how I could apply to work in AUS/USA/CAN right now and get rejected based on my lack of skills yet I could come into this country (UK) after chopping some poor buggers head off in Poland, call myself Stevan Wodjikovski and be given a fucking house to live in, and work illegally without paying any tax.

 

[Yaya_Tony]

My daughter attended my exes primary school in reception. She now attends my primary school and is thriving, as does my other baby girl. The reason i removed her from my exes school was because they spent more time trying to communicate in English than teach. But that isn't a EU problem. I'm voting in.

 

[Monkfish]

Mrs Monkfish is at a school where English is not the first language of about 20% of the kids, on the whole she reckons any language issues they bring are mitigated by the fact that their behavior is much better

(she also reckons some kids who have only been in the country a matter of years have much better language skills than the indigenous)

She agrees schools are struggling, but reckons the attitude of Ofsted to teachers and teaching being a political football has a lot more to answer for than the EU

 

[Monkfish]

So here we have it, from the horses mouth, (sorry about the analogy Johnny), someone directly on the front line. The only counter I
ever hear to this enormous problem that is straining public services is it's the governments fault for not investing more, as if continually throwing
money at a situation that grows ever worse will improve things, no matter how much is spent; we could solve the problem now with money, but then another
multitude turn up and we're back to square one.

No we don't 'have it', we have one persons opinion, and I reckon if you ask most teachers they will vote in, maybe they are masochistic?

 

[Stuuuuuu]

This is interesting though, because children or recent immigrants are proven to perform higher in school on average.

Steady on mate! We can't let mere facts get in the way of a good old racist rant opportunity.

 

[KenTheLandlord]

No fucking checks and it's embaressing how I could apply to work in AUS/USA/CAN right now and get rejected based on my lack of skills yet I could come into this country (UK) after chopping some poor buggers head off in Poland, call myself Stevan Wodjikovski and be given a fucking house to live in, and work illegally without paying any tax.

pmsl