Support for traveller children

The Devon Consortium Traveller Education Service aims to improve children's:

• access to mainstream education and inclusion in the curriculum
• attendance at school
• attainment at school.

The service consists of seven teachers and a specialist education welfare officer supported by a part time administrative assistant. The service is a consortium arrangement between Plymouth, Devon and Torbay and all staff work across all the Local Education Authority boundaries. The service is an outreach support service.

Referrals can come from any source and the service works with traveller families on the basis of self-identification and parental permission.

The role of the service is to:

• meet the needs of traveller pupils who are out of school
• contact families in their own homes to promote the value of education and assist families who are new to the area to find school places for their children.
• work with staff in mainstream school to assist in the process of meeting the needs of traveller children in school - in 2002-3 580 children were supported by the service

Central to the practice of the service is an interagency/multi-agency approach

The service supports children who are:

• in school
• highly mobile and working on distance learning packages while away from their base schools
• seeking school places

The service supports schools with:

• information sharing
• training
• book loans and access to the service's resource base in Plymouth
• additional short-term support for pupils who meet the appropriate criteria for help by the service
• assessment and induction

[Back to top]