This project focuses on sharing good-practice and collaboration to improve integration and achievement for Gypsy-Roma students in the UK, Spain and Slovakia and builds on links forged and knowledge gained through a previous Erasmus+ project 'Right to Roma'. It is a statistical fact that only a minority of Gypsy-Roma students continue to further and higher education and this is partly due to discrimination and the lack of aspiration for and by the Gypsy-Roma community. This project aims to bring together organisations that are all working to improve outcomes and aspirations of Gypsy-Roma at different stages and in different contexts, so that they can learn from each other about initiatives that work, and also to improve the provision provided in each country and across Europe. QKA is a secondary school serving almost 70% EAL with 10% of the whole cohort declared as Gypsy-Roma migrants from Central and Eastern Europe, it has an additional 10% undeclared suspected Roma students. Many pupils have experienced institutionalised racism and segregation in their home countries and have not had access to quality education. QKA has developed its practice and created a bespoke linguistics-based curriculum for newly-arrived migrants, with tailored interventions to fill educational gaps (which many Gypsy-Roma students have due to a lack of (quality) prior education). QKA has also worked side by side with the Roma community and employs 3 Gypsy-Roma staff and a school governor. The University of Nitra Institude of Romani Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences and Healthcare, CPU has detailed knowledge of the different Gypsy-Roma communities and culture, they understand how and why friction and tension within the Gypsy-Roma community can arise and also how this can be avoided - this is very important, particularly in the UK where there is an on-going influx of Gypsy-Roma famlies from different countries, groups and cultures - having a detailed understanding of the different cultures, dialects and beliefs could help schools and organisations to pre-empt issues and to support students and families to integrate appropriately. The University works with schools in Slovakia where Gypsy-Roma and non-Gyspy-Roma study together in an integrated way (against national norms). This knowledge of working with all members of the community to make integration work against the odds are important to share. CampusRom is an organisation supported by the Catalan Government that works with the Spanish Gypsy-Roma community. The organisation is staffed by Gyspy-Roma and works with schools as well as adults. It delivers education and support to Gypsy-Roma students to give them access to further and higher education. It has worked closely with Barcelona University to secure places specifically for Gypsy-Roma students. At QKA, there is a suspected 19% of the whole school cohort who are Gypsy-Roma, but that percentage is not nearly represented in the school's sixth form. We hope to learn from CampusRom how to develop provision to ensure more Gypsy-Roma students access further education. This project will share the good practice of the participant organisations and learn more about the different European Roma communities. The project will consist of a series of Learning and Training Visits, during which participants will carry out observations, discussions and interviews as well as collating case studies of good practice activities which can then be shared widely. In addition to this learning, the host partner will organise a CPD training event during each Visit for wider stakeholders, with each partner delivering a presentation or workshop detailing their context and sharing resources, methodology, research finding and strategies for success. There will also be a report produced after each visit collating the research findings, learning outcomes and actions for adaptation within the visiting partners' organisations, as well as advice to support those working with Gypsy-Roma. Each of the training events will be videoed and the recordings and resources from those, the research reports and case studies will be collated together on an open-source digital platform that can be accessed by a wider range of stakeholders to support them in their working It is envisaged that the resources, pedagogy, best-practice case studies and advice of how to successfully support Roma in a variety of contexts across Europe will enrich the knowledge and provision in the partner organisations, and that, through wide dissemination through established networks in each country, the number of Gypsy-Roma continuing to further / higher education will increase, building aspirational role-models within the community. It is also envisaged that, through proving educational achievement with Gypsy-Roma, more pressure will be placed on educational providers and policy-makers in segregated countries and regions, to develop ways of educational and social integration.
The project focused on sharing good practice and collaboration to improve integration and achievement for Gypsy-Roma students in the UK, Spain and Slovakia and built on links forged and knowledge gained through a previous Erasmus+ project, managed by the co-ordinating partner, entitled 'Right to Roma'. Roma communities across Europe are some of the most marginalised and disadvantaged in terms of educational opportunities. The project therefore aimed to increase our understanding of the extent and impact of this inequality, as well as to accumulate detailed knowledge of the complexities of Roma identity in Europe. Through the sharing of good practice and the dissemination of our findings, the aim of the project was also to increase awareness among organisations, policy providers, educators and other stakeholders working with Roma and provide guidance and effective strategies for engaging with and improving outcomes for these communities.
Peterborough has a growing Eastern European Roma population and at Queen Katharine Academy Roma students, predominantly from Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Romanian, make up nearly 20% of our student cohort. Our Roma students and families are some of the hardest to reach in terms of student and parental engagement in school life. They are also some of the most deprived and due to the pervasive discrimination experienced in their countries of origin, they often have severe educational gaps, low self-esteem and low aspirations for the future. The regions of our partner organisations also have large Roma populations, and these communities share many of the same educational and social challenges. The primary need of this project was to develop our understanding of the experiences and obstacles facing our Roma communities, within each of our settings, as well as to share and implement ideas, and long-term strategies to improve social and educational integration.