Imagine moving districts, houses and jobs all in one day! It is a big task and one that I would struggle with personally.
Within my own bubble Gypsy day has a huge impact our school. Last year on June 1st 10 children left on the Friday and 3 new children arrived on the Tuesday. That might not seem like many in a big school but for a school of 33 students that change is profound. Suddenly our targets no longer reflected the need of our students, we lost 3 board members and our roll took a huge dip. Considering we had lost no children at the end of 2012 this was like the end of our year. If was sad to see many familiar faces leave and our new students needed time to settle in and become part of our school and our culture.
It is also important to recognise that for these kids they have moved house and school over the course of a weekend, many moving into communities where they know no-one!
Our school is able to adjust to this change. We do what is right - welcome in the new families, change when we report to parents and run programmes that fit this time schedule. we run our term to allow for changes and it would be nice if the ministry acknowledged this. In 2012 I was only able to track 14 students for the whole year. Yet had my data been June to June I would have been able to report on 30 students.
Sure we can internally review this, make adjustments to our priorities and change our programmes but this is double handling and the documents presented are not a true reflection of our school and it's effectiveness.
So here's to gypsy day and the families whose lives are changing literally overnight!
