TEACHERS and school staff brushed up on their fairground art in a bid to build bridges with show families. Educationalists and travellers worked together on various arts and crafts projects at a special conference in Bolton last week. It was designed to encourage traveller families to send their children to school and help teachers understand the problems they have doing in so.

Organiser Kath Cresswell used arts and crafts sessions to break down the barriers before the real talking got underway.

She explained: "We wanted to achieve a better understanding - getting people together to find solutions rather than arguing from opposite sides of the fence.

"If you are standing next to someone painting a picture you see them as a person not a teacher or parent and it stops people taking stances."

The conference was organised by Bolton Education Service for Travellers (BEST) and MP Ruth Kelly spoke during the afternoon about the importance of gaining a good education.

At the moment there over 200 traveller pupils on the rolls of Bolton schools and Kath Cresswell says, although attitudes are changing, some parents still cannot see the point of putting their children through exams once they have mastered skills such as literacy.

Pressure on schools to produce good test results and slash absence rates can also create conflict between teachers and show families who travel for about six months of the year.

Kath Cresswell says schools do try but could do more to make it easier for show children to continue their education while on the road.

There are five showman sites and one gypsy site within the town boundary but Bolton schools also take in children from another four sites in fringe areas such as Little Hulton.

Youngsters go to a variety of schools but three secondaries and three primaries - Little Lever, The Withins, Westhoughton High, Bolton Parish, Queen Street, and St George's in Westhoughton - are particularly geared up for travellers and take in most pupils.

A recent national Ofsted report accused schools of failing children from traveller families.

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