Last week the Department for Education published stats on nationality and country of birth data. They show that schools failed to collect nationality data on 25% of pupils. 2% of parents and children actively refused. That represents nearly 200 000 people boycotting the school census, and it is thought that a lot of the ‘not yet obtained’ returns from schools were quiet boycotts by school staff. This is amazing! And at a time when lots of politicians think showing solidarity with migrants is an electoral no-no, shows them that actually, there are hundreds of thousands of people who disagree.

The Department of Education’s (DfE) policy, effective from September 2016, is to collect country of birth and nationality information on 8 million children in England in order to ‘create a hostile environment’ for migrant children in schools.

The legal case challenging the nationality/COB data collection was also launched last week. The campaign group Against Borders for Children, represented by the human rights charity Liberty, will focus its legal argument on whether the policy infringes the rights of pupils. The group also argue the policy serves no “educational purpose” and have been organising a national boycott until the Department of Education reverses this policy and commits to safeguarding children from the stigma of anti-immigrant rhetoric and the violence that accompanies it..

ABC is still crowdfunding to cover its costs (having raised almost £5000 of the £12 000 it needs), and City of Sanctuary encourages supporters to share this to help the campaign.