A controversial way to deal with immigrant school pupils in Huddersfield has been made into a documentary.

In the 1960s and 1970s non-white youngsters were bussed out to schools so no one school would became ‘swamped.’

It is the focus of a special project by Huddersfield University Research student Joe Hopkinson, who is studying history.

He reveals that Huddersfield was one of only a few local authorities who used a technique that was controversial at the time.

He said: “Some schools had much higher proportions of immigrant children than others and in reaction to this, essentially to prevent white children being ‘swamped’ by immigrant children, the government suggested to Local Education Authorities that they ‘disperse’ immigrant children across their area by bussing them.

Children get on board a bus to take them to school - Still taken from Joe Hopkinson's Dispersing The Problem video

“Only 11 LEAs in Britain bussed children and Huddersfield was one of them. Children from Birkby, for example, were bused to Lindley infants school.”

Joe has made a short documentary based on his project which covers the years 1964-1975 and it will be shown at the Magic Rock Tap in at 7pm on Tuesday, February 28.

The event will also feature a 30-minute long Panorama documentary from 1969 called Racial Problems in Huddersfield.

Joe, who has done the project for an oral history masters at the University of Huddersfield, said: “Huddersfield in the 1960s and 1970s was generally considered to be a progressive town in regards to multicultural education. This was largely because of the work of the late Trevor Burgin, the headmaster at Spring Grove Primary from 1958-1967, and the person who was placed in charge of looking after immigrant children in the town. Essentially, he was a father of multicultural education in Britain. He wrote an important book on teaching English as a Second Language, sat on national committees that discussed ‘multi-racial education’ and was awarded an OBE in 1972 for his good work.

Huddersfield history student Joe Hopkinson

“However, despite Trevor’s positive influence and vision there were also a lot of unpleasant ideas about immigrants in general in the town, as well as in the education system. The best way to sum it up is to say that a large amount of white people saw immigrants as a problem and understood them through racialised stereotypes.”

Huddersfield Corporation was following Government orders to bus children and started the scheme here in 1965.

It began after the government Department for Education advocated that local authorities use bussing to avoid immigrants making up more than one third of a school’s pupils. Eleven other authorities used bussing.

Huddersfield implemented it because in the early 1960s Commonwealth immigration was perceived as a minor crisis by local educators.

Huddersfield in the 1960s - Still from Dispersing The Problem video by Joe Hopkinson

Historian Joe Hopkinson said: “Essentially, they feared the formation of ghettos due to large numbers of non-English speakers arriving, generally from the Indian subcontinent, over short periods of time in areas near the centre of town.

“By 1965 half of all pupils at Spring Grove Primary were immigrants. It was argued that bussing some of the newcomers to rural, predominantly white, schools was the best way to help them to integrate and learn English. However, South Asian children and Black Caribbean children, who were already fluent in English, were also bussed. “Presumably this was also to help them to integrate. It socially disadvantaged bussed children because they usually lived far away from their class and school mates. Bussing actually made integrating and making white friends was harder for many immigrant children.”

Kalsoom Bashir - Still from Dispersing The Problem video by Joe Hopkinson

Bussing ended relatively quickly in Huddersfield compared to areas like Southall and Bradford which continued bussing children until the early 1980s.

It was largely phased out in 1973 and entirely stopped by 1975.

Huddersfield replaced it with other methods, such as after-school tutors, summer schools and withdrawal classes where non-Anglophones were mostly educated in normal lessons, but withdrawn once a day for an English class.

Raj Samra - Still from Dispersing The Problem video by Joe Hopkinson