Agenda item

The Chair welcomed the guests to the Committee. A video from the Kent Service Children's Voice Conference on 19 June 2017, highlighting the experiences of service children, was shown to the Committee.

 

Q – In the video, one of the children stated that they had attended ten schools. What impact does moving school have on service children?

 

Angela stated that she currently had a Year 2 pupil who was in their fourth school. She noted that there had been lots of psychological research on the impact to service children who often experienced a period of shutdown. The impact often depended on how long the children knew in advance about the move and how the situation was handled by the parents. She highlighted that sometimes children knew 12 – 18 months about a potential move whilst some were given the minimum notice period of six weeks. Deby explained that it also depended on the child’s character; some children were more adaptable whilst others would find the transition distressing. 

 

Deby highlighted a visit to Brunei to talk to service children and their families about life in Kent and the UK prior to their deployment. She had anticipated that it would be difficult to ‘sell’ life in Kent but as part of the visit, they had discovered that opportunities for children were limited in Brunei; by moving to the UK service children would be able to access lots of opportunities such as visits to the coastal parks, Canterbury and London.

 

Q – As Headteachers of Guston and Cheriton Primary Schools, do you work closely together?

 

Deby explained that Cheriton Primary School was close to the Shorncliffe Garrison, Folkestone and Guston Primary School was located next to the, now demolished, Connaught Barracks, Dover where Service Families Accommodation (SFA) was located. The SFA served the Shorncliffe Garrison so a half of the Guston Primary School’s students were service children. She confirmed that both schools worked closely together.

 

Q – What do you spend your Service Pupil Premium on?

 

Angela explained that the Service Pupil Premium had been implemented to mitigate against the impact of deployment and mobility on service children. It had been introduced at the height of the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq alongside the military covenant. The Service Pupil Premium was £300 per child and was not linked to attainment. Angela stated she was a member of the National Executive Committee for Service Children in State Schools; she reported that the Service Pupil Premium could change in the future.

 

Angela stated that 100, out of 500 children who attended Cheriton, received the Service Pupil Premium. The money was used to pay for extra support staff including seven Nepalese speakers and twelve days of educational psychologist services which was the same amount used by a secondary school.  She had also used the money on a particular occasion to buy books and toys for children whose possessions had been ruined in transit.

 

Deby noted that 50% of the Guston student population consisted of service children, approximately 50 children. As it was a smaller school with smaller classes, service children were able to access 1 to 1 support. Service children were assessed as they joined the school and through the Special Persons Scheme were able to identify an adult in the school, such as a cook, teaching assistant or teacher, who they were able to talk to if there was something that worried or concerned them. A pupil Information Profile (PIP) was completed for children who were transitioning to a new school, to give an overview and background of the child to the new school. She noted that service children, particularly where English was an additional language, often experience a period of shutdown as they adjusted. She stated that the school had one Nepali speaker who was a teaching assistant and it would be useful to have an additional Nepali speaker.

 

Angela highlighted that service children at Cheriton were encourage to write a letter or email to their deployed parents once a week at school as the internet connection in service accommodation was not always  good. An email from the child’s teacher to the parents was sent once a month and a chatty email from the Headteacher was sent every six weeks which parents replied to and engaged with.

 

Deby reported that Guston had trialled a scheme whereby dads of service children, who were being deployed, would be recorded reading their children a story; none of the dads turned up to the recording session and she was later told by the Gurkha Major that it was not something dads did. She stated that the scheme highlighted the difficulty for the schools getting to know service children, their families and culture due to their constant mobility. She explained that when a Gurkha service child had suffered a bereavement, she changed how she dealt with it to take into account how the community wanted to respond.

    

Angela noted that when parents returned from a tour, the school put a banner outside of the school to welcome them home and alert the civilian community of their return. Sometimes parents returned home from their tour injured and some of the non-military families were not sure how to react; Angela always encouraged them to say hello and welcome them home. She cited a parent, who had returned from a tour with a facial injury, dropping their child off at school wearing a hoody and covering their face; she had invited the parent in and two days later, the parent came into the playground without wearing the hoody.

 

Debra stated that Kent is fortunate in having two headteachers with such experience and expertise in relation to service children and there is much that others in the education community can learn from them. Only 49 schools in Kent had more than 10 service children as part of their student population. She explained that schools with a handful of service children found it challenging to use the £300 as effectively as schools which had a higher number of service children. She encouraged the Committee to raise awareness to all schools of their responsibilities to meet the needs of service children.

 

Tim stated that Cheriton and Guston exemplified best practice in supporting service children. Schools which had very low numbers of service children had a lack of financial support and expertise amongst teaching staff to support those children and the children themselves did not have peer support from children in a similar position. The Civilian-Military Partnership Board had organised outreach events to get service children together and share their experiences; unfortunately service children from schools with low numbers of service children, who would most benefit from the events, often did not attend despite explicit targeting.

 

Q – Which pupils are eligible for Service Pupil Premium?

 

Angela explained that the Service Pupil Premium was introduced in 2011 and pupils attracted the Service Pupil Premium if one of their parents or stepparents were serving in the armed forces or had retired within the last 4 – 6 years.

 

Q – How do you ensure the Service Pupil Premium is used for its intended purpose?

 

Angela explained that she was held to account by publishing the details of the how the Service Pupil Premium is spent on the school’s website, having army representatives on the Governing Body and as part of Ofsted inspections. Parents were also able to challenge how the money was spent; she had previously been challenged over the provision of iPads to service children which had been bought to enable the children to Skype their deployed parents. Deby noted that Guston Primary School now had three service family representatives on its Governing Body including a corporal.

 

Q – Is the Service Pupil Premium linked to attainment?

 

Angela confirmed that it was not linked to attainment like the Free School Meals Pupil Premium. She stated that it was harder to measure the correlation between the Service Pupil Premium and attainment. At Cheriton Primary School after school clubs had been moved to lunchtime as parents of service children worked later and were not able to pick them up. She noted that it was also important to engage and encourage service children in other activities within the school such as the School Council.

 

Deby noted whilst a school’s core business was attainment, it was clearly stated in the guidance that the Service Pupil Premium was to mitigate against deployment and mobility. She stated that Pupil Premium for children in receipt of Free School Meals was used to run catch-up programmes for them; the Service Pupil Premium was more contextual and used to enable service children to feel secure, comfortable and happy to learn.

 

Angela reported that the Family Liaison Officer at Cheriton Primary School recently took the service children who had arrived from Brunei to the local library to enable them to enrol and get a library ticket which their parents might not have known to do. Deby highlighted the reading workshops run at Guston Primary School for parents; it was important that parents were confident reading with their children as it could impact on their child’s learning.

 

Angela stated that service children had a unique set of skills and experiences and were often unphased by events which non-service children may find challenging. Service children were experts about the world around them including the best place to have school dinners, best school swimming pool and shortest school day. She noted that both schools had good links with schools around the world.

 

Tim reported that a lot of schools did not currently publish details of how the Service Pupil Premium was spent on their website. 

 

Deby noted that Service Pupil Premium was an area often overlooked; a system to track student’s progress, Target Tracker, did not initially include service children as part of the pupil premium cohort which had now been adjusted.

 

Angela explained that there were differences in the needs of families from Gurkha, Navy and RAF backgrounds. She highlighted concerns experienced by service children including the death of a deployed parent and a child who thought their deployed parent was working over 20 hours a day as they did not understand the time difference. She handed a pack to the Committee of presentations she had given to the Civilian-Military Partnership Board about supporting service children. She noted that Kent had the eight largest number of service children.

 

Q - Why is the £300 Service Pupil Premium so low?

 

Angela confirmed that no other allowances were available. She explained that when she joined the National Executive Committee for Service Children in State Schools in 2006, the Ministry of Defence had no way of knowing how many service children there were; subsequently a Service Child tab was introduced on the national schools database. the Service Pupil Premium was introduced as a nominal amount in 2011. She stated that 18 months ago it was rumoured that the Service Pupil Premium would be cut completely due to the end of conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq.

 

Angela noted that a number of army administration posts such as chaplains and support workers had been based in Folkestone but had now moved to Aldershot; those workers had provided the families with someone within the armed services who they could talk to. Deby explained that the Gurkha support officers used to be able to translate for families but were no longer allowed to in case their interpretation was incorrect.

 

Angela stated that service children did not choose military life and she felt that she and Deby had to champion them as their needs were not always recognised by other services; the NHS did not provide translated letters to promote services such as the flu jab.

 

Q – Does the disruption to service children have an impact on their attainment?

Deby explained that service children particularly Nepalese children outperformed other students. There was a cap on their attainment as their English was always not at a higher level; additional funding was available for those whose first language was not English.  Angela stated that the mobility of service children was challenging for non-service children and staff. All service children joining the school were assessed within a week.

 

Q – Should Service Pupil Premium be extended until the child reaches Year 11 regardless of when the parent retires?

 

Angela explained that the service children were now classified as Ever 6 by the Department of Education; she thought Year 11 was a sensible cut-off. She reported that service personnel often experienced the symptoms of PTSD 4 – 7 years after the event; in the last ten years two parents had come into school during a psychotic episode.  She confirmed that service children whose parents had died whilst serving in the armed forces attracted the Service Pupil Premium until the end of Year 11.

 

Deby stated that all the support given to service children at Guston Primary School cost more than the Service Pupil Premium received. Both Angela and Deby reported that the provision of support to its large service children student population had been absorbed into the identity and ethos of the school.

 

Angela highlighted the Reading Force booklist for service families which enabled the deployed parent to have a conversation or email about the books their child was reading; once the book was read, it was added to a scrapbook and once completed sent off and the child received a certificate and the parent a letter. Cheriton Primary School had introduced a similar scheme to use with children whose parents were separated or worked away.

 

Q – What can KCC do to improve the effectiveness of the Service Pupil Premium in Kent?

Tim stated that there were a number of measures that KCC could undertake including encouraging neighbouring schools to come together to support Service Pupil Premium students and achieve an economy of scale; raising awareness with regards to the publication of pupil premium data; and looking into the impact of mobility on service children’s attainment. He highlighted that Members, who were often engaged with local schools or sat on Governors Boards, could act as advocates for service children, raising the profile of their specific needs, the importance of using the service pupil premium appropriately and publishing the details.

 

Angela noted that North Yorkshire County Council had an education adviser who supported service children; she explained that whilst she and Deby championed service children, they also had a day job to do too. She stated that KCC staff needed to be aware of the distinct needs of service children. She thanked the staff at Cheriton Library for their help and enthusiasm in welcoming and enabling the service children to join the library.

 

Q – Do Ofsted recognise the challenges of a Year 5 – 6 service child joining a school?

Deby confirmed that service children who joined in Year 5 - 6 were recognised as a specific cohort by Ofsted. If a service child arrived in Year 4, the school would have to evidence the progress they had made at the school so they were quickly assessed when they joined.

 

Angela noted that extenuating circumstances were taken into account as part of the SATs assessment particularly the children who were affected by the Nepali earthquakes.

 

The Chair thanked the guests for their attendance.