What is the Service Pupil Premium?

The Department for Education introduced the Service Pupil Premium (SPP) in April 2011 in recognition of the specific challenges children from service families face and as part of the commitment to delivering the armed forces covenant.

State schools, academies and free schools in England, which have children of service families in school years Reception to Year 11, can receive the SPP funding. It is designed to assist the school in providing the additional support that these children may need and is currently worth £300 per service child who meets the eligibility criteria.

Eligibility criteria

Pupils attract the SPP if they meet the following criteria:

• one of their parents is serving in the regular armed forces
• they have been registered as a ‘service child’ in the school census at any point since 2011
• one of their parents died whilst serving in the armed forces and the pupil receives a pension under the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme or the War Pensions Scheme
• pupils with a parent who is on full commitment as part of the full time reserve service are classed as service children

The purpose of the Service Pupil Premium

Eligible schools receive the SPP so that they can offer mainly pastoral support during challenging times and to help mitigate the negative impact on service children of family mobility or parental deployment.

Mobility is when a service family is posted from one location to another, including overseas and within the UK.

Deployment is when a service person is serving away from home for a period of time. This could be a 6 to 9 month tour of duty, a training course or an exercise which could last for a few weeks.

How Service Pupil Premium differs from the Pupil Premium

The SPP is there for schools to provide mainly pastoral support for service children, whereas the Pupil Premium was introduced to raise attainment and accelerate progress within disadvantaged groups.

At Navenby we do not combine SPP with the main Pupil Premium funding and the spending of each premium is accounted for separately.

What could the Service Pupil Premium be used for?

In order to support the pastoral needs of service children, schools have flexibility over how they use the SPP, as they are best placed to understand and respond to the specific needs of those pupils for whom the funding has been allocated. The funding could be spent on providing a variety of means of support including counselling provision, nurture groups, e-bluey clubs etc.

Schools might also consider how to improve the level of and means of communication between the child and their deployed parents.  In addition, staff hours may be required to support the needs of service children when they join a new school as a result of a posting or when a parent is deployed and these hours could be funded by the Service Pupil Premium.

SPP should not be used to subsidise routine school activity (trips, music lessons etc.), however, schools may choose to fund school trips just for service children, to help them enjoy their time at school and build a sense of a wider community and understanding of the role their service parent plays (e.g. with military specific trips) to help them cope with the potential strains of service life.

Please speak to us in school if you have any concerns regarding the SPP and how it can support your child in their education.

FORCES CLUB

Our Forces children meet regularly in the School library to discuss and explore areas which are significant to them as members of a military family.  Whilst the topics covered may not necessarily be on the curriculum the work that they do does include curriculum subjects including numeracy, literacy, art, RE, music and science.  Subjects discussed are planned and delivered in consultation with the children in order that the workshops are topical and relevant to their needs. 

We also enter a number of competitions which are run by military charities throughout the year which the children particularly enjoy.  These competitions provide the children with an opportunity to show their artistic and literary flair.  Examples of these wonderful pieces of work are on display in the library, either on the walls/display board or in the folders on the top shelf of the bookcase (to the right of the upcoming events display). 

Please do not hesitate to come and find me in school if you have any questions about Forces Club. 

Mrs Woolsey

Armed Forces Day Flag Raising Poster Competition.

This term we are excited to have been invited to enter a competition through NKDC.  Each year NKDC have a flag raising ceremony to mark the start of a week of events celebrating our Armed Forces.  This year, the ceremony will take place on Monday 19th June outside St Denys Church in Sleaford at 10.30am.  We will be attending with four children from years 5/6.  The competition is to design a poster and the theme this year is "Saluting our Armed Forces".  Our designs are under way and will be submitted at the end of the month.  The winning design will feature on the advertising material for these celebrations. 

Term 3.Thinking about what home means to us.

Last term, at Forces Club we have been looking at what "home" means.  We have discussed the concept, looking at the importance of family and friends, and not just locations and bricks and mortar.  Taking inspiration from Charlie Mackesy, the children created some beautiful pencil sketches in the style of this artist.  Some of them reflect their thoughts on home and some show other feelings and important emotions to do with friendship and a sense of belonging.