Service Pupils and Pastoral Care
Pastoral care is a central priority for us at Leeming. The majority of our pupils are from service families and we offer lots of support and provision to help the children deal with some of the challenges that this can pose. Those children who are not service pupils also benefit from our enhanced pastoral offer. More details of our work can be found in our prospectus, or by speaking to a member of the Senior Leadership Team.
Our Service Pupil Premium page contains extensive details about our work in school to support children from service backgrounds.
Mental Health
Our school prioritises supporting children's mental health, and acknowledging the particular demands that service life can place on this. We have a Designated Senior Mental Health Lead (DSMHL), our SENCO, Natalie Wiltshire, who has specific training in this area. We also have a number of core pastoral staff trained to Compass Level 3 to support mental health.
We have also recently undertaken work in Psychological First Aid - a useful summary presentation can be found here, including some helpful prompts for working with children (pages 4-6) and useful contacts (p7).
Service Children's Support
We know Service Children are not a 'single group' with identical needs or experiences - and always prioritise the individual child. This document captures the huge diversity of experiences and backgrounds service pupils will have. To cater for these varied situations, we have within school dedicated support staff, who assist children through transition on arrival and departure from school as well as offering pastoral care during the normal school day.
This is particularly important if families are dealing with deployments, postings and weekending. During deployments, the following document is a really helpful source of information covering a wide range of support available:
Equally a great source of signposting and support is the local Service Children's Champion, Angela Campbell.
Angela is a service spouse with children and is therefore very aware of the challenges military life can bring. This means she can offer support to the pupils with a great deal of understanding. Angela offers well-being support for Service families who may be struggling with anxiety, managing emotions, parental separation/deployment, friendships or transitions. She also delivers group sessions to the pupils such as Anxiety Workshops and Wellbeing courses, and can support families at points of transition.
You can find more about the Service Children’s Champions here: www.servicechildrenschampion.co.uk , or you can contact her directly: angela.campbell@northyorks.gov.uk.
Key Information for Service Families
External sites providing service related information, particularly helpful to parents who may be moving / being posted.
Government Guidance for Overseas Education for Service Pupils
Overseas Education Supportability Team (OEST) and Education Advisory Team (EAT)
Service Children in State Schools
Moving from or to Scotland?
The MOD’s Defence Children's Services have developed resources to assist Service families with moves into and from the Scottish education system:
- https://forceschildrenseducation.org.uk/ has been developed in partnership with the Association of Directors of Education Scotland (ADES).
- A guide about Scottish Education written for parents by the MOD’s Children’s Education Advisory Service. Please click this link.
DCS also fund a National transitions officer for Scotland, who is based with ADES and the Royal Caledonian Education Trust. Her role is specifically focusing on improving transitions both into and out of the Scottish Education System. In addition DCS have a Parent Support Officer for Scotland who is employed directly to support Service families in Scotland.
Moving to Cyprus?
This open source website will provide a one-stop shop for service personnel and their families to access useful information about being assigned to Cyprus, living in Cyprus and what to prepare for when departing Cyprus.
Welcome to British Forces Cyprus
Armed Forces Covenant
The Armed Forces Covenant can help parents to secure the best possible education for their children. This can be particularly helpful for when families are moving away from Leeming. More details can be found below:
Yes, No, Maybe - the Armed Forces Covenant.
Other organisations to provide support and information.
The Royal British Legion have produced a leaflet providing guidance to parents of service pupils. This can be found here:
RBL - Service Pupils' Education Guide
We regularly engage with a wide variety of events etc. specifically for service pupils, for example Armed Forces Day, and the Ripon Cathedral Remembrance Event. Please see below for a link to a gallery and video of these!
Little Troopers is a registered charity supporting all children with parents serving in the British Armed Forces, regular or reserve. They provide fundamental resources, initiatives and events to ease and aid repeated separation periods aiming to keep parent and child connected and bonded even when miles apart. They provide a consistent support approach to service children regardless of their parents' service, rank, regular / reserve forces, marital status - all their support is accessible wherever in the world families are based or choose to live.
