Armed forces children within schools across the UK
The Service Children's Progression (SCiP) Alliance
The SCiP Alliance is a partnership of organisations focused on improving outcomes for children from military families. It is hosted by the University of Winchester and supported by the Ministry of Defence.
The SCiP Alliance website has a number of resources for schools including research briefings around moving schools and non-operational separation (weekending), which many service families will experience at some point.
In May 2020 the SCiP Alliance produced a report Listening to Learn:The Voices of Service Children. The report aims to improve understanding of how those supporting service children put their voices at the heart of all they do.
The SCiP Alliance has produced a mapping tool which provides an overview of Service Pupil Premium statistics across England.
Herefordshire comes out as a high decile with the majority being in the primary sector.
Linking with data from the Department for Education, as well as identifying the number of children registered for Service Pupil Premium within a local authority area, the mapping tool also indicates:
- The number of schools that have registered service pupils
- The average number of service pupils within schools that have a service child – rating this high, medium or low in regards to the overall population
- The local authorities national decile by number of service children
Number of schools with service pupils on roll in England
In his July 2019 briefing note 'Service Child Distribution in England' Dr Michael Hall states that at least 52% of schools across England have at least one service child on roll. Of those schools, 50% will only have one or two service children registered.