Education settings with service children have been benefiting from Little Troopers’ secondary school resource hub.
Created in collaboration with teachers, families and behavioural experts, the available assets include lesson plans and templates for activities.
Coombe Dean School in Plymouth, which has around 75 service children, has been running Little Troopers sessions with small groups of students.
One of the first was a creative writing task where students were asked to write poems to reflect their feelings and emotions about having a parent deployed.
Angela Hayes, the school’s inclusion co-ordinator, says: “The sessions were a real benefit in facilitating a safe space for service children to share their thoughts and experiences of being part of a service family.
“The children particularly engaged with the opportunity to write poems which were really expressive and insightful. The resources served as a really good way to initiate what can be tricky discussion subjects.”
The school plans to use the hub as a regular part of its workshops for service pupils in the future.
Angela adds: “Plans are afoot to raise the profile of service children support, including the introduction of a dedicated service child hub via Westcountry Schools Trust (WeST). This will enable us to share initiatives and events that we are involved in aimed at supporting and enriching the school experience of our service children.”
To find out more about the resources, see littletroopers.net/littletroopersatschool