This page contains a Flash digital edition of a book.
WHAT FAMILIES HAD TO SAY


“Why is this only available in English schools? What provision is there for Scottish, Welsh and NI schools?” “Tried to register for the pupil premium with the school but they had never heard of it.”


“If no school places are available then none are available! It doesn’t really matter what the Covenant says.”


“There are huge gaps in my children’s knowledge as a result of moves. Schools do not trust each other’s academic assessments. My child was struggling to settle, so the school’s response was to put the child on the special needs register. My child did not have fair access to the selective secondary education system that children who have stability at primary school have. The Covenant ensures access for Service children to ‘a’ school but they can rarely access the best schools as the best schools are always full. The forces children fill up the spare places at the less popular schools.”


“Smaller village schools, primary and secondary, who do not have a big allocation of Service children are often unaware of the issues these children face with regard to mobility and deployment and/or unwilling or incapable to do anything about them. Better liaison with local councils via public involvement networks or similar mechanism of public representation and better sharing of local resources with school with a big Service representation sharing expertise with school with a small representation - would make a huge difference.”


“When moving house on assignment, the local council gave no flexibility for school applications for my children. I arrived in post with 4 days’ notice of the local deadline for primary school applications. I spoke to the primary school admissions office to see if there was any flexibility to allow me to visit schools (being new to the area) and complete the application with a few extra days. I was informed that no special treatment would be given and if I didn’t make the deadline, my application would be classed as late, thereby hindering the chances of successfully obtaining one of my preferences. It is not clear to me how the Covenant is applied in Wales (is it different to the rest of the UK?).”


“My children attend a non-military school who have used the pupil premium to advantage my children whilst their daddy was deployed.”


“Schools here in Scotland start children at school one year later. My daughter has had one year in an English school already whereas Scottish children, the same age as her, have only just started school. Because of the different curriculum, if we are posted back to England, when she is 7 years old, she will need to sit English SATS but will have been educated as per the Scottish Curriculum.”


“The Service Pupil Premium seems to be being grossly misspent by schools and there seems to be nobody overseeing this. Schools just get handed this money and it quickly gets absorbed into the main teaching budget and Service children don’t benefit.”


“We moved in the summer prior to our son starting primary school. We did not have an address as there was a shortage of SFA so this meant we were unable to apply for a place for our son to start school. We were then allocated SFA after the date for admissions so had to go through the late application process. We were eventually allocated a school place 6 miles from the SFA allocated as this was the nearest one available. This means I have to do a 12 mile round trip twice a day to take my son to and from school. We were given no support through the Covenant at all.”


www.raf-ff.org.uk 11


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28