With MOD JITG (Chicksands) only a short distance from our school, many of our pupils are from Service families.

Over the years, our school staff has become increasingly aware of particular pressures that may affect children from Service families due to postings and deployments. In order to help children and their families cope with these additional pressures, we have put certain measures in place partly funded by the additional Service Family Pupil Premium the school currently receives.

 

Mr Sullivan is our Forces Liaison Officer and works very closely with members of the pastoral team here at Robert Bloomfield. He has organised Karen Deakes who is the Community Welfare Officer at Chicksands to come in every week and meet with our Service students. These sessions are informal and just give our students an opportunity to talk about whatever is on their mind, the children really enjoy and look forward to these sessions every Tuesday.  A child can be identified by parents or by school staff – no planned sessions take place without permission from parents.

At the start of every half term Mr Sullivan will be in touch with the parent/carers of our service students, just to see if there is any update to that the school should be aware of. This is usually done through an email with a short google document attached. This is really helpful for us as a school to be best placed to support our students.

 Please contact Mr Sullivan if you feel your child would benefit from this service:

CMA-Support@bestacademies.org.uk or telephone the School Office: Tel - 01462 813359

 

Informing the School

Please let your child’s class teacher know if a parent is to be deployed. Some children cope very well when a parent is away; others do not. This may depend on a child’s personality or age. If a teacher knows that a child might be feeling upset because of circumstances at home, it is much easier than trying to work out why a child is upset or not concentrating well. 

 

Special Educational Needs

If your child has special educational needs, it is advisable that you register with CEAS (Children’s Educational Advisory Service) in order to access current SEN advice for Service Family children. Several families have reported that they have found CEAS to be a helpful contact.

CEAS contact details: Tel: 01980 618244 e-mail: enquiries@ceas.detsa.co.uk

 

Service Family Pupil Premium

Schools currently receive ‘Pupil Premium’ in the School Budget to help support Service Family children in school, with a particular emphasis on emotional support.

 The amount of funding for each year is calculated by the number of identified Service Family children on roll on the day of the previous January School Census. Although the number of Service Family pupils in school may change, sometimes considerably, throughout the year, the Census Day numbers give an indication for funding purposes.

 Service Family Pupil Premium is not the same as Pupil Premium received for pupils on Free School Meals or ‘Looked After’ Children.