Warning over failings in school system for services children

Children who face regular moves between homes and schools because they have a parent in the military can suffer from anxiety and stress, according to an Ofsted report.

Continual moves had a negative effect on their friendships and their personal development and they often have “gaps” in their education, it said.

The report added: “The combination of deployment of a family member and regular moves of home and school can cause anxiety and stress for service families whether living in the UK or overseas: education is disturbed, social networks are disrupted and parents left behind have to cope with the effects of being a ‘single parent’.”

Ofsted chief inspector Christine Gilbert said: “Service children often attend many different schools over the course of their school life. This makes continuity and progression in learning hard to achieve and there is more we should be doing.

“Information about each child’s standards, progress and needs should be passed effectively from school to school in order to ensure their learning and development is as good as possible. Too often this is not done well enough and many service children are missing large parts of their curriculum and essential training in key areas and they struggle to catch up.

“This is made all the harder for them given their anxieties about their parents when on active service.”

The report, based on visits to state and private schools in England, and services children’s centres in Germany and Cyprus, raises concerns there is no accurate record of the number of armed forces children, and no-one properly accountable for tracking their location.

According to Department for Education figures, there were 37,940 services children in England’s schools in January 2010. But the Ministry of Defence’s Children and Young People’s Plan 2010-2013 estimated more than 120,000 children and young people belonged to the services community, and the Royal Navy and Royal Marine Children’s Fund put the figure at 174,341 in November 2009.

The report examined service children’s educational achievements and found national data showed that in general, most armed forces children educated in state schools in England and overseas did as well, or better than their civilian peers.