Military Community
Approximately 25% of our children are from military backgrounds. Many of these children live in the military housing near to Battlesbury Barracks and others live in the local community. Our families are linked to The Royal Dragoon Guards, who have recently been posted to Warminster, A RTR Squadron and children from soldiers of all units within Waterloo Lines. We also have children of service personnel based further afield across Salisbury Plain.
We regularly welcome military children to our school and see them leave us due to postings. We value our military families and the diversity they bring to our school. We have established strong links to our military community and have procedures in place to ensure military children are welcomed and supported to have strong transitions both into and out of our school. We receive regular feedback from families transferring to our school about their warm welcome and how quickly their children settle in. The support offered to our military families was recognised as a strength in our last Ofsted inspection: 'The school provides very effective support to pupils of military families who may be affected by their parents’ deployments. Parents speak very highly of the effective links between home and school that have developed as a result of the appointment of a military liaison teaching assistant.' (Ofsted, 2017)
We employ a Pupil & Parent Support Worker who has a particular focus on our military families. Our Pupil & Parent Support Worker makes contact with all new military families and works with both parents and children to support transfer. She is also a regular port of call for any anxieties that arise for military families.
We have some fabulous ‘moving schools’ packs available for new children which include activity books for both parents and pupils to complete with details of the school and friends they are leaving and also some postcards to send to their friends once they have settled in. We very much hope that that using these packs will help ease the transition between schools and enable children to settle into their new school. If you would like one of these packs then please let us know so that we can send one out.
The Army Families Federation (AFF) also has useful information about helping forces children move between schools and on dealing with deployment of a parent or carer. Their information can be found at https://aff.org.uk/ and links to other useful sources of information can be found on their website.
We offer a range of support for all our children including ELSA support and speech & language support. We offer our military children the opportunity to write 'blueys' when their parents are away on deployment. Our Pupil & Parent Support Worker is also available at all times to support parents with any worries they may be having. Our military children are fully involved in school life and have the opportunity to take part in a variety of extra-curricular activities such as: choir, football, chess, knitting, netball, multi-skills etc. The Friends of The Avenue also run regular community events for our school community such as: discos, fetes, movie nights, quiz nights etc
If you are posted to Warminster, please get in touch – we would be delighted to meet with you, show you around our fabulous school and discuss what we can offer you and your child.
Helpful contact details
http://www.army.mod.uk/
01985 210305
The Hive Information Centres
01985 847342
The Forces Warminster Community Portal
http://forceswarminster.2day.ws/
Defence Children Services (DCS)
CEAS – Children’s Education Advisory service – Curriculum Concerns, Education Allowances, Admissions to schools, Special Educational needs.
enquiries@ceas.uk.com
01980 618244
SSAFA -Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and families Association
http://www.ssafa.org.uk/
0845 1300 975
http://www.army.mod.uk/