Factsheet: Service Pupil Premium

The Department for Education, in England, has introduced the Service Pupil Premium (SPP) to recognise the challenges facing children from service families in acadamies, state and free schools. It is also part of their commitment to delivering the Armed Forces Covenant.

Dreghorn Pre-school and Creche pupil with teacher and building blocks
Photo: Malcolm Cochrane Photography

What is SPP?

The SPP helps the school provide additional support for children who may require it and who have:

  • A current serving parent
  • A parent who died while serving
  • Been flagged as Service children to the school ahead of the autumn school census deadline.

How can SPP help?

The SPP can help your family in a number of ways to:

  • Offer pastoral support during challenging times
  • Offer other assistance when needed
  • Help mitigate the negative impact on service children of family mobility or parental deployment.

How do schools use SPP?

Schools use the SPP in a number of ways:

  • Improving the level of communication with deployed parents e.g. Skype time clubs
  • Creating scrapbooks and diaries to show parents
  • Support for pupils e.g. nurture groups
  • Staff support for individual pupils
  • Sharing best practice with other schools.

There is no SPP in Scotland but the support for your child is no less effective as the funding from the Scottish Government takes account of factors such as mobility and under achievement and is fully inclusive of Forces children. The above ideas for supporting children are also in place to support Forces children in Scotland.

The other nations of Wales and Northern Ireland have no SPP, but they also support Forces children through their own policies.

Further information can be found on the UK Government website.