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Kiwi School (primary)

Children with a parent serving in the British Armed Forces face an emotional rollercoaster and can struggle with some of the unique challenges that they face. Little Troopers has created a new resource for schools and community workers who have military children in their care. The Military Child Wellbeing Course template is now available from the Little Troopers website as part of the Little Troopers at School project, we took it to Kiwi School in Wiltshire for a test drive.

Kiwi Primary School has over 400 children and 98% have a parent serving in the UK Armed Forces. They have been running three groups a week using the Wellbeing Course template with six children in each group.

What is the Military Child Wellbeing Course?

The Military Child Wellbeing Course is a seven-session course template to help those working with Forces children. It has been developed in a child friendly, military specific and interactive way. We wanted to ensure that our children have the chance and space to talk through their emotions and give them some tools to help them with the ups and downs of military life.

The Wellbeing course is set out as a template with a USB loaded with invites, certificates, PowerPoint presentations for every session, facilitator notes and activity sheets to print off for use in the sessions and to take home. It also comes with a few props to help, including an Intro booklet, A1 Map, Stickers, Bingo calling cards, Floor Cards and Charade Cards.

The course covers several areas including Mindfulness, Creative Writing, Separation/ Deployment, Change and This is Me.

Kiwi School’s experience

Nikki McCuaig, Inclusion Teaching Assistant at the school said “The course is going very well and the children that attend are excited to take part, often asking at the beginning of the week when their next session is and also children from last term wanted to continue with it.”

She added “The lesson plans and power point are very thorough and this makes it straight forward to follow. The resource packs have been brilliant, they like looking at the map in week 2 to see where their dads had been working and where they were going next. Bingo was a big hit too.”

“I find that having a mix of ages in the group beneficial as it helps the younger children to open up and share feelings, it also helps the older ones who may find it slightly embarrassing to start with, to take a role of responsibility towards the younger children within the group.”

“As a group we are working on meditation at the end of the session. This is to reflect on what we have been discussing. They also have the opportunity to write on a note how they feel the session went, if there is anything they would like to discuss etc.”