Since 2021, Little Troopers has been working closely in partnership with Supporting Service Children in Education (SSCE) Cymru – which is funded by  Welsh Government and hosted by the Welsh Local Government Association (WLGA) – to provide a benchmark of support for more than 2,000 service children in education settings throughout Wales.

Both SSCE Cymru and Little Troopers passionately believe that all schools should have a good understanding of the unique challenges that service children face and have measures in place to support these children and their families. It shouldn’t matter whether a school has one military child, or two hundred. All service children deserve to feel recognised, included and celebrated.

A benchmark of support

To help establish this benchmark, 400 primary schools in Wales were sent both English and Welsh copies of the Little Troopers storybooks for their school libraries. These books feature military children from all three services as the protagonist, helping service children to feel represented at school.

75 Welsh primary schools were then sent bilingual copies of the Little Troopers Military Child Wellbeing Course template. This interactive course encourages military children and their teachers to get together in small groups to explore parental separation, deployment, house moves and living abroad, as well as the personal themes of belonging, identity and mindfulness.

In November 2021, more than 40 primary schools from across Wales took part in an interactive online Little Troopers workshop. 260 service children from across Wales logged in on the same day, at the same time and took part in storytelling, imaginative play, drawing, movement and drama; sharing their experiences of growing up with a parent in the forces and learning new ways to cope with the uncertainty that military life can bring.

Ongoing partnership

Since the initial project, Little Troopers and SSCE Cymru continue to work closely together to ensure that Welsh schools know about, and have access to, Little Troopers at School resources.

 In addition to promoting the Little Troopers at School bilingual resources, schools nationwide are encouraged to set-up regular Service children clubs  to bring their service children together.  The SSCE Cymru team continue to keep schools updated  about newly available resources and activities from the charity.

Little Troopers at School resources are regularly recommended to those schools in Wales that engage with SSCE Cymru when working towards achieving an Armed Forces Friendly Schools Cymru Status – a framework for schools to embed good practice, create a safe, happy environment for their Service children to share their experiences and encourages schools to form positive links with the Armed Forces community. By using Little Troopers at School for elements of this, schools can evidence their support, which in turn will be recognised as schools continue to progress to meet certain criteria for each status. 

Louise Fetigan, founder of Little Troopers, comments: “As a charity, one of our aims is to ensure that all military children get fair and consistent support within their education setting, which is why this nationwide partnership in Wales means so much to us. All military children deserve to be recognised, included and celebrated at school and our work with SSCE Cymru means that teachers across Wales have access to useful resources at their fingertips to deliver this vital support to forces families.”

Millie Taylor, the SSCE Cymru Programme Manager, comments: “Our collaboration with Little Troopers has been incredibly valuable over the years. Through our joint efforts on various projects, we’ve ensured that Service children in educational settings across Wales receive the support they deserve. Little Troopers in School resources are something our team continues to highlight to schools as practical, easy to use, and having a real impact on the Service children and schools that have used them.”

Ian James, Headteacher at Pontprennau Primary School, which is one of the schools that was sent the Little Troopers resources and attended the online workshop, commented: “Service children have unique circumstances and having their needs recognised is important for their well-being and academic progress.  Little Troopers have been able to shine a light on our service children and the children thoroughly enjoyed the activities.”