Executive summary: How does military life shape service children’s identity and school experiences?

Abstract: Service children are identified by virtue of the occupation of their parents. Their livesareshaped by the unique demands placed on armed forces personnel. Service childrenaremorelikely to move (home and school) than their non-service peers and parental separationiscommon amongst service families. Alongside these experiences of mobility andseparation,being part of an armed forces family results in the creation of a distinct identity, whichfurther sets service children apart from their peers. As a result, they have unique educationalexperiences, associated needs and a distinctive identity which are often not fully understood,or supported, in the English state school context. Since 2011, service children in English state schools have received targeted funding, known as the Service Pupil Premium (SPP). In the academic year 2023-2024, £335 per child was provided to schools for 78,897 individuals, amounting to just over £26.43 million in total (Department for Education [DfE], 2024). Despite the significant amount of funding given to schools over the last 13 years, there has been considerable criticism of the SPP. Indeed, as a recent report – commissioned by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) – highlights, the SPP is “poorly understood and poorly used” (Walker, Selous & Misca, 2020, p.69)

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