Login
01326 572685
Helston Community College

Support for Service Families

Helston Community College is pleased to announce that the Ministry of Defence Armed Forces Families Fund and the Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust will provide Helston Community College with a grant of £6,191 towards our Military Families Project. This project will include more coffee afternoons, 1: 1 support for service children and a dedicated space for mentoring.

Supporting the children of service families at Helston Community College

Service children have unique needs. Whether living in the UK or overseas, they face challenges that often go beyond the experience of the majority of families and children living in the UK. Increased school mobility and the cycle of deployment can bring social, emotional and academic challenges for those children with parents in the armed forces (Ofsted 2011).

Service children are those who have one or both parents currently serving in the armed forces. The Government also recognises that children may still need some support even after their parents have left the forces. In fact colleges can claim additional funding to support Service children for four years after their parents have left the armed forces.

 

At Helston Community College, Service children:

  • make up at least 16% of the college population
  • have outperformed their non-service peers in examination performance
  • have higher rates of attendance
  • and have better behavioural statistics compared to their non-service counterparts.

 

Of course, statistics do not represent every student's individual experience and belonging to a Service family does bring challenges which other children may not encounter. The college, therefore, offers support in a number of ways all of which are underpinned by our co-operative values. In addition to this, the college supports the role the armed forces play in our community and seeks to work with them in the wider education of all our students.

 

 

Children’s Naval Charity
The Charity was established in 1825 and has a good understanding of the pressures that our Naval Families may face.

Naval Children’s Charity can offer support to all who have served even if you only served for one day. They support anyone who has served in RN/ RM/ Veterans/ RFA and WRNS.

Naval Children’s charity can offer financial support to help with a huge range of needs, they can also signpost to other organisations, if it felt appropriate.

Over the last year they have given grants totalling more than £10 million and have helped over 4000 families.

One of their aims is to promote ‘Life Chances’ to Naval children. This can include support grants towards:

•       The cost of a school trip
•       Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme.
•       School uniform
•       Energy Costs
•       Specialist disability equipment
•       Support for assessment of needs (including Dyslexia, ASD. To access this support, children do need to have been identified and referred for additional assessment)

The charity also supports a number of Children and Young adults to take part in Tall ships Voyages each year.

The above list is not extensive to the support they can offer. If you feel you have a need they best place to start is their website. https://www.navalchildrenscharity.org.uk/ there is an online enquire form, its simple and will often be responded to quickly.

You can also sign up for their newsletter on the site or follow them on social Media for update.

Military Families Reading Force Book Club

 

Reading Force have launched Junior and Senior Book Clubs for children aged 8-11 and 12-16 to get together and chat. Children who sign up to Reading Force receive the first three books from them for free. The aim is to read the book and then meet up with the group each month and chat about it to share the fun of the book and the adventure together.

 

We will be holding our monthly book club meetings after school on the first Wednesday of each month, commencing from Wednesday 1 February from 3.15 pm – 4.15 pm, in Room A10 at our South Site building.

 

We have 15 places available for this group, and places will be offered on a first come first serve basis.

 

You must complete the electronic “Permission Slip” giving your permission for your child to attend the club which can be found here: Monthly Book Club

Helpful Links:

NFF - Supporting organisations  

 

NFF - Parental Absence and Family Support - Useful Resources

  • This includes our Parental Absence Guide for adults supporting children and young people during absence and separation and a Recommended Reading List. It also links to Strengthening Families, an offer of support for all Royal Navy and Royal Marines families.

 

Further links: