Understand your legal requirements
Schools and trusts must consider the needs and challenges faced by the children of serving and former armed services personnel. This is set out in the Armed Forces Covenant Duty.
The Department for Education (DfE)’s definition of service pupils is primarily for allocating the service pupil premium (SPP) funding. The SPP, outlined below, is additional funding to help you fulfil the above requirement.
But when planning your provision under the Armed Forces Covenant Duty, you need to consider all children from armed forces families – not just those in the DfE school census.
The DfE's non-statutory guidance on service pupils in schools explains how schools and local authorities (LAs) should provide support to service pupils with their education and wellbeing. We cover this in more detail in the sections below.
Service pupil premium (SPP) funding
Who's eligible
A child is eligible for the SPP for the 2025-26 financial year if they meet 1 of the following conditions:
- 1 of their parents is serving in the regular armed forces, and this is registered in the most recent autumn school census
- They have been registered as a 'service child' on any school census in the past 6 years (an ever 6 service child)
- 1 of their parents died while serving in the armed forces and the pupil receives a pension under the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme or the War Pensions Scheme
- 1 of their parents is in the armed forces of another nation and is stationed in England, and this is registered in the most recent autumn school census
Pupils in reception to year 11 can receive SPP funding.
This is set out in the DfE's service pupil premium: what you need to know guidance.
In the financial year 2025-26, schools will receive £350 per eligible pupil.
This is set out in the DfE's pupil premium overview.
Parents who have left the armed forces within the last 6 years
You'll continue to receive SPP for up to 6 years under the DfE's ever 6 measure, as long as the pupils were recorded as service children in a school census prior to their parent(s) leaving the forces.
The ever 6 measure also applies when service parents divorce or separate, or when a service parent dies in service.
This is set out in the guidance on what you need to know about SPP.
Service children can also attract the pupil premium
Pupils who receive the SPP can receive pupil premium funding as well, if they're eligible under those criteria.
This is explained in the pupil premium 2025-26 technical note (section 3).
Read more about eligibility for the pupil premium.
Identifying eligible pupils
Your school can access confidential pupil data through the DfE's Get Information About Pupils (GIAP) service.
You'll need a DfE sign-in account to access this service.
Spending the SPP
Use the SPP to provide eligible pupils with pastoral support. See how you can do this in the ‘how to support your service pupils’ section below.
You can also use SPP to help improve an eligible pupil's academic progress if you think this a priority, as stated in section 4.5 of the conditions of grant.
The SPP should not be used to pay for routine school activities such as trips or music lessons, but you can fund school trips just for service children to help them enjoy their time at school and build an understanding of the role their service parent plays (e.g. with military-specific trips).
This is explained in the guidance on what you need to know about SPP.
Don't combine SPP with your main pupil premium funding
You should account for the spending of each premium separately. However, you don't have to keep separate £350 pots for each SPP-eligible pupil.
How to support your service pupils
You have a legal duty to support all service pupils during challenging times and to help reduce the negative impact of:
- Family mobility: children in service families often change schools multiple times, sometimes at short notice and outside normal admission rounds
- Separation: when a service person is assigned to an unaccompanied location, or the family choose to remain at home when the service person is deployed, resulting in their weekly/monthly commutes home and/or extended periods away
- Parental deployment: when a service person is serving away from home for a period of time – this could be a 6- to 9-month tour of duty, a training course or an exercise, which could last for a few weeks
For those pupils who are eligible for SPP, you have flexibility to decide how to use the funding. Examples of support include:
- Counselling
- 'Skype time' clubs to help pupils communicate with their deployed parents more regularly
- Helping pupils to develop scrapbooks and diaries, highlighting their achievements and daily school life
- Nurture groups
- After-school activities that support the specific needs of armed forces children
Read examples of best practice on how schools have used the SPP.
The needs of service pupils may change over time, with periods of higher need during parental deployment or the transition to a new school. See example case studies from schools who have used funding to effectively support their pupils with:
- Transitions, including:
- Sharing a bespoke pack for the pupil, with a photo and message from their class teacher
- An allocated ‘buddy’ on arrival to the school
- Settling in sessions with the service family pastoral lead
- Monitoring, including:
- A deployment form online, where parents can fill the dates and details of upcoming deployments
- An online parent forum to enable communication between parents and pupils
See the 'Supporting service pupils' section of the DfE’s non-statutory guidance.
Thriving lives toolkit
The Service Children's Progression Alliance has created a toolkit to help schools support armed forces children – you'll need to register to access the toolkit.
This includes 7 principles to help you reflect on your practice and a 3-tier set of CPD resources.
Consider appointing a dedicated staff member or governor as a ‘service pupil champion’
If your school has particularly large numbers of service pupils, you may want to assign someone to oversee their needs, build relationships with service families and connect with the wider military community.
To find out how your Local Authority (LA)’s Service Pupil Champion can assist you and your pupils, contact your LA. For more information, see pages 11 to 12 and annex C of the non-statutory guidance, linked above.
Record service children on the census
You should record a pupil on the school census as a service child if they have a parent (or person with parental responsibility) who is serving:
- In regular HM Forces military units
- In full commitment as part of the full-time reserve service
- In the armed forces of another nation and stationed in England
The parent must also be designated as personal category 1 or 2. Parents will be aware of their personal category.
This is explained in the DfE’s guide to the school census. To read more about this, go to 'data items 2024 to 2025', then scroll down to 'service children in education indicator'.
Report concerns in the common transfer file
To help support a service child's transition to a new school, the common transfer file (CTF) includes a section where you can record concerns about a service child's response to moving school or their parent's deployment.
The DfE requests that when you receive a CTF with the service child flag set to 'Y', you should:
- Inform the appropriate member of staff about the child, and;
- If the concerns section of the CTF has not been completed, the appropriate member of staff should contact the sending school for clarification
This is explained in section 3.1.8 of the common transfer file specification.