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Service pupils: guidance and funding

Get to grips with your responsibilities around the education and wellbeing of service pupils. Understand which pupils are eligible for the service pupil premium (SPP), and how you can identify and support them. Plus, understand how your school can spend the premium.

Last reviewed on 8 April 2025See updates
School types: All•School phases: All•Ref: 6389
Contents
  1. Understand your legal requirements
  2. Service pupil premium (SPP) funding
  3. Spending the SPP
  4. How to support your service pupils 
  5. Record service children on the census 
  6. Report concerns in the common transfer file

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

A child is eligible for the SPP for the 2025-26