Little Troopers secondary school resources

Little Troopers, the military children’s charity, has launched new secondary school resources to help teachers support children aged 11 to 16 who have parents serving in the British Armed Forces.

Created alongside teachers, forces families and behavioural experts, the resources offer lots of practical ideas to get children talking about forces life in school and can be used by any secondary school with service children - be that one service child or two hundred.

According to research from the charity, 96% of military parents would like schools to offer more specific support for military children and 38% said that moving school was an aspect of military life that their child struggled with the most. Other challenges faced by service children include being regularly separated from their serving parent, living away from extended family and moving home frequently.

The Little Troopers Secondary School Resource Hub is available on the Little Troopers website where education settings can now explore and download any of the lesson plans, activity templates and teacher training information. As well as one-off military-themed lessons and activity templates covering creative writing, sports activities, events, media skills, community engagement suggestions and more, the charity will also be adding details of how to set up a Forces Life Club in school.

In addition, the charity will be launching a secondary school Military Child Wellbeing Course template later this term and schools can now apply to receive this in the post. The six-session wellbeing course provides targeted early intervention and wellbeing support for all military children, not just those in crisis, and covers the topics of separation, deployment, house moves and living abroad, as well as the personal themes of belonging, identity and mindfulness. The course template includes everything schools need to deliver the course including a slide deck, facilitator notes, invitations, props and print-outs as well as everything on a USB.

The course can be integrated into schools’ existing wellbeing strategy and gives forces children the opportunity to explore specific themes and issues associated with military life. The aim is to empower all military children with positive strategies that they can use to cope with any challenges they face due to having a parent serving in the Armed Forces.

Little Troopers already has a Primary School Resource Pack and Primary School Wellbeing Course which are now used in hundreds of primary schools across the UK.

Louise Fetigan, founder of Little Troopers, comments: “As a charity, we think it is really important that military children feel recognised and included in school and are given the opportunity to talk about military life and share their experiences with their peers. The Secondary Resource Hub is packed with lots of practical and fun ways to do this. Meanwhile the Military Child Wellbeing Course template offers more targeted wellbeing support for military children in school to make sure they have the tools to cope with some of the more challenging aspects of forces life such as being separated from their serving parent and moving home and school frequently.

“We’ve wanted to create these resources for a really long time and we are very grateful to The Armed Forces Covenant Fund who have provided us with a £15,000 grant to enable us to make these secondary resources free to all schools.”

To download items from the Little Troopers Secondary Resource Hub and to apply for a copy of the Little Troopers Secondary Military Child Wellbeing Course visit the Little Troopers website