A GWENT council is to remind all its schools of the support available to children from armed forces families.
Children with one or more parent in the armed forces can often face regular moves and potential disruption to their education by having to change schools.
Monmouthshire County Council has said it aims to identify children from families serving in the army, air force and the navy to provide additional support if required.
Councillor Peter Strong, who is the council’s armed forces champion, said UK troops could soon be deployed to Ukraine. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has said he is willing to send UK troops to help guarantee security if there is a ceasefire.
The Labour councillor for Rogiet asked if the council was confident it identifies all families and said: “I’m thinking of potentially our reserve forces who might end up being deployed to Ukraine, or other places, before too long?”
Director of education Will McLean replied: “It’s rare for me to say I’m confident one hundred per cent. Perhaps this is a good prompt as a reminder to us to liaise with schools about the support and resources available to those families and if there are any families we might not be aware of they should let us know.”
The council’s people scrutiny committee, which was discussing its additional learning needs service, was told, in response to a question from Cllr Strong, the education service works closely with the council’s Armed Forces Covenant, an office to support service families and veterans, to identify children who may need support.
Mr McLean also said where there are “clusters of children” from forces families the council can apply for grants, which it has done and the past and could do in the future as well.
Cllr Strong said he also wanted to highlight Raglan Primary School had recently been recognised with a bronze award from Supporting Service Children in Education in Wales.
