PS Heroes
Supporting Service Children at Plymstock School
Plymstock School recognises the unique challenges faced by students from service families, including parental deployment, separation, and high mobility. Service children represent over 10% of the school population.
Plymstock School is committed to ensuring that all Service Children are well-supported to thrive academically, socially and emotionally, with particular attention to the impact of mobility and family circumstances.
PS Heroes is led by Mrs Johns, a Royal Navy veteran and chemistry teacher. Mrs Johns provides support to Service Children by working with the pastoral teams, attendance teams and outside agencies such as Royal Navy Family Welfare and Aggies. As part of this, Mrs Johns hosts a lunchtime club in Sc11 and organises experiences for the service children.
What is a Service Child?
Pupils are considered to be a Service Child if they meet any of the following criteria:
- One of their parents is serving in the regular armed forces (including pupils with a parent who is on full commitment as part of the full-time reserve service) or is in the armed forces of another nation and is stationed in England and they have been registered as a ‘Service Child’ in the most recent Autumn DfE school census.
- They do not currently have ‘Service Child’ status but they have been registered as a ‘Service Child’ on any DfE school census in the past 6 years.
- One 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.
Supporting Service Children
SPP funding is used to provide additional support beyond universal provision. At Plymstock School, this includes:
Pastoral support
- Access to counselling and 1:1 support
- Deployment or separation support
Transition and mobility
- Induction support for mid-year arrivals
- Liaison with feeder schools and previous settings
Wellbeing and belonging
- PS Heroes group and activities
- Opportunities to develop resilience and peer support
Access and enrichment
- Financial support for trips and extracurricular participation
SPP funding is:
- used to support all service children where appropriate
- accounted for separately from Pupil Premium
If your family is a service family and we are currently not aware of this, please do get in touch.
In addition to the PS Heroes lunchtime club, we have also ran the following trips:
- KS3 Pantomime visit.
- KS4 Broadway show of Matilda the Musical.
- Never Such Innocence workshops at Plymouth Arts University.
- Christmas Craft workshops.