ENRICHING THE EXPERIENCE OF Military Children in Schools

Queen Ethelburga’s Collegiate in York is home to approximately 340 Forces students on a campus of around 1300 students. As Principal, Dan Machin, states, “As military children represent a quarter of the student population onsite, it is incredibly important that our school offers enriching experiences and supportive services that help our campus to feel like a home away from home, one that truly benefits our Forces students as a whole.”

This is why, our school offers various initiatives and clubs to ensure the military students feel both part of the community and fully supported throughout their time here. For our younger Forces students, we have our Forces Club, which is run by veteran, Danny Abdy, who draws on his experience of serving in the army for 25 years and in working with organisations including SSAFA, Barnardo’s, and the Army Cadet Force.

As he describes, “Our Forces Club is about being able to share the experiences of being connected to the military community and allowing the military children to have an identity and support network whilst having fun. Each week, our activities use the military values of courage, discipline, respect, integrity, loyalty and selfless commitment to support the development of transferable life skills. We always take time to ‘check in’ on how the children are doing before beginning the teambuilding challenges and always finish by ‘checking out’ and reflecting on how the gamesn went, as a way of empowering our members.”

From Year 8 onwards, all students can join our Combined Cadet Force, which provides enriching opportunities that develop leadership and team-building skills through challenging training activities including drills, parades, marksmanship, orienteering, command tasks, flying, fieldcraft, first aid, navigation and adventure training. As former QE CCF Regiment Sergeant and Lord Lieutenant Cadet for North Yorkshire, Hannah, says, “Through the CCF programme, I gained new experiences which I would not have been able to participate in otherwise. I spent nights in the forest tucked into a sleeping bag whilst my closest friends were next to me, and owls were howling above, cooking my ration packs in the morning and trading an all-day breakfast for a bowl of muesli. I attended amazing events like the King’s Coronation concert and met Their Majesty’s King Charles and Camilla, Queen Consort. I also had the opportunity to enrol on a CVQO Diploma in Teamwork & Personal Development and was nominated for the CVQO Westminster Award. I would definitely encourage others to get involved with all the opportunities in CCF.”

To find out more about being a Forces student at QE, visit www.qe.org.

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