Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether special provision is made to help children with special needs of military serving personnel.

All teachers in state-funded schools across England and Ministry of Defence (MoD) schools overseas are teachers of children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), with duties to identify and meet these needs as they arise.

The Children’s Education Advisory Service within the MoD provides advice and guidance to Service parents, educational establishments and local authorities on educational issues relating to Service children, including issues relating SEND.

For those Service families living in England, the SEND Code of Practice has a specific section covering ‘Children of Service personnel’ (pages 219-221) that recognises that those SEND children whose parent(s) are Service personnel may face difficulties that are unique to the nature of their serving parent’s employment, namely service induced mobility and deployment. This section reiterates the requirement to have regard to this Code of Practice and to meeting the aspirations of the Armed Forces Covenant, which attempts to eliminate or mitigate some of the potential disadvantages faced by Service families.

UK legislation does not generally apply to Service families living outside the UK. Nevertheless, for those Service families based overseas, the MoD seeks to mirror so far as is reasonably practicable the support that would be normally be available in the UK. The MoD also undertakes a thorough assessment to determine whether families’ support needs can be met in overseas locations before an overseas assignment is agreed.

The MoD employs a team of educational psychologists, and other professionally qualified individuals, to assess need and provide support for children with SEND. MoD schools overseas routinely support children with SEND, in line with the statutory guidance contained in the Department for Education’s 2015 SEND Code of Practice. In overseas locations without MoD schools, assessments are made to ensure that host nation schools are able to provide any required SEND support before an overseas assignment is agreed.