Little Troopers: Bovington Academy’s military children take part in workshop to celebrate their special parents and unique lives

Military children from Bovington Academy recently took part in a free virtual workshop run by the charity Little Troopers.

As part of a nationwide virtual roadshow being delivered by the charity throughout June, children from Bovington, and primary schools in Poole, Wareham, Bridport, Yetminster and Dorchester logged in together for the event. 

The workshop, targeted at children who have parents currently serving in the British Armed Forces, aimed to explore some the unique challenges they might experience: having a parent deployed overseas or regularly having to move home and school.

Around 3,000 children will take part in the workshops and all the activities have been generated by the charity’s dedicated Little Troopers at School programme. Created by education experts, the easily accessible resources help to support military children in the classroom. 

Louise Fetigan, founder and operations manager at Little Troopers, Sara White, Principal at Bovington Academy and Liesel Munroe, a teacher at Bovington Academy, were all recently interviewed by Radio Solent. 

Based close to an Army camp, Bovington Academy has a large number of children from military families and Mrs White said the school has a deep understanding of the ”unique set of circumstances military children face. It is our job to make sure they are ready to take on the challenges they face and feel that they belong. It is difficult because they move so much.”

Mrs Munroe added the workshops have also been a great opportunity for the children to celebrate how incredible their military parents are. She said: ”It is incredible how adaptable these children are and how they quickly become part of our family. Our pastoral care is there and they can buddy up and within a day of arriving their feet are under the desk.  The  workshop has allowed us to look at different techniques and strategies that we can use to support our military children. The workshops also allow them to see how special they are and that they have amazing parents who help to look after the country.”

Mrs Fetigan added: ”“There are tens of thousands of military children across the UK and the support they receive in school is very varied depending on where they live in the country and what school they go to. Our aim with the Little Troopers at School programme is to make it really easy for schools to have targeted resources they can use with their military children – whether that’s one or two military children or two hundred.”

Listen to the Radio Solent interview in full here: