Gosport and Fareham Multi Academy Trust
We, the undersigned, commit to honour the Armed Forces Covenant and support the Armed Forces Community. We recognise the value Serving Personnel, both Regular and Reservists, Veterans and military families contribute to our business and our country.
The Armed Forces Covenant
An enduring covenant between the people of the United Kingdom, Her Majesty’s Government and all those who serve or have served in the Armed Forces of the Crown and their families
The first duty of Government is the defence of the realm. Our Armed Forces fulfil that responsibility on behalf of the Government, sacrificing some civilian freedoms, facing danger and, sometimes, suffering serious injury or death as a result of their duty. Families also play a vital role in supporting the operational effectiveness of our Armed Forces. In return, the whole nation has a moral obligation to the members of the Naval Service, the Army and the Royal Air Force, together with their families. They deserve our respect and support, and fair treatment.
Those who serve in the Armed Forces, whether Regular or Reserve, those who have served in the past, and their families, should face no disadvantage compared to other citizens in the provision of public and commercial services. Special consideration is appropriate in some cases, especially for those who have given most such as the injured and the bereaved.
This obligation involves the whole of society: it includes voluntary and charitable bodies, private organisations, and the actions of individuals in supporting the Armed Forces. Recognising those who have performed military duty unites the country and demonstrates the value of their contribution. This has no greater expression than in upholding this Covenant.
Section 1: Principles of the Armed Forces Corporate Covenant
1.1 We Gosport and Fareham Multi Academy Trust will endeavour in our business dealings to uphold the key principles of the Armed Forces Covenant, which are:
- no member of the Armed Forces Community should face disadvantage in the provision of public and commercial services compared to any other citizen;
- and in some circumstances that special treatment may be appropriate especially for the injured or bereaved.
Section 2: Demonstrating our commitment
2.1 Gosport and Fareham Multi Academy Trust recognises the value serving personnel, reservists, veterans and military families bring to our business. We will seek to uphold the principles of the Armed Forces Covenant, by pledging to the following:
- Armed Forces Friendly
- UK Service Spouses And Partners
- Armed Forces Day
We also pledge the following:
Theme 1: Employment Support the employment of Service spouses, partners and dependants, for example by signposting to forces familys jobs Offering volunteer and training opportunities to spouses, young adults and veterans, additional career support for service children, employment fairs and transition open days Promote schemes that support people into work, such as Abri Housings offer of support with CV writing and self-employment, start-up offer Our Service Co-Working group in our hub building will provide a venue for spouses of serving personnel when they are working remotely We will continue to work with the SCiP Alliance to monitor and support our service children through school education into higher education and employment Theme 2: Support for the armed forces We will promote the armed forces by inviting them to our career events Using our service child drop in and social media platforms to supporting Armed Forces Day, the Poppy Appeal Day. We will have a presence with some children on remembrance days Fund raising days, such as our prom dress sale that raised funds for the RNRMC Offering children access to Chromebooks and Wi-Fi, so parents who are on deployment have the opportunity to speak to their child online Offering parents who are deployed access remotely to parents and transition evenings, as well as being updated through the use of our newsletters and social media platforms Theme 3: Education Continue to use the Thriving Lives Toolkit and attend SCiP alliance management and local area meetings Attend local authority coordinator meetings Use our diagnostic tools to effectively assess potential SEND and levels of ACEs and factor in the appropriate support Our service children coordinator to provide 1-2-1 wellbeing support, ELSA, deployment interven-tions, transitions into, or out of our schools and family support Service children to be offered drop-in sessions, trips, such as sailing on the Boleh and residentials Regular feedback opportunities to be obtained from children and families and frequent monitor-ing of impact to inform our offer Additional transitions days, with one being to specifically inform service families of the interven-tions that we offer To publish our SPP spend online and in keeping with PP spend Promote further education opportunities, such as attendance to the Creative Forces Day Service tab being available on all our school sites Wellbeing and career support being offered to our sixth form students The Childs best interest to be taken into account when considering requests for authorised ab-sence, where it is in line with our attendance policy and ensures that we are treating all children fairly We will work closely with local colleges and universities to monitor young peoples progress and needs Theme 4: Opportunities to being the community together Service child youth club for all secondary aged children in the local area Evidenced based parenting programmes, such as our family links and Talking Teens Parent and child drop in sessions Presence of other organisations to provide support and advice such as Naval Families Federation and Home Start Weekend activates that include family play sessions and parent fitness Service Family Community Kitchen Ticketed fundraising events such ball gown exchanges evenings. Those families who are also FSM, or on a low income to attend our Good Grub Club that offers families the chance to cook healthy meals, low cost meals
2.2 We will publicise these commitments through our literature and/or on our website, setting out how we will seek to honour them and inviting feedback from the Service community and our customers on how we are doing.