Deadline: 19-Dec-2025
The Welsh Local Government Association has announced the Supporting Service Children in Education in Wales Fund to assist schools and local authorities across Wales.
Applicants are encouraged to consider the specific needs of their Service children, explore opportunities for collaboration between local authorities and school clusters and identify ways in which good practice can be shared and sustained.
They should also focus on embedding effective approaches, developing methods to monitor and measure the impact of their projects, and ensuring that the proposed activities align with the principles of Armed Forces Friendly Schools Cymru.
The scheme offers two fixed funding options—£1,000 and £3,000—to enable schools and local authorities to develop projects in response to identified needs or at key transition points. The £1,000 funding programme is open to all local authorities and local authority maintained schools in Wales that have at least one Service child enrolled.
The £3,000 funding programme is open to all local authorities and to local authority maintained schools in Wales that have at least one Service child enrolled and have achieved their Armed Forces Friendly Schools Cymru Bronze status.
According to the Welsh Government definition, a ‘Service child’ has parent(s) or person(s) exercising parental responsibility who are Service personnel serving in HM Regular or Reserve Armed Forces—the Royal Navy and Royal Marines, British Army, or Royal Air Force—or is an Armed Forces Veteran who has been in Service within the past two years, or whose parent died while serving in the Armed Forces and the learner has received a pension under the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme or the War Pensions Scheme.
All funded projects must be completed within the 2025/26 academic year, with no start or end dates extending beyond 31st August 2026. Projects are encouraged to align with one or more of the six Areas of Learning and Experience (AoLEs) in the Curriculum for Wales: Expressive Arts, Health and Well-being, Humanities, Languages, Literacy and Communication, Mathematics and Numeracy, and Science and Technology.
Applicants are also advised to attend SSCE Cymru drop-in sessions and complete the SSCE Cymru e-learning to gain a better understanding of the experiences and needs of Service children. Eligible project activities may include coordinated projects, staffing time, courses or training, resources, and outsourced projects or packages.
Successful applicants will be required to submit a short impact statement within three months of the project’s completion—200–300 words for £1,000 projects and 400–500 words for £3,000 projects—along with supporting images where appropriate.
An invoice for the total project amount should accompany the impact report, and payment will be made upon project completion. Information and evidence gathered from these initiatives will contribute to shaping SSCE Cymru activity priorities and inform Welsh Government policies for Service children.
For more information, visit WLGA.