Pupils from Service Families

Being situated only a short distance away from Catterick Garrison, our school has always provided education for a significant number of service families in the community. 

Our school welcomes this and aims to fully support children from service families via a comprehensive offer, provided by our staff's willingness to 'get it right' for all children and enhanced by the additional Service Premium funding received.

For full details of our Service Premium Strategy, please visit the Pupil Premium Information page.

Service pupils are given additional opportunities to integrate with the local community, by taking part in activities such as workshops with Bedale High School and attending services at Ripon Cathedral. We also work with other service pupils in schools across our federation to provide children with community links and strengthen communication skills.

Each service pupil is provided with their own personalised memory box when starting school at Crakehall.

Children are encouraged to add their own memories as they progress through the school. Members of staff also add photographs and momentos from key events. When the sad time comes for a service pupil to leave our school, they take their special box with them and can continue to gather memories in their new school community. This ensures that each child builds a sense of belonging throughout their family's military journey.

Here at Crakehall, we understand that throughout deployment and during the transition periods before and after, can be a particularly stressful experience for military families. To support children with a deployed parent, a personal Microsoft Teams page can be set up to allow for pupils to feel that they can easily keep in touch with family members. When time zones allow, video calls can be facilitated within school. Microsoft Teams can also allow for instant messages and pictures to be sent allowing for effective communication between schools, parents and pupils.

If you are thinking of joining us you might like to take a look at our 'Starting School at Crakehall' page.

Mrs MacKenzie, who is a Higher Level Teaching Assistant, has responsibility for the provision for service families and pupil transition in school.  She can be contacted via the school office.