Examination of Witnesses (Questions 140-153)
MRS RACHEL
TROUGHTON, MRS
CHRIS COOPER,
MR JOHN
PROSSER, MRS
HEATHER WHEELER,
MRS MICHELLE
TITCOMBE, MRS
SHARON WATSON,
MRS CAROLYN
MACKAY, MRS
MICHELLE DUNN,
MRS MARIA
BARBER-RILEY
AND MR
ANTHONY EVANS
24 APRIL 2006
Q140 Mr Crausby: I want to ask a
question about the impact of deployment. We have already asked
the children about the impact. It probably goes without saying
when one of the parents goes away it is something of a problem.
Do you notice any difference in your child's behaviour when your
partner is deployed? More importantly, what support is provided
for you and your children when your partner is out on deployment?
What could be done that is not done and is there a difference
between schools that have a proportion of Army children and schools
that have virtually 100% Army children? Rather than go down the
line, does anybody want to make a comment on any of those points?
Mrs Barber-Riley: The schools
that have the majority of military children are a lot more supportive,
are more understanding and hold sessions with the children. When
my husband went to Iraq they held sessions with the children to
make sure everyone was okay. They gave them teachers' names that
they could go and approach. That was Montgomery Junior School.
I think it is about 80% military children. When they came to secondary
school where there were less military children I did not find
them at all supportive.
Mrs Mackay: You mentioned support,
did you simply mean support from the schools or support from the
Army as well?
Q141 Mr Crausby: From both or either.
Mrs Mackay: The support you get
from the Army is very definitely unit dependent. Some units are
absolutely superb at providing support to families on deployment
and others are not as good. You get a different picture depending
on who you speak to. My husband's unit is particularly good.
Mrs Troughton: Also it depends
entirely on whether your husband has been deployed with the regiment
and battle group or whether he has gone out as an individual augmentee.
If he is an individual augmentee he might well have gone at very
short notice and if there are less deployed from that unit there
will be no extra welfare support. If you are unfortunately in
a hiring, which many people are nowadays, you may well have a
child in the system who has no support in school as well, so you
are hit in two ways.
Q142 Mr Crausby: Can I ask how harmful
it is? Obviously it is an emotional problem but do you see it
as a harmful issue?
Mrs Troughton: It depends on how
the mother is coping as well and that is often forgotten. If the
child is having problems at school and the mother is falling apart
at home and has not got support from the Army or is on a base
where she has got the support of friends then it will have an
impact on the child.
Q143 Chairman: We have one additional
witness who has not spoken before. Can you tell us your name and
give us your view?
Mr Evans: Anthony Evans. I have
only just come back from Germany. I was in Germany for nine years.
Believe it or not, I have been deployed since Op Telic six months
in, six months off. This is the first time I have had two years
off on the trot. I was supposed to go on deployment this April
but I have now missed it. You can tell the effects from my recent
deployment. Because I am permanently away they are obviously affected
although they have had support through the Army schools, my wife
and the Army community.
Q144 Chairman: How can you tell the
effects?
Mr Evans: My son has been special
needs from a very young age and he has just now come off the Special
Needs Register. He will do silly things, he will just snap out
at someone. My other child will just stop working. It affects
them in individual psychological ways. The head teachers in the
old school could recognise that and help the kids out.
Q145 Chairman: At any rate you attribute
that to the turbulence of Army life?
Mr Evans: Yes, because I am permanently
away from them.
Q146 Mr Lancaster: I think we have
probably covered this, which was try to establish the difference
between the dedicated Service schools overseas as opposed to UK
schools where you have a mix of Service and non-Service children,
but if there is anything more anybody wants to add, please do.
Mrs Troughton: There was one point
the children raised about the idea of the school giving them holidays
at the same time as their parents. That is something the schools
in Germany made sure happened. If your husband was on holiday,
on R&R, the child often did have time off with the parent
and they were not rigid and said, "No, the school is open
at this time and you must come", they were able to let families
work as a unit which I found did not happen in England when I
had a child here.
Mrs Barber-Riley: If the husbands
have been away for six months surely it is important that the
children get to see their dads before they get sent off on their
next deployment.
Mrs Mackay: As well as their two
weeks' R&R possibly more important is when the father returns
from a six month deployment and they get four weeks' post-operational
tour leave. I am not saying for a moment that your child should
be given four weeks off school but if they return at a time of
year when there are no school holidays schools can be very inflexible
about allowing you to take your child away for one or two weeks,
but this is possibly the only time that you have to re-bond as
a family if you are here in 16 Air Assault Brigade, frankly, before
he goes away on exercise. They come back, they have got four weeks
and then they will be off on exercise because that is how it works
here, it is not just that they are back in camp. I think MPs and
members of the public often think when the guys come back from
a six month deployment they come home every evening at 5.30 but
they do not because they are off training to do something else.
Those four weeks can be absolutely crucial for the re-establishing
of the relationship with the children and the parents.
Q147 Mr Jenkins: I will try and streamline
this. I am getting the impression that stability is important,
getting children into a stable position is the first and number
one priority, so why are not all your children in boarding school?
Have you thought about it?
Mrs Barber-Riley: I would like
to give my children the choice. I have given them the choice and
they chose not to go to boarding school when they got to secondary
school. I did go down that route with my daughter because I do
not want to home school my daughter, I want her to be in a school,
and at the school I wanted to choose she would be a day boarder,
so maybe we could meet on middle ground where I could get her
into day boarding and pick her up each evening. The school which
I chose, which was in Colchester, was not on the Army list with
the Pay Office so they would not fund it. Again, a door has closed
in my face. I have tried all these options.
Mr Evans: Money mainly. I am only
a little corporal, I have not got much money so I cannot throw
it away.
Mrs Mackay: My elder son will
go away to school in September and he will be joined by his brother
two years later. At the moment I do not want to send them at eight,
they are too young. You ask why our children are not in boarding
school, but the only reason my children are going to boarding
school is because of the stability issue and this being guarded
with friends because I do not believe in it.
Mrs Watson: I took my daughter
to see a boarding school and she was adamant she did not want
to go.
Mrs Titcombe: I want my children
with me but I know that they will go to boarding school when they
are older because it is the only way I can guarantee some stability
of education. It is against everything I would want but I feel
that would be the best option.
Mrs Wheeler: Again, cost. Their
father is not in the Services so we do not get the discounted
Services' cost.
Mr Prosser: I went to a Forces
boarding school for a few terms for a year and it was not optional
because there was no secondary education in Hanover at the time.
There was plenty of bullying and so forth uncontrolled back in
the 1970s and that put me off boarding schools. My wife's family,
Lesley, could only afford to send one daughter to boarding school,
that was the eldest, and my wife did not go. We had children to
have them with us and, as has been expressed around the table,
we spend precious little time together anyway.
Mrs Troughton: Mine are both at
boarding school.
Mrs Cooper: My eldest is there
and my other two will be joining him when they are old enough.
Boarding school is the best thing that has happened to her.
Q148 Chairman: Any issues on special
needs that we have not already covered? We have covered the problem
of statementing having to start again with each new education
authority you find yourself in. Are there any other issues that
need to be covered?
Mr Prosser: Funding. There is
a cut-off period in the year round about February before which
the school gets the funding and after which if you join the school
they have to educate you for no funding until the end of the year.
I find that causes a problem moving around.
Q149 Chairman: Thank you, that is
very helpful.
Mr Prosser: It would be helpful
if we could carry our own funding around with us as we move from
school to school and from LEA to LEA and that way we would bring
some stability of funding with us.
Q150 Chairman: Yes, why does not
the money follow the child?
Mr Prosser: Yes.
Q151 Chairman: Most of you have heard
the children and they were each given a wish. You each have a
wish which you may only express in under 15 seconds.
Mrs Cooper: I wish my husband
could serve his Army career in the same place.
Mrs Troughton: My wish is that
parents are able to access information quicker and with more help.
Mr Prosser: My wish is that CEAS
has an ed psych that we can go to, and also the funding follows
the child.
Q152 Chairman: That is two wishes,
that is cheating.
Mr Prosser: Sorry, I am being
greedy.
Mrs Wheeler: To have longer postings
for more continuity for the children and the families.
Mrs Titcombe: To have more control
so that I feel I have chosen what to do with my children rather
than being forced into a situation either with my choice of school
or potentially packing them off to boarding school earlier than
I would like because it is the only option.
Mrs Watson: More families given
the opportunity to stay in one place rather than being forced
to move.
Mrs Mackay: My wish on behalf
of my children would be that there were more satellite telephones.
Not that they had longer, I am not asking for more minutes, just
for more phones. You were asking the children earlier on about
speaking to dad and there are 200 men queuing for one telephone.
I am not asking for more money, just more phones.
Mr Evans: I do not know.
Q153 Chairman: Fair enough. Lots
of wishes have been expressed here already.
Mr Evans: Exactly.
Mrs Barber-Riley: I wish for every
child to receive the education that they deserve for their needs.
Mrs Mackay: You should be on Miss
World. That is one of those really good answers.
Chairman: That is the end of our session
with you. I must say I have found it extremely valuable, I think
we all have. We are very grateful indeed to you for coming to
help us out with this inquiry. Can I add one thing before we move
on to the next section, and that is this: we have done, as I told
the children, something we have never done before, we have set
up a website where we are trying to encourage parents as well
as children and schools to feed into our report by just logging
on to their computer. The web address is tellparliament.net/defcom.
Mr Jenkins: That is not to send us War
and Peace.
Chairman: Not to send us War and Peace
but just to get stuck in and send us a few vignettes and points.
Encourage your children to do exactly the same. Encourage the
schools at which your children are and their teachers to do exactly
the same. That will all help to give us a rounded and accurate
view of how people see the education of Service children, which
is an extremely important issue. Thank you very much indeed to
all of you.
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