The Garrison ASSIST Project
Posted in News
‘Living in our SEND Shoes’ – Animated Films Overview
Over the past couple of years, eight schools serving Catterick Garrison have been working on an initiative called the Garrison ASSIST Project (GAP). Collectively, almost two-thirds of the 1250 or so of their pupils are Service children - and about a quarter of these have Special Education Needs and / or Disabilities (SEND), bringing additional challenges to these schools.
The project, concluding in the 2024/25 academic year, aims to deliver the following vision:
‘We want to ensure that provision for SEND children & young people on the Garrison is the best it can be. To achieve this, our group of schools will work towards a consistent approach, and through our dedicated teams of highly trained and knowledgeable staff, we will ensure no time is wasted putting in place appropriate support for our SEND Service pupils.’
During the project, a parents’ forum was established. Most of its members have struggled to navigate SEND processes for their children and speak of how military lifestyle has exacerbated many of the SEND challenges they have faced. A common challenge heard by the project’s lead was the parents’ view that school staff often ‘don’t get it’ – particularly if they have limited experience of military lifestyle themselves. This, they feel, often leads to frustrations of not being understood which, in turn, can damage home to school relations.
Consequently, working with the Project Lead, a group of these parents collaborated with a filmmaker to create a series of five short animations to help staff, and other professionals, gain a greater awareness of the difficulties that some Armed Forces families with children with SEND face. The films cover the following aspects and are aimed at providing discussion topics for staff teams:
Episode 1: Posting Moves
Episode 2: Relationships
Episode 3: Parental Separation
Episode 4: Language, labels and the challenges of getting a diagnosis
Episode 5: Trauma and Burnout
An accompanying short introductory film provides the context and an overview of GAP, before then introducing the six parents who appear as avatars in the animations.
Whilst not all military families with SEND children have negative educational experiences, many do because of the requirements of their Service. It is hoped that by engaging in these films, education professionals will be upskilled in their knowledge and understanding, and that this will lead to a more consistent empathetic approach to supporting military families that have children with additional needs.
Feedback and questions are welcomed, garrisonassistproject@gmail.com.
