The Ministry of Defence (MOD) is providing the Education Support Fund (ESF) to help mitigate the effects of significant mobility and/or deployment of service communities.

The 2022 funding round is now open to applications.

Children may have to change school when a service parent is posted or the school may support a pupil when a parent is absent for long periods of time. This fund is available to support schools in embedding practices that can benefit the service children and their school.

The fund is different from the Armed Forces Community Covenant Grant Scheme which is open to a wider variety of organisations and seeks to forge closer ties between Military and local communities.

It is also different to the Service Pupil Premium, which is provided to schools in England by the Department for Education in respect of children of serving members of the armed forces.

Eligible applicants:

• Maintained Schools
• Academies
• Free School
• 6th form colleges
• Groups of any schools described above (referred to as ‘Cluster bids’ - these are strongly encouraged)
• Local authorities on behalf of the publicly funded schools in their area.

If applying as a cluster an individual school can also submit their own separate bid, provided it is for a different initiative.

The 2022 ESF is open to applications until the deadline of 30 September 2021.

Useful Links

•  Ministry of Defence - Education Support Fund (ESF)