Children's Hospital School, Leicester
The Children’s Hospital School came into being in its present format in 1991, when the school was formed from the amalgamation of the education teams provided at the General Hospital, the Leicester Royal Infirmary, and Oakham House School. Today the school provides appropriate education for students who are too ill to attend their mainstream school. Our role is to support, educate and enable students to reintegrate as, when, and if appropriate.
There are three school sites and we have an outreach team who teach in pupils’ homes. The length of time students stay varies from a few days at the Leicester Royal Infirmary and Oakham House, to over a year at the Willow Bank Day School and on outreach.
Often students move through different parts of our school as dictated by their health and other circumstances. The LRI team will make contact from day 1 and pick up students for teaching after 3 days. Ant Oakham house, students attend school as soon as possible after admission, if they are deemed well enough to do so. We have 37 (full time equivalent) Teaching and Support staff working across all parts of our school.
Home Tuition/Outreach
We enable the students to follow the courses that they would be covering at their own school. This means anything from sensory curriculum for PMLD students, foundation stage primary through to A* GCSE. Where they are able, all students have access to the core subjects, English, Maths and Science. They then are able to be supported through many areas covering Humanities, Languages, Music, ICT, Art, RE, Citizenship and Business Studies. The outreach staff usually work to the curriculum provided by school.
Role in the project
6.1 - Training Actions:
To identify approaches and develop practical strategies so that participating institutions can be engaged in meaningful continuing professional development, relating to key concepts of pedagogy, data integrity, protection and shared access.
The training actions will focus on what the Hospital School Sector has in common in terms of staff skills, knowledges and competences, as well as the context of each individual educational institution that works with children with medical needs. The training will focus on providing discrete packages which will allow participants to access the toolkits that will emerge from the project.
6.2 - Fieldwork Experiences:
To collate and report on the emerging and developing experiences and practices as they happen and at the end of the project and the use of IT across all partners focusing on pedagogy, methodology, resources and application. We need to be mindful of what fits each partner and how solutions can be translated into the context of the individual countries and transnationally.
6.3 – Webinars:
To share, via a series of webinars, synchronously and a visual library of short films (asynchronously), focusing on access, protocols, staff development, practical IT solutions, key knowledge and practices across all participating countries and institutions and toolkit dissemination.
