Evelina Hospital School, Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital
21 Jan '10
The Evelina Children’s Hospital is a purpose built hospital for children at St Thomas’ specialising in paediatric intensive care, cleft lip or palate, and heart and kidney problems. Incorporated within the Evelina Children’s Hospital is the Evelina Hospital School, providing daily education to the patients from 2-19 years old. The Evelina Hospital School’s unique characteristics, built on care, optimism and creativity, are an inspiration to teaching and patient care. As such, GMEC supports the School and is pleased to be allowed to use pictures created by the children to decorate its offices and website.
Learning is the best medicine’. 60th Anniversary Exhibition 1949-2009. Evelina Hospital School opened in 1949 and was one of the first of its kind in London. One of its first head teachers, Mrs MacNaughton-Smith, wrote about the school’s desire to “assist healing by relieving fear, homesickness or boredom as well as making good the education patients are missing” – an ethos that remains today. In the school’s early years the tutor would teach as many as 21 children in a long ward of beds. Mrs MacNaughton-Smith wrote that the children were taught using “educational activities and apparatus so much in vogue today”, such as jigsaws, maps, cut-outs and exercise books. Today, the lessons are held in bright and colourful classrooms in the atrium of the new Evelina Children’s Hospital. One-to-one bedside teaching is also available for children unable to attend the main school and children on dialysis have a special school on their ward. The school, one of two hospital special schools managed by Southwark Children’s Services, has recently been awarded ‘outstanding’ status by Ofsted inspectors.
1,000 pupils enrol at the school during the course of a school year and between 50 and 60 children are taught every week. The majority attends the school for short periods, but a significant number are long-term sick children who attend lessons for several months and sometimes years. The school also admits siblings of a sick child when this is requested by the medical team.
The Evelina Children’s School has recently celebrated its 60th Anniversary. Its greatest resource is its staff and students, highlighted by the inspirational relationship between teachers, doctors, children, families and nurses. The School is integral to the care plan of each sick child. It was this relationship that the School chose to put at the centre of its recent anniversary celebration exhibition called ‘Learning is the best medicine’. This has been conceived by artist Mark Storor and produced by educationalist Anna Ledgard in collaboration with staff and pupils at the school. It tells the story of the hospital school by exhibiting the school itself and opening its doors to reveal its secret through an interactive installation exhibiting the children’s work and showing staff and children at work and play. The depth and range of the anniversary exhibition reflects the vibrant life of the School and the achievements of both staff and students. Learning can indeed be the best medicine.