Evelina Hospital School

Store Street Manchester M1 2WD T 0300 123 4234 www.gov.uk/ofsted

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Ms Anne Hamilton Headteacher Evelina Hospital School Westminster Bridge Road St Thomas’ Hospital London SE1 7EH

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Short inspection of Evelina Hospital School

Following my visit to the school on 1 March 2017 with Diane Rochford, Ofsted Inspector, I write on behalf of Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Education, Children’s Services and Skills to report the inspection findings. The visit was the first short inspection carried out since the school was judged to be outstanding in January 2013.

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Short inspection of Evelina Hospital School

This school continues to be outstanding.

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Short inspection of Evelina Hospital School

The leadership team has maintained the outstanding quality of education in the school since the last inspection. Since your appointment in 2013, you have successfully built a supportive and effective staff team and the governing body has been strengthened. There is a firmly embedded culture of high aspirations throughout the school. This has allowed you to implement a programme of continual improvement, informed by accurate and detailed evaluations of the school’s effectiveness.

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Short inspection of Evelina Hospital School

You are passionate about raising the profile of pupils who need to be educated within hospital settings and who may require ongoing support from their home schools when they leave. You participate in local and national forums to share your expertise with other school leaders and raise awareness of how best to support this vulnerable group of young people. Leaders are able to share their outstanding practice more widely because of the highly effective systems and procedures that exist within the school. For example, the role of middle leaders has been developed since the last inspection to allow new leaders to take on wider responsibilities. They are well supported through a carefully planned professional development programme and individual coaching sessions. This has created additional leadership capacity within the school and provided them with more opportunities for career progression.

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Short inspection of Evelina Hospital School

You have fully addressed the single area for improvement identified during the last inspection. Pupils who have recurring admissions to the hospital and are educated at the school intermittently over longer periods of time now have an allocated key worker. They work closely with an identified teacher at the home school to ensure that learning objectives, targets and outcomes are shared across both schools. This ensures that pupils are not disadvantaged by repeated visits to hospital to receive treatment. The key worker also provides support and training to the home school staff to ensure that pupils receive the support they need to be successful when they return. Pupil passports have been introduced to allow all professionals to understand how best to support pupils with multiple or complex needs. Improved communication and information-sharing procedures allow any safeguarding or attendance concerns that may arise to be addressed promptly. The school recently

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Short inspection of Evelina Hospital School

hosted and delivered training to leaders from mainstream and special schools to help them understand their responsibilities regarding pupils who become unwell. This was positively evaluated by those who attended and recognised by the local authority as being of significant value to Southwark schools.

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Short inspection of Evelina Hospital School

Safeguarding underpins and influences everything that the school does. This can be seen on the school’s website, which provides helpful information and reassures parents that their children’s safety and well-being are a high priority. Leaders have ensured that safeguarding procedures take account of the latest guidance and the safeguarding policy reflects this. Appropriate checks are completed before staff take up their appointments and are recorded and monitored carefully by leaders and governors. All staff attend regular safeguarding updates and training, including recent sessions on the ‘Prevent’ duty and female genital mutilation.

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Short inspection of Evelina Hospital School

Leaders and governors systematically manage and monitor safeguarding procedures. Pupils are referred to the hospital from across the country and from abroad and join and leave the school on a daily basis. They attend for different periods of time according to their needs. Many pupils and their families are already working with a wide range of professionals when they arrive at the school. Staff therefore work closely with other professionals and parents to ensure that any safeguarding concerns are identified as soon as pupils join the school. For example, daily handovers involving all professionals include discussions on any safeguarding concerns and agree what actions need to be taken. Records of the work undertaken with multi-agency teams from a large number of local authorities are detailed and methodically monitored. As a result, all pupils’ education, health and care needs are carefully considered and well supported.

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Short inspection of Evelina Hospital School

Staff ensure that important information is shared with pupils’ home schools to ensure that they remain safe when they leave the hospital. Contact with home schools is established as soon as pupils are referred and is maintained throughout their stay. Staff ensure that pupils continue to get the care that they need when they are discharged. You make sure that home schools understand their responsibilities regarding pupils who are unwell and work with them to ensure that no pupil is in danger of missing education.

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Inspection findings

 The Evelina hospital school site provides a bright and welcoming environment for pupils, parents and a wide range of professionals to enjoy. Situated in the main atrium area of the hospital, the school provides pupils with a learning experience that they are familiar with and many choose to spend as much time as possible there. Leaders and teachers have worked hard to ensure that space constraints outside of their control have not had a negative impact on the achievement of pupils. Leaders are currently working with governors and the hospital trust to evaluate the implications of the hospital expansion plans and the potential increase in the number of pupils enrolled at the school. They are ensuring that the existing high standards are sustained.  The curriculum for all phases and ages is broad and balanced. A regular programme of enrichment activities helps supplement the core subjects and good use is made of the skills, hobbies and interests of staff, visitors, parents and

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Inspection findings

volunteers. The school has made good use of the additional sports funding to introduce pupils to new games such as boccia and new age kurling. Visits from sports celebrities have provided inspiration to pupils to ‘have a go’, despite any disabilities that they may have. Leaders monitor the enrichment programme carefully to ensure that it is balanced and takes account of British values and equalities guidance.  Most pupils make excellent progress from their starting points. Teachers draw on the information provided by home schools but also carry out additional diagnostic assessments to agree aspirational targets for pupils to work towards. They monitor the progress made by pupils on a lesson-by-lesson basis and provide further support as needed to close any gaps in understanding. For pupils who attend the school on a regular basis, leaders monitor and evaluate their academic progress over time and check that there are no inequalities across different

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Inspection findings

groups or cohorts. They provide regular reports to governors which demonstrate that most pupils achieve very well.  All adults have a very accurate understanding of pupils’ health, physical development and social and emotional needs, which they regularly review as part of multi-agency teams. However, systems for recording how well pupils progress in these areas are still being developed. Leaders have correctly identified that this information will allow them to make the curriculum more responsive to the ever- changing needs of pupils attending the school.  A new management information system has ensured that all staff now have easy access to pupil records and assessment information. This allows them to tailor learning activities for every child as part of their daily planning. It has also improved how efficiently the quality of teaching, learning and assessment is monitored across the school. Leaders are continually seeking further ways to

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Inspection findings

improve. For example, they are investigating how to use information and technology systems to better effect when teaching takes place on hospital wards for pupils too unwell to visit the classrooms.  Staff develop very positive relationships with pupils which help them to cope at a time when they are particularly vulnerable. They encourage all pupils to share any concerns or worries that they may have. Pupils’ views and opinions are listened to and acted upon. For example, video commentaries from pupils posted on the school website help new pupils to learn about the school when they first arrive.

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Next steps for the school

Leaders and those responsible for governance should ensure that:

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Next steps for the school

 information that demonstrates how well pupils are achieving in all aspects of their learning is collected in a systematic way to better inform individual learning plans  the space and resources available to the school are reviewed as the hospital expands, to allow the outstanding overall effectiveness of the school to be maintained.

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Next steps for the school

I am copying this letter to the chair of the governing body, the regional schools commissioner and the director of children’s services for Southwark. This letter will be published on the Ofsted website.

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Information about the inspection

During the inspection, meetings were held with you, the acting deputy headteacher and the school’s business manager. A meeting was held with two members of the governing body and a telephone conversation with the chair of the governing body took place. A representative of the local authority, who acts as the school’s improvement partner, and some medical staff met with inspectors. Calls were made to the home schools of some pupils currently on roll. Inspectors toured all of the school’s teaching and learning facilities. They made short visits to all the lessons taking place in the school classrooms, the wards and in the dialysis unit, accompanied by senior leaders. They spoke to pupils about their work and listened to some of them read. Inspectors also considered a number of case studies. The 12 responses to the online staff questionnaire and the 26 responses to the Parent View questionnaire were evaluated, along with the school’s own parental and learner

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Information about the inspection

surveys. A range of documentation, including the school’s self-evaluation and development plan, pupil progress tracking information, governing body minutes and evidence of safeguarding arrangements, was scrutinised. A check was made on the school’s website, which contains all of the required information.

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