Attendance

It is the expectation that all pupils in Bursledon attend school full time. School starts each day at 9.00am and finishes at 3.30pm. Throughout your child’s stay, we work closely with the medical team to ensure that our educational provision takes into account all of your child’s medical, social and emotional needs. Any therapy sessions required by your child can be incorporated within the school day if necessary.

We remain in frequent contact with your child’s usual school and will work closely with families to ensure the transition back to school is as smooth and stress free as possible. This may include ELSA sessions to discuss the return to school and MDT meetings attended by us, your child’s school and their medical team to offer advice or feedback following their stay.

Your child’s medical needs will inform a bespoke timetable of lessons for your child to attend.

We work very closely with yourselves and the medical team involved in your child’s care, so we will adapt our lesson times and frequency to fit with your child’s levels of health. If you are concerned, you can always speak to a member of our team. If your child is too ill for a school session, we ask you to inform the teaching team as soon as practical, or inform your child’s nurse who can contact our teachers directly.

Your child can attend our classroom while using a wheelchair, or while attached to a drip, infusion or feed. Our classrooms are fully accessible and a member of your child’s nursing team will confirm with us that their attendance is still possible.

Sometimes, children in hospital may need to be medically isolated due to an infection risk. Even so, our teachers can provide bedside teaching to isolated pupils, in accordance with the infection control measures in place.

We want to welcome every child into our school and we will work flexibly and creatively to ensure every child can attend as often as possible.