Information for Schools

Our school provides hospital education for all school-aged children who are in-patients at UHS NHS. We are funded directly by the DfE, and children are referred directly by a medical practitioner.

Our school is also the provider of medical outreach teaching to Southampton City Council, providing teaching across the city to pupils who are unable to attend their usual school due to a medical need. Further information about outreach is available here.

The school does not accept admissions from parents and schools can not arrange AP placements at our school for their pupils. Instead, we have two distinct admission processes:

Hospital (includes Bursledon House)

All pupils are in-patients referred by NHS staff. Pupils will be dual registered where already enrolled at another school. The child’s usual school will be immediately informed of the admission.

Outreach

All pupils are referred via Southampton LA’s Medical Needs panel. Schools are responsible for submitting referrals for eligible pupils who are unable to attend school for 15 days or more due to a medical need.

Pupils referred to SHS while in-patients in hospital will be dual rolled with SHS and their usual school. Where pupils are not on any other school roll, SHS will contact the child’s usual Local Authority to liaise regarding the pupil.

A child’s usual school will be informed of the referral and admission to SHS. It is the responsibility of the child’s school to amend their admission records to indicate that the child is now dual rolled, with the usual school being the “main” and SHS being the “subsidiary” school.

Outreach pupils are not enrolled with SHS but remain on their own school’s roll.

Hospital

As schools are not responsible for arranging a child’s place at SHS, there is no charge made to schools. Due to the transitory nature of our school cohort, we do not charge-back schools for pupil-specific top-up funding, including for EHCPs.

Outreach

There are no charges made to the school for the outreach provision. The service is funded by SCC. However, as pupils remain solely on roll with their usual school, schools may be contacted to arrange or provide certain provisions in line with any top-up funding related to the child, such as for an EHCP.

Schools are reminded that SHS is an alternative provision academy, operating under the same KCSIE requirements as other registered schools and subject to Ofsted under the same framework as mainstream schools. We are not an unregistered alternative provider, nor should schools consider us as providing education off-site under their direction for pupils in hospital (B coded in the register). Although not necessary, schools may obtain a general letter of assurance by contacting our school office.

We take our safeguarding responsibility seriously, and our DSL and deputy DSLs will liaise with a child’s school whenever required, to support in existing plans and arrangements or to communicate any new information or support required to safeguard a child. SHS will inform a child’s school DSL whenever MASH referrals are being considered. SHS will expect to attend all statutory plan meetings for any child receiving education from SHS.

Further information about our safeguarding team is available here.

SHS upholds high attendance aspirations for all pupils. Unless prevented by medical needs, or by attendance of therapeutic or other UHS NHS interventions, pupils are expected to attend as often as they are well enough to do so.

For all dual-registered pupils, SHS holds day-to-day responsibility for ensuring attendance or obtaining a reason for absence and recording this on our register. The child’s usual school should use the D code throughout the dual enrolment to indicate that the child is attending our setting. We will liaise with a child’s school when the child is discharged from hospital, to ensure the child’s school is aware of discharge and that their enrolment status is updated to reflect this. On discharge from hospital, a child’s usual school will become responsible for following up any non-attendance, and we encourage schools to contact parents in the first instance to obtain information about the child’s expected return to school date.

For pupils on our Outreach provision, schools should follow the updated SCC guidance to ensure the correct coding is used in their register. We remind schools that they remain solely responsible for following up any non-attendance of pupils being supported by our outreach provision, including obtaining reasons for absence directly from the child’s parent/guardian.

For all our pupils, in hospital and on outreach, we know that timely and accurate information sharing, and open communication is the key to supporting pupils to reintegrate back into their usual school setting. Schools are encouraged to contact our school office whenever required, where you will be directed to the appropriate member of staff.

We do not ask or expect schools to set or send work. Pupils at SHS will be supported by experienced and qualified teachers who will use their professional judgement and our specialised curriculum to deliver a bespoke package for each child.

However, for all pupils, we do ask schools to support a pupil’s transition to our school by responding in a timely manner to our requests for information about a child’s ability, interests and educational journey, including any interventions already in place.

For KS4 pupils, our teaching team will liaise directly with you to ensure our support matches the need of the child including the correct syllabus of any upcoming exams.

SHS is currently unable to register as an exam centre, due to the NCN requirements that prevent site registration solely for the purpose of providing alternative site arrangements or facilitating the transfer of candidates. As a result, SHS cannot offer to make arrangements to ensure pupils can sit exams while they are in hospital.

However, we will work closely with schools to support all appropriate arrangements that can be approved by examining bodies, including providing suitable space and trained invigilation staff where needed. Unfortunately, we are currently unable to take transferred candidates, but can function as an alternative site where schools are able to facilitate this.

Due to the context of our school, SHS routinely obtains parental permission to liaise directly with a child’s medical team, including nurses, Drs, therapists and CAMHS. As a child’s medical need can vary throughout a hospital admission, SHS will often receive sensitive information directly from UHS NHS to help facilitate arrangements to ensure a child is safe while in our setting.

Unless explicit permission is gained from parents, we are unable to pass on sensitive medical information to the child’s usual school (unless immediate or likely harm could come to the child if the information is not shared). As a result, we ask school to keep in contact with parents throughout admission, and to approach them first when seeking medical information about the pupil.

We will always inform schools when we are made aware that a pupil is discharged from hospital. As UHS NHS is solely responsible for hospital admissions, we may not be able to inform schools ahead of time. Where there are any concerns that a pupil may not return to their usual school following a hospital admission, we will contact the child’s usual school and their local authority to ensure that the appropriate support is available.

Through our obtained permission from parents, on discharge we will routinely share any relevant information with schools that assists with a child’s reintegration. Such as: information obtained in relation to the assessment of a child’s medical condition, any recommended or necessary treatment plans that will impact on the school day, such as medication to be administered on school site, or access to facilities that will be required to enable the pupil to reintegrate back into their usual school.

We will always inform parents when we have shared this information and encourage schools to maintain communication with parents about their child’s medical needs in the weeks and months following discharge from hospital.