Chelmsford Hospital School has achieved the Inclusive School Award with Centre of Excellence status.
Individualised Approach
Chelmsford Hospital School is a day school which serves the Tier 4 in-patient Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) unit at Priory Hospital. The school is situated within Priory Hospital, who commission the education services through Aspris. Aspris is a company that offers a network of high-quality education and care services across the UK. The students that attend range from 12 to 18 years old and are admitted to the school once it is felt they are deemed well enough by health professionals to participate in the school’s induction process.
The school has no control over who will attend and access to the school is determined by the healthcare service. As such, the cohort of students is constantly changing and sometimes at short notice. The students that attend the school require a bespoke and individualised approach. Those attending the school are admitted as in-patients at a psychiatric hospital and their mental health status can impact their ability to engage with the school’s activities. Many of the students have been out of the school system for some time or may have accessed education on a part-time basis.
The school was inspected by Ofsted 2020 as an independent school, and they recognised the school as ‘Outstanding’. It acknowledged the progress that students made due to the safety they felt and the support they experienced.
Strong Inclusive Ethos 
There is a strong inclusive ethos at Chelmsford Hospital School and their values are shared with you through displays when you enter the setting. You can also feel them in the activities and interactions that you experience. As you arrive, staff welcome you personally at the entrance with a friendly and warm smile. There is an openness to the interactions that shows confidence in the inclusive aspects of the provision and all staff share the passion for embedding it.
The staff and students that you meet are friendly and kind. Students are happy to chat and interact with visitors sharing what they are doing and why. There are two classrooms at the school, and they are calm and purposeful. However, due to the nature of the environment, learning can take place in external areas such as on the ward within the lounge. Levels of engagement are high due to staff being flexible in delivering learning alongside the needs of students.
The leadership at Chelmsford Hospital School is strong, focused and distributive. The Executive Headteacher and Head of School are strong leaders and have a clear and ambitious vision for the school which others share and recognise. The Head of School has a strong view of the challenges of the setting and how it works alongside the delivery of mental health services. Despite these challenges, she is driven to maintain a culture and ethos centred around education. This strong ethos and culture are shared with students and stakeholders and the staffing team are engaged in establishing strategic direction and ensuring that the values are lived in decision-making. She manages a small team of staff but is focused on investing in staff so that they can be their very best empowering them to have the capacity of leadership skills to develop the setting further. The Executive Headteacher has confidence in the Headteacher’s leadership and says that she is “amazing” focusing her leadership of the team around “support and challenge”.
Passionate Team
The team is passionate about meeting the needs of students regardless of the barriers presented. Students are offered 25 hours of learning each week when they are ready and dependent on their mental state, their therapy and their treatment timetable. This means that personalised programmes of support need to be in place to respond to and overcome challenges.
Creative solutions are found within the moment, such as enabling high-quality teaching in different environments, enabling breaks from formalised learning, and ensuring that themes and topics are flexible to be taught over several days and in different ways. Staff have a strong knowledge of the curriculum, and this enables them to support all students in a way that means they feel included in lessons, starting from their interests. The staff collectively manage significant need alongside the wider medical team but there is a strong and unrelenting belief in education as being the focus within the school.
Staff describe themselves as a “team that gets on well” and work collaboratively to support the pupils and their families. In all conversations, staff are happy and positive about their work, and they are keen to share that they are well supported in many ways by each other, the Headteacher and the school’s systems. They mention that they have “job fulfilment” from understanding themselves well and being supported by the team around them. They all share a passion for personalised learning and for establishing secure and safe relationships with students. All adults working within the school are kind and nurturing and all contribute to the strong inclusive ethos.
Training is provided and offered to all staff to support them in being the best they can be professionally. The Headteacher prides themselves on ensuring that all staff have the training to support pupils and their needs. Staff have access to mandatory training through Aspris which is aligned with how Priory Hospital works. However, the Headteacher enables staff to reflect and identify their training needs through Performance Management. This is funded and supported by Aspris. Leaders talk about the focus being on “looking out” to connect with up-to-date pedagogy and learn from others. Examples of this can be seen in teaching staff accessing the National Professional Qualifications (NPQs) and completing their Masters. Staff are encouraged to showcase their work by sharing good practice across schools.
Support for Families
Support for families at Chelmsford Hospital School is prioritised to enable them to feel involved. The staff know the parents/carers well and see their role as enabling families to see the value of education at this stage of their child’s care. Supported by the strategic direction of the Headteacher, staff communicate positively with parents and carers, building trustful relationships that enable them to break down some of the barriers that could hinder them. When meeting with parents, they reinforce the positive progress that the student is making in line with their own goals and achievements. Bespoke and focused support is shared with families to enable their child and family to work positively with the school. One parent stated that she “was grateful for the support” her child had received.
It is clear from the evidence presented during the IQM assessment that the leaders know their school well and have access to high-quality data and information. The Executive Headteacher, who acts as Chair of Governors, is reassured by high-quality feedback that details students’ progress and there are regular checks and balances in place at various levels to ensure systems are strong. Adapting to ever-changing needs and admissions and ensuring provision meets it, is a key priority for the school. Leaders and staff mobilise swiftly to address this need.
Staff are focused on delivering an age-appropriate curriculum and adapting their practice to do so. They work closely with the student’s home school to provide learning opportunities that are in line with their year group and exam preparation. This can be challenging but creative opportunities are exploited to do so, such as enabling students to learn in different environments and through active student-led play activities.
Training and Continuous Professional Development (CPD) are key to the development of provision. School Development Priorities underpin the training that staff receive, and they meet daily to ensure their practice is aligned with this. Staff professional development is prioritised to enable them to effectively discharge their responsibilities and remain safe in doing so. As well as to support them in a demanding role with supervision.
Find out more about the IQM Inclusive School Award
If your school is interested in obtaining the IQM Inclusive School Award or you wish to talk to a member of the IQM team please telephone:
028 7127 7857 (9.00 am to 5.00 pm)
or email: [email protected] for further details.
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