GOSH Magazine project (Document (A4))

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www.goshschool.org

the Headteacher

A very warm welcome to our Gosling magazine!

Hello and welcome to our 2025 magazine. This is my first year as the headteacher of the hospital school at Great Ormond Street and UCLH.

It is an honour to have this role, and I have thoroughly enjoyed my first term. It has been very lovely to meet lots of children and families and see the amazing learning that goes on every day.

The teaching team at both hospitals work so hard to make the most of every minute, and I have been able to see it first hand, day in, day out. Each child has their own personalised curriculum, and each teacher and teaching assistant spends time with the children and families to find out about learning styles and special interests, so that each child is really motivated to learn. We also have excellent communication with home schools so we can find out what is happening there as well, and make sure children aren’t missing out.

We have a curriculum that is enriched with music, art, sport, philosophy and humanities, and in the afternoons there are online clubs that can bring children together from every corner of each hospital.

Our teams from both hospitals connect regularly through training, teaching across sites and daily conversations, meaning we can make sure we have continuity, creativity and consistency of learning across both sites. We also work closely with all the other staff in the hospitals to really enhance every child’s experience.

This magazine will hopefully help you visualise the magic that It is a true celebration of our children and our school. I hope

Geography

Discovering our Planet

We often use pupils’ personal interests as a starting point to encourage engagement in school, build confidence, make links to previous learning and begin conversations with others in our school community, for example, sharing languages that are spoken or countries they have visited; Geography, planet Earth in particular, is often a favourite subject area for our pupils.

Four pupils absolutely embraced the topic of ‘Planet Earth’ and each led their own learning with questions they would like to answer. Dylan enjoyed creating his own Modroc continent map and used this to support leading a quiz for pupils in the schoolroom.

Another pupil was inspired by the work of British Biologist, David Attenborough, so through research, he was able to learn about how animals adapt to contrasting environments.

Cooper wanted to apply his mathematical skills to ordering the continents by the size of their land mass and to calculate distances between capital cities.

SCIENCE

We are extremely proud to have been awarded the Primary Science Quality Mark (Gilt standard) award for the second time for our work in Science. The year-long programme enabled the school community to reflect on, and engage in, outstanding Science practice.

Our portfolio showcased the incredible Science teaching and learning taking place in our school, including: fair testing, making observations, compa seeking; identifying, classifying and grouping; planting, growi a 3D printer; interviewing astronaut Tim Peake; a virtual visit introduction of the EYFS Crest Award for our youngest learners.

A quote from the review of our portfolio submission:

‘This submission has much evidence that Science is established, that there is embedded practice that is evaluated across a team and that the needs of each child are considered such that teaching is responsive to personalised needs. Children experience science that is positive, thoughtful and relevant to the realworld. There was much to enjoy within this submission.’

We continue to keep updated with the most innovative resources, through attendance at the Primary STEM Network meetings and being part of the STEM Learning Enthuse Partnership, which is a group tailored for teaching STEM within hospital schools.

Energy

Students in the secondary classroom have been a little careless with their use of energy. They had to calculate their bills to see how much money they owed and there were some surprises in store!

Alfie took a trip back to Earth from his home on Titan and then worked out his bill!

Laila likes to leave the toaster, dishwasher, iron, television and kettle on when she goes out. Take a look at her electricity bill and see what she owes!

Sammy has been playing Minecraft non-stop for 1 month. He used the metre readings to work out how much electricity he has used.

Cells

Secondary students have learnt about cell structure and function. As part of this work they were able to use a key to create cell models in the Minecraft world.

STEM Bronze Crest Award

At the start of the Autumn term, pupils from the Mildred Creak Unit had fun finding out about what bioplastics are after studying some of the issues around using oil-based plastics. They worked collaboratively to plan and carry out an investigation to see which volume of glycerine would be best for making a bioplastic used for making a piece of cutlery.

They then analysed their collective results to help draw a conclusion. They were extremely proud, after writing up their projects, to be awarded with the Bronze Crest Award certificate

Virtual Reality

We use Oculus Quest 2 VR headsets in school to enrich many areas of the curriculum. Here are some of the ways we’ve used them in the past year:

Space

Secondary pupils had an opportunity to explore Space in great detail. Paul, from ‘Science Professors’ at Spark2 explained how to use the headsets to navigate their way to different planets as well as the International Space Station to see what it would feel like to be on board!

Paris and Provence

One of our Year 11 pupils went on a virtual visit to Paris ahead of the Olympic and Paralympic Games and then to Provence in the late summer to see the lavender fields. These visits gave her the opportunity to put key ‘Travel and Tourism’ vocabulary into use as she described where she’d been, what she’d seen and what she thought of it.

Sensory Sound Walk

For a pupil who was unable to leave the hospital building, one pupil used the VR headset to go on a walk outside focusing on all the sounds and activity of the inner city.

Plant Cell

One of our secondary pupils was studying cells as his homeschool topic. He found using our VR headset extremely useful to help him understand the structure of a plant cell as well as the roles of the different organelles. He had great fun and was delighted to achieve an AQA Unit Award for his work.

STEAM Week

In the Spring Term 2024, pupils participated in a whole school STEAM week around the theme of Leonardo Da Vinci as well as ‘Pi Day” which fell during that week.

Pupils had great fun trying activities like: making model arms and catapults; labelling Da Vinci’s organs; flying drones; designing and testing parachutes; and experimenting with drawing using different parts of their body, inspired by the work of Tony Orrico!

We also ran a STEAM careers workshop during the week where speakers from a range of professions including a graphic designer, aeronautical engineer and architect, spoke to students about what they do as well as involved them in some hands-on activities. Several students on the wards at both GOSH & UCLH were able to join the session via Zoom.

This year Pi day (14th of March) fell during STEAM week! To celebrate the magnificent �� students created their own �� skyline, in which the height of each skyscraper corresponds to a digit of ��. Students also conducted experiments to see how �� relates to the circumference and diameter of a circle.

Lastly, Hussain had to decide whether one 18 inch pizza has more or less pizza than two 12 inch pizzas! Do you agree with him?

The pizza conundrum… do you agree with Hussain?

A visit to the Bank of England

In July, pupils from the Mildred Creak Unit went on a trip to the Bank of England Museum as part of their Maths unit on finance. We took a black cab from the hospital to the museum. This was very exciting as we could see more of London and got to drive past St Paul’s Cathedral.

At the museum we had a talk on the history of the Bank, their commitment to recycling and how they view the future of money. Did you know that the Bank of England predicts that in 2032 only 7% of payments will be made using cash! We also saw how they are recycling old notes into items such as plant pots!

Our students had the opportunity to hold sheets of different denominations of notes! Here you can see Lizzie and Sammy calculating how much they had in their hands! We also had the opportunity to hold a bar of gold! It weighed around 12kg!

It was a great trip and hopefully we can visit the Museum again soon.

Maths Week

Themed weeks at GOSH school are always so much fun and create such a buzz of excitement amongst the teachers and the pupils. All learners are included and encouraged to participate in a way that is meaningful for them. We had great fun taking a sensory learning approach to money in Maths Week.

We based our learning around The Firework Song and explored the sounds, smells, textures and movements associated with Bonfire Night. Did you know that Lapsang Souchong tea bags smell just like a bonfire?! We used the principles of story massage to demonstrate different fireworks on the body with simple movements. The repetition in the song allowed our learners to predict what was coming next and Nilofar’s favourite firework went “whizz, whizz, whizz!” Of course you can’t buy Fireworks without money and Nilofar had a fantastic time exploring different coins, checking how they felt in her hand and listening to the noise they made as they were dropped into a tin.

Creative Challenge

Each month we set a whole school Creative Challenge for pupils. November’s challenge was to create a pixel portrait using the blocks in Minecraft. Pupils embraced the challenge, some creating self portraits, others portraits of people they admire and some portraits of their

Creative Workshop

3D Printing

During one creative workshop pupils learnt about 3D printing. They were able to use the design software Tinkercad to create 3D objects, render them and send them off to the printer!

Pupils were able to learn cross-stitch embroidery during a creative workshop. worked hard to produce their name using binka mesh. They created templates using squared paper and mounted their finished embroidery on decorative fabric.

Cross Stitch
For

one of our

We have a weekly Zoom group every Wednesday for primary children who would like to socialise and learn together with other children at the hospital. It is a nice social opportunity for children who are unable to come down to the schoolroom and enjoy interacting with other children. Children can join Welcome Wednesday sessions, with the choice to have their camera on or off.

‘Welcome Wednesday’ sessions, we took inspiration from Yayoi Kusama.

Yayoi Kusama is a Japanese artist who is sometimes called ‘the princess of polka dots.’ Although she makes lots of different types of art – painting, sculptures, performances and installations – she has become known for the one thing they have in common: DOTS!

The Tate Modern hosted an ‘Obliteration Room’, in which children were given coloured dot stickers to use all over the walls and furniture! We wanted to recreate something similar at the hospital school, so we gave our pupils dot stickers to stick on templates or blank paper.

This activity was enjoyed by all primary aged children, from Nursery to KS2.

It encouraged children to think outside the box and in turn, encouraged their own creative expression. It was a relaxing activity and also great for fine motor development!

Dot Art inspired by Yayoi Kusama

Early Years inspired learning

We continue to use simple Early Years picture books to inspire learning for pupils of all ages in our school. Last year, we thought about picture books that represent different aspects of life on the continent of Africa. Older children explored the problematic nature of stereotypes and the long-lasting impact of colonialism and how children’s books can help with accurate representation. We fell in love with ‘The Ghanaian Goldilocks’ by Dr. Tamara Pizzoli and also read books in the Handa series by Eillen Browne, supporting children’s learning about different aspects of life in some African countries.

To aid hand development in younger learners, there were lots of creative challenges including fruit art, weaving, playdough and roleplay. Pupils responded in a variety of creative ways and one designed a toy Guava on our 3D printer as we could not locate one anywhere! Pupils learnt about different types of animals, habitats and food and there were musical responses too, facilitated by musicians from Yuniya Tales who shared traditional African storytelling through words and music.

Art Gallery Visits

October Gallery, just a few minutes’ walk from Great Ormond Street Hospital, showcases contemporary work by the world’s leading international artists. As a member of their Beacon Schools Programme, we regularly take pupils who are able to leave their wards to visit their exhibitions and take part in workshops.

For those who can’t make it there, the gallery’s artist educators can come to us to work with pupils at the bedside. We are even hosting our first ever year-long artist residency at UCLH in partnership with the gallery this year.

Below you can see photos from one of our most recent visits to the gallery. The education team also runs a ‘Youth Collective’ group weekly, which is open to older teens looking to increase their engagement with the arts, and regular family days on weekends.

To find out more, visit octobergalleryeducation.com

Perimeter Gallery

Also close to Great Ormond Street Hospital, tucked away on the quiet and cobblestoned

Sound and Music

Ammar has been exploring sound, music and vibration this term in school. He enjoys spending time on his resonance board which amplifies vibrations. His music teacher Harriet sang songs into the microphone with the speaker turned upside down on his board, and Ammar felt the vibrations of the song! Ammar particularly enjoyed listening to the touch song, ‘Head Chest Knees Toes’, especially for his head!

Ammar has also explored instruments using his hands and feet. He felt Kai tapping on the tambourine as he held his hand on the surface and used his feet to play the chimes! Great work Ammar, you’ve worked so hard in all your lessons this year!

Camden Schools Art Biennale

During the summer term, we were proud to see the work of 10 of our young artists exhibited alongside that from pupils from other Camden schools. The Biennale was a celebration of Camden students’ achievements in visual arts and was a collaboration between Central Saint Martins (CSM), Camden Council, Camden Learning and Camden Schools. The work was exhibited in July in a week-long showcase at the Lethaby Gallery and windows galleries at CSM, Kings Cross. Our pupils’ work was curated into themes by staff at CSM and could be found amongst over 350 pieces from schools across Camden. The exhibition was viewed by thousands of visitors during the week. We are very proud of our young artists!

Modern Languages

Spanish Award

¿Hablasespañolu otroidioma?

Some of our pupils work toward achieving an AQA Unit Award during their school lessons. One of our secondary pupils was recently the first in our school to be awarded with an accredited certificate for her knowledge of the Spanish language and of Spanish culture. During the term, topics such as describing people and developing an understanding of typical Spanish foods were learnt as part of the unit award.

Famous French Paintings

For a pupil whose favourite subjects were French and Art, we created a gallery of famous paintings in her room. Each work was either painted by a French artist, inspired by landscapes in France or currently exhibited in a French museum or gallery. She had to choose the correct artist and name for the painting and then say, in French, whether she liked or disliked the work and why. Do you know these paintings and who they are by? (find the answers on the back cover).

OLYMPIC FESTIVAL 2024

With 2024 being an Olympic year and the games being hosted so close to home, just across the channel, in Paris, we took the opportunity to celebrate the global sporting event with a special week-long Olympic Festival in school. Pupils learnt the French names for the sports, explored their individual heritage and which country they’d like to represent in the school games, composed anthems, designed mascots and logos, lead warm-up activities, tried knitting inspired by Olympic champion Tom Daly, met two athletic champions and competed in our very own GOSH & UCLH Games.

The GOSH & UCLH Summer Games

The day of our school games was full of competitive spirit as the pupils participated in seven adapted activities, based on the most popular sports in the world. Each pupil filled in their scores on a special Sports Day passport, and received a medal for their highest scores at our annual Prize-giving ceremony.

Schoolroom Championships

We hosted our first virtual ‘Schoolroom Championships’ which saw the pupils and staff in each of our 4 schoolrooms across both our sites compete against one another in a series of 5 challenges - ‘Skittle Knock Down’, ‘In the Hoop’, ‘Target Sling’, ‘Goal Strike’ and ‘Keepy Uppy’.

It was a close competition but the ‘Schoolroom Championships Cup’ was awarded to ‘Schoolroom 2’ at GOSH. We look forward to participating again this summer and wonder who the 2025 winners will be?

Potato Olympics

A very popular new event was the ‘Potato Olympics.’ Filled with opportunities to practise their Maths skills, pupils excitedly took part in five different activities based on well known sports. After creating their athlete from a potato, events included diving, a road race, bowling, and gymnastics. Their athletes also had the opportunity to take part in the new Olympic Sport, breakdancing! Great fun was had across the school!

Visiting Athletes

Mascots and Logos

Using the Parisian ‘Phryges’ mascots, based on the Phyrgian cap - a symbol of freedom and revolution in France - pupils were inspired to design their own mascots and logos for the GOSH & UCLH Games.

We welcomed Vanessa Wallace, F34 Shot Putter and 2 times paralympian (GOSH), and Tommy Ramdhan, European Gold medal sprinter, 60m, 100m and 200m (UCLH). Vanessa and Tommy presented to groups in our schoolrooms and joined school sessions with pupils on the wards. They shared their sporting achievements (including challenges they had overcome), showed their medals, answered our questions and inspired us ahead of our very own GOSH & UCLH Games.

Celebrating Olympic and Paralympic Values

In 2012, when London hosted the games, our school adopted one Olympic and one Paralympic value as our school values. These are ‘Friendship and Determination’. Each week throughout the school year we acknowledge when we see these values in action with friendship and determination awards for pupils. At the GOSH & UCLH Games we award friendship and determination cups for pupils who demonstrate these values during their participation in the events.

A School Anthem

In Music lessons, pupils wrote, performed and recorded a special ‘School Anthem’ that was played at our Prize-giving ceremony in the same way athletes' national anthems are played at the Olympic Games when awards are presented. For members of the Refugee Team, the Olympic anthem is played. To the right are the lyrics to our school anthem.

Everybody in this school is so determined and we rule

Here we work only to empower

We enjoy every learning hour

We empower one another through our teamwork and our valour

We can learn whilst having fun at our school

Digital

Photography

Secondary pupils have had the opportunity to photograph the hospital gardens and local spaces using DSLR cameras. They also learned how to use Adobe Photoshop to edit these photos and develop their own portfolio. These photos were showcased in the school and were recognised with AQA Unit Awards. Here are some of the photos taken by Lizzie, Orlaith, Poppy, Helena and Grace.

Lizzie
Helena
Lizzie
Grace

The Halo Code

Being a hospital school, we do not have a school uniform policy or rules about how pupils need to present themselves. We are aware that some pupils have felt excluded by restrictive policies in other settings so to be explicit in our approach of equality for all, we have adopted the Halo Collective’s ‘Halo Code for Schools.’

The Halo Code demonstrates our support for staff and pupils’ right to wear Afro hair naturally at school and work. We embrace all Afro hairstyles and acknowledge that Afro textured hair is an important part of our Black staff and pupils’ racial, ethnic, cultural and religious identities.

In lessons we have watched the short film ‘Hair Love’, discussed the topic of hair discrimination and we have also introduced a wide range of picture books on the topic to our school library, working towards representation of our pupil population. If you’d like to find out more about how Halo Collective is working to create a future without hair discrimination, visit their Instagram page: @thehalocode

Communication

We all communicate in different ways and developing our skills of interacting with those around us is an important part of our learning. We enjoy learning Makaton, a unique communication system that uses symbols, signs and speech, through singing with Singing Hands. This helps us to express ourselves and understand language used by others.

Makaton can support younger children who have not yet developed spoken language, which could be due to developmental, medical or emotional reasons and can also bridge a gap for our developing bilingual pupils, as the sign remains constant as children switch between languages.

We use visuals to support us to understand new vocabulary and to make sentences and we also may communicate our learning through using technology and apps to help us.

All of our teachers have been introduced to using Makaton in school and many are undertaking further training. We also collaborate with the GOSH Play team and Speech and Language Therapists to ensure that we are focusing on similar vocabulary, with our joint ‘Sign of the Fortnight’ being shared widely on patient bedside systems and online.

Creative Club

This term, secondary pupils have been coming together every week on Zoom for a different creative activity. We have had a go at everything from marbling to catapult art, chromatography to budgeting games, cartoon drawing to making ice cream in a bag! We were even joined by the Cheetah Conservation Fund in Namibia! Here are photos of just some of the amazing things we have done.

Many of the pupils at GOSH school love animals and this term we had the opportunity to bring the animals directly to them from Namibia...virtually, of course! During one of our weekly creative clubs, we were given a talk and tour from Calum working at the Cheetah Conservation Fund. Pupils learnt about the cheetah they house and rehabilitate, what makes these animals so unique and some of the current challenges they face. Pupils also had the opportunity to meet some of the goats that make up CCF’s model farm and the amazing livestock guarding dogs that protect them, and in turn the cheetah.

To help raise awareness of CCF’s conservation effort some of the pupils made some compelling and informative posters, highlighting some of the facts we learnt during our talk. We also had the amazing opportunity to name one of the puppies recently born at CCF who will one day work as the livestock guarding dog helping to protect wild cheetahs. Pupils came up with some amazing suggestions which eventually narrowed down to Storm. We look forward to receiving updates about this special pup next year!

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

In Computing lessons, we have started exploring a range of AI tools. In the secondary schoolroom, we have looked at what AI is and how these data-driven AI algorithms and models work differently from rules-based algorithms. Using “Experience AI” resources designed by The Raspberry Pi Foundation and Google DeepMind, Pupils created their own Supermarket AI model and trained this to recognise the difference between images of apples and tomatoes.

By using supervised learning, students understood the importance of using a large quantity of high-quality training data. While testing their models, pupils found that poor training data can lead to algorithmic bias and inaccurate results. We explored AI hallucinations and some of the potential issues of AI-generated data. Pupils also created their own AI image quizzes; see if you can tell which of these images is AIgenerated and which is real (answers on the back cover).

A B C D E F

During a whole-school Flipped Fairytales project, we used tools such as Suno and Canva Genius Lab to bring pupils’ fairytales to life with music and generated images. An example of one of these short fairytales featuring AI-generated content is Marija’s “Goldilocks at Christmas”. You can view this short video by scanning the QR code below or going to https://bit.ly/GoldilocksAtXmas

Tech Week

During Tech Week, we were visited by various tech companies who provided a range of workshops for pupils at GOSH and UCLH. Pupils enjoyed creating games, music and animation with 2Simple’s Purple Mash platform. Primary and Secondary pupils had a hands-on workshop where they learned about computer hardware with 2econd Chance, a computer recycling charity that provides work-based training for people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities. Three Discovery helped pupils make animations, comic books, videos and podcasts. Finally, we received a generous donation from Creative Hut which allowed us to teach pupils how to fly programmable drones in the school rooms and on the wards.

Partners:

GOSH Gallery!

Pupil Showcase

Harry on Fox Ward has been working hard in school reading some of Julia Donaldson’s stories. He told us his favourite Christmas film is ‘Tabby McTat’ so we had a special ‘Cinema in my room’ day and watched it together. At the end Harry said “That was brilliant!”

Rafin’s Maths Beads

Harry then read ‘Stickman’ and then made a giant painting of Stickman using paint and a foam board. He also read ‘Room on the Broom’ and made a magic potion just like the witch in the story! Well done Harry, we’re so impressed at your determination to join in with all activities no matter what!

Rafin is a magnificent mathematician who is working hard to count large totals. He wants to get even quicker at counting, so he made this bead string of 100 beads grouped into 10 to help him practise. Now when Rafin is counting larger totals, he can count in 10 and then count on in 1s to find the exact amount quickly.

Rowan’s Arts Award

Speak to your hospital school teacher if you would like more information about how you can work towards your own Arts Award.

In the Autumn term, Rowan worked towards achieving an Arts Award. An Arts Award is a recognised qualification that “takes children and young people on a creative journey, exploring the arts world and discovering their potential as artists.”

Rowan has been working to achieve Discovery level. He has developed his skill and confidence in techniques such as collage, printing and digital design; linking his work to his interest in Japanese anime. He gained knowledge of Japanese artists which may have inspired his favourite Dragon Ball Z character -Gokuand wrote reflectively about his artistic processes.

Seren and Kate’s Recycling Challenge

In the primary schoolroom at GOSH, Seren and Kate took on a recycling challenge! They asked staff to fill in a survey about recycling in school and then made posters encouraging all the teachers to be more mindful about recycling their food packing. In just four weeks an amazing 152 pieces of packaging have been recycled! Fantastic work Kate and Seren. Your posters have really made a difference!

LEGO Spike

Across the hospital, children of all ages enjoy using Lego in their school lessons. These lessons provide practical experiences of STEM concepts where pupils can solve problems for a variety of characters. Pupils get to practise their English, Maths and problemsolving skills in an engaging and creative way.

Pupils not only get to build Lego in lessons, but also connect their model to an electronic device and program it to move using specific code.

Sometimes pupils are challenged to edit the programs they’ve created to be more suitable for the characters involved; for example, slowing down the ‘Spinning Ferris Wheel’ so that the characters have time to get on, but it’s also lots of fun to speed it up to full speed and watch them whiz around the wheel!

Skills in critical thinking and resilience are developed as pupil’s build and program Lego models for a specific purpose - such as creating a grabber which can pick up rubbish or designing an arcade colour-sorting game.

If Lego is something you are interested in, ask your teacher about using it in your lessons and discover a whole new aspect to Lego you didn’t know existed!

Pupils not only get to build Lego in lessons, but also connect their model to an electronic device and program it to move using specific code.

Sometimes pupils are challenged to edit the programs they’ve created to be more suitable for the characters involved; for example, slowing down the ‘Spinning Ferris Wheel’ so that the characters have time to get on, but it’s also lots of fun to speed it up to full speed and watch them whiz around the wheel!

Skills in critical thinking and resilience are developed as pupil’s build and program Lego models for a specific purpose - such as creating a grabber which can pick up rubbish or designing an arcade colour-sorting game.

If Lego is something you are interested in, ask your teacher about using it in your lessons and discover a whole new aspect to Lego you didn’t know existed!

Who Owns The Sky?

Thought adventures and philosophical enquiry with Miriam

Each Tuesday this term, our philosophy teacher Miriam has been bringing thought experiments into the schoolroom and onto the wards at GOSH and UCLH. Miriam’s eye-openingly, mind-bendingly, thought-provokingly strange and wonderful sessions have delighted and challenged us all.

In each session, Miriam presents our students with stories, questions and games designed to help our thoughts flourish. As our friends at the Philosophy Foundation state: ‘Our mission is to bring understanding, wisdom and eudaimonia (flourishing) to the heart of education for children and adults.’

We’ve seen this first hand, as our pupils have tackled some mightily big questions:

Do you agree with our students’ points of view? If you’re curious about philosophy, find further free resources here:

https://www.philosophyfoundation.org/philosophy-for-children

Or ask your teacher for a session with Miriam!

Sensory Stories

Stories are for everyone! Lots of our children and young people enjoy taking part in interactive sensory stories. These are a wonderful way to share language and experiences through providing sensory stimuli. Here are just some of the stories we have shared this term.

Idris found “Jibba-Jabba the hutt’’ in a story about Star Wars!

Mahdi splashes in the sea with a foil blanket in an adventure about the deep blue sea!

Ammar explores the Octopus legs in a story all about the ocean!

Arthur found out how much luggage he could stack on a Yak!

Nilofar explores Marley’s chains taking part in A Christmas Carol sensory story!

Connecting with Home Schools

During your admission to hospital, we understand how hard it is being away from your home school, especially for long periods of time. You may miss socialising with your peers and making friends; or it might be missing the different learning opportunities and curiosity about what your class is doing.

To support you with your learning while in hospital, we like to encourage pupils to communicate with their home schools to keep in touch. This could mean writing a letter to your class to send in the post, emailing some amazing learning to your teacher to display in your classroom or even a Zoom call. Video calling your home school gives you an opportunity to say hello to your teachers, friends, peers and any other important people you might be missing! We can also support you Zooming into special events you might be missing out on, such as:

Leavers Assembly Class productions Christmas concerts

Hospital School teachers like to ensure that some of your learning is the same as your peers at your home school. We spend time talking to your teachers to find out what you are missing at school, so you can have the chance to do some of the same activities in topics such as Art, Maths, Reading and Writing!

Christmas-time at the Hospital School

Bear Ward Christmas Performance

The Early Years pupils in the Bear Ward Bay: Charlie, Kubilay, Camilla and Amelia, took part in a Christmas performance for families, teachers and staff on Bear Ward. They were joined by Suzanne from Singing Hands and together they sang and signed along to famous Christmas songs, much to the delight of their huge audience. It was a lovely opportunity to celebrate the end of the calendar year and to enjoy a rite of passage many children in the community would usually experience at the end of term.

Chefs Adopt A School

As always, our pupils continue to show off their culinary talents, helped by our fantastic Chefs from Chefs Adopt a School. In December we had a visit from Chef Steve, who showed us how to make some very festive reindeer pancakes and decorate delicious gingerbread men.

Santa and Friends

For one special morning, the GOSH school garden became home to donkeys Pedro and Barney, and miniature pony Flora who came to visit from animal rescue centre Kelly’s Donkeys. Pupils came to see the animals, watch them eat hay, stroke them and even groom them. Inside the school, a special visitor from Lapland met children to make sure he knew all their Christmas wishes and where to deliver their presents.

Mishal Husain Visit

Broadcast journalist and author, Mishal Husain, visited a secondary English lesson in March 2024 as part of a unit of work on news and media. Immediately after presenting on BBC Radio 4’s morning news programme, Today, Mishal hopped on her bike and cycled to meet us in the GOSH secondary schoolroom to talk about her interesting life and career reporting the news. Students joined us from the wards at GOSH and UCLH via Zoom and practised their own interviewing skills by asking Mishal lots of questions about what it takes to be a successful journalist and presenter. She showed us photographs of her work over the years, from presenting general election debates to recording live from inside a refugee camp in Pakistan. Our students gained valuable insight into the preparation and research it takes to build a news story and deliver it to an audience.

Curious Investigations

English lessons at GOSH involve reading, writing, and role-play incorporate drama into our lessons and the unit on Mark Haddon’s, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, was no exception. This gripping comingof-age novel tells the story of fifteen year old Christopher Boone as he embarks on a life-changing murder investigation of his neighbour’s dog, Wellington. Christopher, and our secondary students, were tasked with the job of trying to discover who the murderer was. Our classroom transformed into the crime scene where teachers became suspects and students were investigating officers. Our new headteacher, Neela, was the police commissioner who wanted her officers to analyse evidence, interview suspects, read police reports and, ultimately, solve the mystery of who killed Wellington. We definitely have some young investigators in the making!

National Portrait Gallery

During 2024, we have been joined by numerous artists from the National Portrait Gallery for virtual sessions linked to a variety of themes. Each session was linked to a portrait in their collection and we had the opportunity to get creative ourselves each time.

We made a moment for mindfulness during our ‘Olympic Festival’ after learning about Tom Daley and his knitting/crochet which he has been seen doing poolside at events.

After learning about activist Bella Lack, we created wonderful masks featuring aspects of the natural world.

Inspired by artist Sarah Biffin, who painted using her mouth and often created miniature portraits, we created our own miniature portraits and self-portraits.

We learnt about artist Sarah Biffin, conservationist Bella Lack, Olympic diver Tom Daley and physicist and chemist, Marie Curie.

The Enchanted Kingdom of Elements and Compounds

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, there existed a magical realm known as the Kingdom of Atoms. This kingdom was made up of the tiniest, most powerful creatures in the universe-the Atoms-who had the extraordinary ability to combine and transform into all sorts of magical beings. The Kingdom of Atoms was ruled by the wise and noble King Proton and Queen Neutron.

Every year, the Kingdom of Atoms hosted a grand event known as the Festival of Fusion. This was a magical time when Protons, Electrons, and Neutrons came together to form new, exciting and more powerful beings called Elements.

The Mischievous Compounds

Not far from the realm of Elements, there existed a curious land known as Compound Cove. In this land, the Elements didn’t just live in isolation; they formed bonds with each other, creating all sorts of wondrous new beings called Compounds

It was here that the mischievous Sodium and Chlorine, two very different Elements, met joined forces.  Other elements saw how stable Sodium and Chlorine were in their compound and began to come together ...

Elements and Compounds in Stories

Look at the images below and identify the story they are from and whether they are an element or compound.  Add the name of the substance if you know it.

GOSH & UCLH Futures

Careers education has changed at a rapid speed since the pandemic. A need to strengthen the workforce in many industries has inspired some excellent partnerships that support pupils from exam years all the way through to apprenticeships and early career programmes. At the same time, schools have needed to prioritise catch-up work, sometimes resulting in the work experience element of careers education no longer being offered.

Some schools are finding ways to ensure work experience remains relevant and useful for pupils by responding to recent changes in working practices, most significantly the adoption of remote working or hybrid working for a significant portion of the working population.

At the hospital school, we know that some of our pupils miss the opportunity for work experience offered by their home schools due to hospital admissions or periods of recovery and isolation following illness. We also know that important careers ‘drop-down’ days and careers advice meetings can be missed.

We are fortunate to have the support of the excellent Camden Careers and Connexions service and we are also going to be setting up work experience placements for some of our Year 10 and Year 11 pupils for the first time ever, either virtually or in-person with industry partners in our own local community, an area of London now designated ‘The Knowledge Quarter’.

The expansion of virtual work experience opportunities is an exciting development for pupils of the hospital school. Both Speakers for Schools (www.speakersforschools.org) and Springpod (www.springpod.com) provide live and pre-recorded work experience content across a wide range of industries and with high profile partners. Pupils can explore these independently, as well as in school.

Our teachers are here to support you/your child in working toward future aspirations. Please talk to them if you have any questions about careers education or work experience.

We look forward to sharing updates on our first work experience placements in the next edition of Gosling Magazine!

Answers to Quizzes:

Famous Paintings

Mona Lisa by Leonarda DaVinci

Nymphéas (Water Lilies) by Claude Monet

Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh

AI

The AI generated images are B, C and F

Elements and Compounds

1. The Wizard of Oz - Ruby Slippers - Compound

2. Snow White and the Seven Dwarves - Poison Apple - Compound/Mixture

3. The Wizard of Oz - Tin Man - Element

4. The Little Mermaid - Water - Compound

5. The Three Little Pigs - Brick House - Mixture

6. Cinderella - Glass Slipper - Mixture

7. Sleeping Beauty - Potion - Mixture/Compound

8. Rapunzel - Gold - Element

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