Gosling - Spring 24

HELLO from the Headteacher

Welcome again to our Gosling Magazine

As we welcome in 2024 this is a chance for us to look back and reflect with great pride on a selection of school activities that have taken place during the last year. You will see from the articles shared that whether a pupil is based in isolation, in the schoolroom or on a bay there is always the opportunity to remain engaged in learning. Inspiration comes in so many forms and our team’s use of technology ensures that pupils are safely connected to the wider world and their ‘home’ school.

We welcomed OFSTED for a 2 day rigorous inspection at the end of November – thank you to all our pupils and families who gave feedback and met with the inspection team. The final report was published on 23 January and we are delighted to announce that the school remains an Outstanding provider ‘There is a high level of engagement and attendance among the pupils, despite their often complicated conditions. This is because pupils enjoy the lessons, appreciate the staff, and are helped to see the value in learning.’ Just one extract from a report that really captured the essence of our talented school community who despite their very personal medical challenges continue to thrive because of the exceptional creative and personalised curriculum on offer.

As always a huge thank you to everyone who we work alongside at both Great Ormond Street and UCLH who help to ensure we can keep developing from strength to strength as a school.

The full OFTSED report can be read https://reports.ofsted.gov.uk/ and on the school’s website.

STEM

In the summer term, the students learnt how pin hole cameras work. They then used simple materials to make beer can cameras which they positioned in some of the garden spaces.

After a week they enjoyed learning how to scan the negatives and then edit their photos using software called Pixelmator.

CREATIVE WORKSHOP

Here are some of the photos they developed from their beer can cameras:

Students completed a topic on wool-craft as part of the creative workshop lessons. They learnt a number of techniques using wool including weaving, finger knitting, and pom-pom making.

MUSIC

In December we went to King's Place to see the Aurora Orchestra perform music by Beethoven in a show entitled ‘Beethoven and the Dinosaurs’. Have a listen to this song, you may recognise the melody…

Music can help us to understand the world around us as well as ourselves. It is important to listen to a range of different genres of Music and when possible we work with outside organisations and groups to achieve this.

Pupils from the Mildred Creak Unit studied Gothic literature, reading many short stories and then developing their own understanding of its conventions through writing, analysing and creating their own gothic piece, which they then turned into animations.

ENGLISH WEEK

The replica objects from the V&A are produced as part of a 3D printing project with the museum developed so that children in hospital who aren’t able to visit the museum can still have access to items of interest from the permanent collection that can support their learning across the curriculum.

As part of the Mythical Creatures themed week, pupils in the secondary schoolroom created calligrams of their favourite mythical creatures. Inspired by the V&A Museum In Your Room replica objects, they used adjectives and nouns to describe why their mythical creatures would make suitable guardians. Beautiful works include: Chinese Dragon by Lizzie, Hippogriff by Patrick, Pegasus by Rocco and Fairy by Sylvie.

SCIENCE

In Science lessons, pupils have been learning about energy and have used the virtual words in Minecraft for Education to explore energy changes and their efficiency.

SCIENCE WEEK

The theme in Science Week was ‘Connections’ and the students enjoyed participating in a wide range of activities linked to this. They extracted DNA from strawberries and thought about how their genes connect them to their families. Lots of students had fun taking part in a Global Battery Experiment run by the Royal Society of Chemistry, where the made and tested their own batteries from coins, foil, card and some different electrolytes.

VIRTUAL REALITY

Ellie-Mae really enjoyed using the VR cellscape resource to help her study protein synthesis in her A Level Biology course. She was able to immerse herself inside a cell to actually see the different organelles and understand how protein molecules are made.

Computing

Oscar (UCH T12 North) was able to look more closely at the organelles involved in DNA replication. Separately, the VR headsets have allowed us to bring the outside world inside, with pupils going on safari in Kruger national park, skiing on Sochi and paragliding in the Himalayas!

Programming is used in many areas of computing, from Chat GPT to Home Assistants like Alexa. At the hospital school pupils have started to experiment with programming physical devices such as robots and drones. Here you can see Archie (Giraffe Ward) and Alfie (UCH T11 North) flying a drone using a Bluetooth Controller and then programming the drone in 3D space using Python. They needed to enter different distances, angles and heights as parameters to get the drone through the obstacle courses set out on the wards and in classrooms.

CRICUT

Inspired by art works created by Maureen Winfield, a volunteer ambassador for Dementia UK, the school bought a Cricut electronic cutting machine for each site. We have thoroughly enjoyed the wonderful creations that pupils have designed for themselves, their siblings and for the NHS.

Each design is unique. Pupils create the designs in Cricut Design Space, Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Illustrator and then they use the Cricut machine to cut their vinyl or card designs. These are then weeded (where the unwanted bits are discarded) and finally, these can be transferred onto other materials.

Lucas (Squirrel Ward) created his own version of Dobble, called Sqobble. Jayden (MCU Ward) designed this bag for the NHS’s 75th Birthday, it combines elements from Peter Pan and Disney to recognise two GOSH Charity donors.

Online safety is the cornerstone of lessons at the hospital school. Pupils are never left unsupervised with a school device and are given lessons on how to stay safe online. Pupils in the secondary schoolroom recently learnt about their digital footprint and created these posters using Adobe Photoshop to highlight the digital trail of information that we leave behind during our online activity on websites and apps. Posters by Sylvie, Lizzie and Rocco (MCU).

DIGITAL FOOTPRINTS

MATHS WEEK

In Maths Week we looked at the relationship between maths and sport.

Pupils from both GOSH and UCLH looked at how different pitches are designed and what 2D shapes they can see within them, whether they have parallel lines, whether there are any acute angles made etc… They then designed their own games and scoring system and shared their ideas with other pupils.

Pupils experimented with how an individual’s centre of mass can alter their performance especially in the high jump. Pupils used data to debate who is a ‘better’ cricketer; Travis Head of Australia or Virat Kohli of India.

We also had the opportunity to meet two athletes in an online workshop; Emma Nwofor who is a hurdler and high jumper and Emmanuel Oyinbo-Coker who runs the T47 100m. They spoke about the maths that they use in their sports and they designed their own mathematical quiz for us! Naomi and Emmanuel are now in their final preparation for Paris 2024.

Good luck

Naomi and Emmanuel!

Students at GOSH and UCLH took part in an advent calendar of maths! Each day students were set a Christmas themed maths problem to complete. One of these activities was to create a Christmas tree from tessellated trees. Have a look below at the wonderful work that was completed.

FESTIVE MATHS

CHRISTMAS CARD COMPETITION

In response to the annual Christmas Card Competition, our pupils used a range of media from paint and sequins to Adobe Photoshop. Here are some of their great designs.

The secondary winner was Lizzie (MCU Ward) and the primary winner was Anastasiya (Pelican Ward).

Gosh Arts Festival

Hands gallery

Maps and 3D

OUTDOOR LEARNING

In the warm months, we took learning outside when we could. Pupils planted hanging baskets, strawberry and tomato plants for the hospital school garden and built an insect hotel, which can be seen at the back of the GOSH school garden. They also went on a nature trail in Russell Square where they were challenged to find new tree and plant species, insect homes, pollinators and stunning natural sights. One week they took a trip to nearby Camley Street Nature Park in Kings Cross to do pond dipping.

The gardening fun wasn’t just for those who could get outside though. Inside the hospital, pupils got to make terrariums with content creator and founder of Worcester Terrariums, Ben Newell and some began their planting on the wards, eventually sending their pots down to the garden to continue growing.

We also had a visit from Gus, the Beekeeper at GOSH, who showed us how to spin honey and also filled us with some fantastic facts about Bees.

Did you know bees can fly up to 5 miles away from their hive to find food?

We ran a whole-school Living Eggs Week in April, with many different learning activities offered to pupils of all ages. Younger learners had the chance to enjoy ‘The Odd Egg’ by Emily Gravett. Some children thought about how they could rewrite the book with alternative endings. Ariana recorded a video for her peers to enjoy her version of the story.

The children and teachers in the schoolroom looked after our precious real eggs, with a livestream available for us all to see the hatching action. Many people came to visit the chicks once they arrived and they grew very quickly! Amelia brought her whole family to school to see the chicks.

LIVING EGGS

Children shared their egg-related learning in our online Study Buddies community with lots of science life-cycle work, story maps, instruction writing, fact finding and reporting, creative egg making, pom pom chicks, art and craft and role-play activities linked to the story and much more. Well done everybody!

Wings - Pie Corbett

If I had wings

I would touch the fingertips of clouds and glide on the wind’s breath.

If I had wings

I would taste a chunk of the sun, as hot as peppered curry.

If I had wings

SUMMER ARTS FESTIVAL

At The Hospital School at GOSH and UCLH we value the importance of learning how to express ourselves in a number of different ways. One of those ways is through Music. Students can have a weekly Music lesson or can choose to take part in special projects that take place throughout the year.

I would listen to the clouds of sheep bleat that graze on the blue.

If I had wings

I would breathe deep and sniff the scent of raindrops.

If I had wings

I would gaze at the people who cling to the earth’s crust.

If I had wings

I would dream of swimming the deserts and walking the seas.

One of our special projects was The Summer Arts Festival. This year our focus was based on the painting ‘Glowing With Life’ by John Dyer and the poem ‘Wings’ by Pie Corbett. We used Diana Deutsch’s experiment ‘speech to song illusion’. In the link below you can listen to the final piece of Music composed solely by students working with Camden Music Service musicians. Can you hear the extracts taken from the Wings poem? Do you think the children are singing or speaking? Can you identify any of the instruments used?

Wings AudioGOSH and UCH School Students

Glowing With LifeJohn Dyer

During the Summer Arts Festival we also ran a series of artist-led workshops which allowed pupils to explore the themes in the painting and the poem in lots of creative ways. With wire sculptor William Ashley Norman pupils worked collaboratively to create a giant pair of wire wings which they then spray painted all the colours of the rainbow.

With artist Georgie Fay from the October Gallery, pupils tried botanical printmaking using cuttings from the school garden and made tissue paper sunsets.

Hip-Hop artist, poet and author Karl Nova worked with a group of pupils to write a song about the seasons and in the School of Noise workshops pupils used fruit and vegetables, tuning forks and a theremin to create sounds that were used as a soundscape to accompany the painting.

SWITCH PRESSING

Lots of the children and young people at GOSH have been enjoying exploring switch pressing in their lessons. Did you know that you can play instruments, use a fan and join in with story telling using different types of switches?

LIGHTS, SHADOWS AND REFLECTIONS

This term we have been exploring light, shadow and reflection through a range of different sensory stories and activities. Here you can see Lola, Ammar, and Harrison working hard to find different lights, thinking about how light and shadows move and change, and how shiny materials and mirrors create reflections.

Great work everybody!

MAKATON

Amelia has been a patient at GOSH since before Christmas 2022, when she was only 1 year old. She was just 2 years old when she started lessons with the hospital school and wasn’t communicating very much yet. We decided to start using Makaton as a way of encouraging her to communicate and to help us all simplify the

This has been a joint project with her teacher (Kate), Tracy from Singing Hands, both her parents, nurses, her playworker and more recently a speech and language therapist too. We have learned and used about 3 new signs each week with Amelia. These are kept in a folder, which Amelia enjoys showing people.

Amelia began using some simple spoken words and some easy and difficult Makaton signs too. She began signing more, play, go and please and even started signing different (when she wanted a change of activity), which is a very complicated sign! Recently she lost the use of her voice for a while but amazingly, she kept signing!

Amelia’s Mum says that if it wasn’t for Tracy and Makaton, they wouldn’t have known what Amelia was trying to say and they would have struggled to communicate as a family.

As a school community, we learn some simple signs together and include a song signed in Makaton for many of our celebration events. We believe that Makaton can be a powerful way to empower pupils and support communication.

FAMILY COOKING

Fatima and Irene invited their Mums to join them for a cooking lesson. They worked together to read the recipe and measure the ingredients to create some delicious rainbow smartie biscuits!

Archie on Giraffe ward would like to be a Chef when he is older as he absolutely loves cooking! Archie is trialling a lacto free diet and as part of this he wanted to try and make some recipes that were lacto free. Take a look below at the pictures of Archie creating and making lacto free cheesecake and pizza.

What is your favourite recipe to cook?

PUPIL SHOWCASE

Ibrahim is a dinosaur expert and this has helped him in all his learning. He showed his talent by beating the headteacher in a dinosaur quiz! The dinosaurs have helped him to learn to read by laying eggs with letters and words in them. They have helped him to write by needing names and numbers. They help him with his numbers by coming to his Dinosaur Cafe where he needs to count, add and subtract amounts.

Nikunj enjoys the hospital school lessons that he has each week and wanted to write about some of the things that he does in school. He has worked hard to write and type sentences about some of his favourite things.

Maddy has been using a joystick and adapted switch to independently play FIFA and Rocket League on XBOX. He has worked hard to develop his control and skills throughout the term. Maddy has joined the ‘GOSH School FIFA league’ competing against different teachers, and is at the top of the scoreboard!

NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY

The hospital school works in partnership with the access team at the National Portrait Gallery to enable our pupils to see and learn about portraits from the permanent collection and special exhibits.

In the summer term, artist Wendy Scott led a session based on a portrait of Tom Daley and we discussed his love of knitting as seen at the olympics. We talked about this calm and mindful activity as being a good way to help someone in quite a stressful environment. We looked at images of Kente cloth and we had a go at weaving our own woven wall hanging using paper strips on a card loom.

In the Autumn Term, Wendy joined us again and we learnt about activist Olive Morris. We explored portraits of her from the collection and talked about what she campaigned for. She believed that everyone should have a home to live in and noticed how many buildings were empty during the 1970s, whilst many people were homeless. After talking about what a house needed to have, we each made a paper house which we decorated with a variety of art and craft materials - some pupils made a house for their pet.

Portrait of activist Olive Morris from the NPG photographs collection

SPORTS IN HOSPITAL

Pupils at GOSH and UCLH get to take part in fully accessible and customised P.E activities every Wednesday with Coach Denise from Capital Kids Cricket – a national charity that works to enable all children to play, learn and develop through cricket. We have benefited from their hospital ‘Chance 2 Shine’ programme for 16 years.

Weekly sessions are planned around throwing and catching skills, volleyball, basketball, bocce ball, new age kurling and much more. The chance to develop numeracy skills by counting and keeping score are always included for younger pupils.

In July we held another fun-filled Sports Day on a lovely summer’s day when the school garden could be put to full use for egg and spoon races, obstacles courses and the ever-popular soak the teacher event. Team GB gymnast and six-time Olympic medallist Max Whitlock recorded a message for pupils to inspire them to give their best on the day.

Pupils on wards accrued points in their ‘GOSH/UCLH GAMES Passport’ by taking part in traditional throwing, catching and target activities alongside interactive and reactive games on the Active Arcade app. Everyone’s efforts were rewarded with either bronze, silver or gold medals and certificates and special awards were given to sporting and dance champions.

GOSH & UCLH HAVE GOT TALENT

We celebrated the end of the winter term with a whole school talent contest. Pupils across GOSH and UCLH met inspiringly talented people including an Olympic athlete, a young MasterChef contestant and digital content creator and a magician. These visitor-led workshops were starting points for the pupils to develop their own special talents and what an array of talent there is in our school!

Pupils submitted video entries recorded on their wards or in our classrooms, that showcased their sporting and creative talents. Awards were given in a special online ceremony in categories ranging from Esports and Dance to Cooking and Brain Gym and much more in-between.

We also celebrated the strengths, gifts and talents of those around us - family members, friends, and hospital workers – in readings that acknowledged the things they are great at and how important it is to tell people when you notice they are really good at something.

Of course, a celebration of talent has to explore how we become really good at something and all our pupils agree that always trying and always practising is the best way to always be improving!

PHOTOGRAPHY COMPETITION

In the summer we held a nature photography competition. Pupils captured these images using mobile phones and DSLRs on the wards, in the hospital gardens, and in the local community. Pupils also had the opportunity to learn how to use Adobe Photoshop, the industry standard editing tool used by photographers.

The overall winner was Sylvie (MCU Ward).

CREST AWARDS

Students at both GOSH and UCLH have achieved various Science Crest Awards. Some of the younger students were delighted to receive Star or Superstar awards when they completed a range of science investigations .

In the Autumn term, the MCU students had fun working towards a Bronze Science Crest Award where they investigated making and testing bioplastics to see which recipe would be best for making a straw. They have been submitted and they are waiting on their certificates! Well done everyone!

Fatima has been working very hard to achieve her Crest award. She was amazed to see the reaction when she mixed bicarbonate of soda, water and citric acid!

Fatima and her fantastic Alien Glove puppet.

The hospital school has worked with the Philosophy Foundation for more than a decade to bring fun and engaging philosophical enquiry lessons to pupils of all ages across both our sites. In recognition of our long standing partnership with them, we have been awarded their bronze level Thinking Classroom Award along with only 9 other schools in the country.

THINKING CLASSROOM AWARD

We were honoured to be invited to an event at the House of Lords on UNESCO World Philosophy Day hosted by former Green Party Leader, Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle, where we received the award and two pupils took part in a philosophical discussion about whether the future exists and if we can change it.

Why is philosophical enquiry great for pupils of all ages?

• It is an opportunity for children to deepen their thinking and understanding of the world around them

• Children develop reasoning skills that can be transferred across the curriculum

• They develop their communication skills by expressing their own ideas and responding relevantly to others

• They learn how to challenge and disagree sensitively

• It encourages problem solving

“A

parsnip plant that looks like a fungi, is wavy and has rigid edges that feel soft like tissue paper”

- Nayiga, Eagle Ward

CREATIVE RESIDENCY

CREATIVE RESIDENCY - A COLLABORATIVE ARTWORK FOR THE HOSPITAL’S TEMPORARY ENTRANCE

Work on a collaborative artwork for the hospital’s temporary entrance on Guilford Street began in earnest last Spring when artists Usman Haque and Ling Tan began engagement workshops with hospital school pupils.

Under a broad theme of nature and bringing the outside world into the hospital, pupils looked at real images of plant life from different environments across planet earth. They were then challenged to create their own imaginary plants using collage materials. From this work they developed descriptions of their plants to use as prompts in the generative AI platform DALL:E. The platform generated 4 images for each prompt and pupils selected the one they felt best matched their description. Each of these images was added to a group digital collage that is forming the centre of a new artwork for the temporary entrance.

Pupils’ descriptive writing skills were put to the test as they tweaked and experimented with the details of their descriptions to see the effect on the images generated. Lots of fun was had exploring the individual responses and then seeing how they pieced together in the group’s digital flowerbed. Here you can see some examples of the pupils’ prompts and the images created.

“Green fresh leaves with a dinosaur “

- Amari, Squirrel Ward

“A plant that looks like chicken nuggets, beef burger crisps, in the style of Roblox” - George, Sky Ward

The final artwork in situ:

Community Engagement

The final artwork includes the imaginary digital collage created by pupils, images of real plants and reflective material that will act as a mirror to the actual plant and tree life that is opposite the temporary entrance. The artwork was installed at the temporary entrance site in the Morgan Stanley Clinical Building on Guildford Street in December and is due to come into full use in Spring 2024 when building work on the brand new Children’s Cancer Centre begins.

In the summer term the artists ran the same engagement workshops with Year 2 pupils at local primary school, St George the Martyr. Together they created their own collaborative digital flowerbed which will form the centre of the design for the hoarding that will cover the building site for the Children’s Cancer Centre on Great Ormond Street. Pupils and families from the school will be able to admire and enjoy the artwork from the street on their daily journeys to and from school and their weekly walks to St George the Martyr church on Queen Square.

PROFESSIONAL VISITS

Following several years of limited visits to mainstream schools due to the Covid pandemic, the staff at the hospital school were once again able to conduct professional visits to schools across London and even further afield, in order to strengthen understanding of where our pupils are coming from and what we must prepare them to return to.

Each teacher went to their host school with a focus specific to their own specialism and practice. Immediately after the visits, we gathered together for a morning of feedback and reflection.

As you can imagine, the room was buzzing with conversation about what had been seen and how it could impact the way we work with children. Of course, for many, there were also thoughts of how returning to mainstream school post-discharge could be a very daunting prospect for some children.

To help us capture our thoughts, observations, reflections and ideas for the future we invited artist Rae Goddard to join us to illustrate live the highlights of our discussions. She created this wonderful artwork that we will be able to return to as the school year continues and we work towards our own school improvement goals.

STARTING SECONDARY SCHOOL

Moving from primary school to secondary school is a big moment for many children! To help our pupils to get ready for a change in schools, there were lots of transition activities during our hospital school lessons in July 2023. Pupils had the opportunity to celebrate their successes from primary school and to think ahead to what secondary school might be like through activities such as:

• A Year 6 Zoom, entitled ‘Moving On’

• A Year 6 Prom - on Bear Ward

• Meeting new teachers, virtually and in person on the ward

• Making ‘All About Me’ posters

• Virtually participating in a Year 6 End of Year production

• Sharing Advice - asking secondary pupils to share their experiences of secondary school

• Receiving a Leavers t-shirt and ‘goodie bag’ with equipment for secondary school

• Researching the new school

• Reading Social Stories about the new school

We’re so happy to hear that pupils are now enjoying their new secondary schools!