Building a Powerful Partnership for Hospital Education
Maudsley and Bethlem Hospital School (MBHS) is seeking partners from the hospital education sector in London and the south-east interested in exploring the benefits of a multi-academy trust focused on hospital education. We feel that a close-knit family of similar providers would enhance existing provision and allow our most vulnerable young people to thrive, by delivering on a vision of the best education for young people in hospital. We can build the best education for young people in hospital by: •
bringing together a family of providers into a coherent and collaborative hospital school trust that covers the wide remit of hospital education and community-based health-needs alternative provision.
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utilising the qualities, strengths and shared expertise of the family as a launchpad for developing excellence across this new trust.
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building capacity across the trust in the leadership of curriculum, pedagogy, care and support, to impact on quality in each setting.
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leveraging economies through the trust to provide further capacity to support the learning of pupils.
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using the formal and permanent partnership of the new trust to drive collaboration and develop next practice in hospital school provision, benefitting the trust and other hospital schools.
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creating an additional clear and effective voice to promote and advocate for hospital education, working within and supporting NAHE.
Why should we consider a specialist hospital school trust? •
Hospital education is a specific alternative provision. It often operates at regional and at times national level and is therefore different to locally commissioned provision for SEND or alternative provision for excluded pupils. Collaborative work will be most effective with similar partners.
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This collaborative work will help to build a coherent approach to hospital education, not requiring all settings to do the same thing, but building a mutually agreed framework that acts as a guarantee of quality provision in hospital schools.
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Individual hospital schools are small and often vulnerable, with limited local support available to develop practice. A family of such schools linked through a formal trust structure, can help to protect our unique provisions for future pupils, building quality provision across the sector.
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As educators we have a moral responsibility to develop and share high-quality work in order to have the most significant positive impact on the widest range of young people. Such an impact sits at the heart of the charitable aims of a school trust; a hospital school trust will deliver this for some of the most vulnerable young people in our society.