Chelmsford Hospital School provides education for the young people admitted to the Tier 4 adolescent ward at Priory Hospital Chelmsford. We were very proud to be rated Outstanding by Ofsted in January 2020.
Our intent is to enable every young person to develop the resilience and skills to become a lifelong learner. We strive to support the young person’s re-engagement and to help them make the transition to their chosen pathway in the community beyond our school.
"Staff support pupils outstandingly well. Many pupils initially refuse to attend education as they see this as a contributory factor to their state of mind. Over time, pupils attend very well. The vast majority now attend most of the time. These are immense achievements." - Ofsted 2020
Curriculum information
Our experienced team provide an engaging and dynamic approach to teaching, offering bespoke learning pathways that enable all students to make progress during their admission.
Alongside our academic curriculum, we offer a programme of engagement and personal development activities. Our own curriculum is delivered in combination with the home school curriculum (where appropriate) to ensure the students keep up with their current school work if they need to.
We work closely with the pupil, the parents or carers, the home school and medical professionals to ensure we are providing an effective and relevant curriculum to support the student as fully as possible.
We are very proud of our school and the progress and achievements our students make socially and academically during their admission.
The School Day: The timing structure of the school day is always the same but the activities in each sessions will differ. We start at 9am and end at 2.15pm when the therapy team start their programme.
Education Programme: We offer a range of different educational options depending on the presentation of each student. We aim to meet our students at their point of learning so will differentiate activities accordingly. We offer curriculum work for:
- Key Stage 3
- GCSE
- A Level students
- For those either not currently in or not ready for formalised education we offer a return to learn programme which aims to engage the students in project-based work
We have a personal trainer visit twice weekly to deliver our PE sessions. Each session is tailored to the young people taking part to ensure they are accessible to all.
We provide opportunities to gain AQA accreditations on a wide variety of topics to suit a range of interests.
We are also a registered exam centre so our students are able to sit exams during their admission if required.
What students say:
"The support from the education team made me aspire to do better and motivated me to do better."
"I just want to say thank you so much for helping me get back on track with school and being flexible with not just mine but everyone’s mental illness, I’m really grateful."
"You’ve helped me overcome my fear of education and to learn to love learning again. Because of your support I now have a future planned with further education."
"Thank you so much for all your help over the past few weeks. When I arrived I never thought I’d be able to sit in education and actually work considering I’d stopped attending school properly over a year ago."
Activities and facilities
We are located in Chelmsford, which was granted City status in 2012 as part of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations it is also the County town of Essex. It has a wide variety of parks and places to visit such as Hylands Park, museums and Chelmsford Cathedral. We are very proud to be able to offer school trips to a variety of local places and offer our young people different opportunities for learning.
Trips and Visitors: We have a varied programme of external visitors who enhance our curriculum offer. Recent visitors include The Mayor and Deputy Mayor of Chelmsford, local food bank, local homeless charity, geologists, Chelmsford Museum and the University. We also have a few regular visitors who form part of the ongoing curriculum, such as a local petting zoo who bring in a variety of different animals, an independent careers advisor offers 1:1 sessions, and we are also very lucky to have a local librarian visit the school and promote the library services. Our students can get a temporary library card and we have previously arranged visits to the library where students are encouraged to find reading materials of interest to them.
Communication: We provide a weekly update on the progress made in school that forms part of the wider MDT (multidisciplinary team) report, which is sent out by the ward. Each student has a tutor who will attend all meetings and be the point of contact for all education matters throughout admission. Along with academic updates, we like to share the amazing work that goes on during the school day. The students work together to write a monthly newsletter to share all the wonderful events that have happened during school that is sent out to all parents and carers.