With one voice!

NAHHT are currently in discussion and liaison with the National Association for Hospital School Leaders and National PRUs organisation about how we can present a united front to support the needs of children and young people in alternative provisions at this time of change.

NAHHT Conference 2012

Still places available, with one of keynote speakers now from Ofsted, Charlie Henry.

Get your application forms in now!
Please go to our Conference Page for all the details and application forms.

Do you work with children and young people who have brain tumours? Then don’t miss this conference - Demystifying brain tumours in young people – see details below

If you are a professional involved in the care of teenagers and young adults with cancer, then we invite you to attend our forthcoming Education Day … The next TYAC Education Day is taking place on 20th April at the Hilton Hotel in Nottingham. Titled ‘Demystifying Brain Tumours in Young People’, the day will include: · How good is your knowledge of how your brain works? Participate in a fun interactive quiz on the ‘normal’ brain. · Why are young people experiencing delay in their diagnosis? · What is being done nationally to address these delays? · Classification of brain tumours—benign and malignant stages 1, 2, 3, 4? Does this make a difference in outcome? · An overview of the current treatment options, and what does the future hold? · Life after treatment for a brain tumour—what are the difficulties?

Joining the e forum for children with medical needs

The Children with Medical Needs network which was previously run by Becta has now been taken over by DfE.

You can join the network by subscribing via the SENIT info page – see link below: http://lists.education.gov.uk/mailman/listinfo/senit

This is another network of colleagues to whom we can share our ideas and concerns and ask for advice. Plain text e mails only – see you there!!

Update on Ofsted inspections in school and medical PRUs

Please see the document on our Ofsted page for a summary of the main changes.

The last section are the parts specifically mentioned in the subsidiary guidance about ‘Medical Needs’ and worth making a note of what you will be asked to provide evidence for.

You can also download a full copy of subsidiary guidance.

Anyone out there had an inspection yet and would like to share their experiences? Northants are waiting for the phone call!!

Out of school

Unsure if you have seen the report from the local government ombudsman about pupils who are out of school?
It raises some interesting issues about pupils who are out of school for reasons of exclusion, medical or OTHERWISE and this is where the definition is woolly.

Read the case studies about the pupils who did not have medical advice but was out of school due to bullying – food for thought in your local authority??
You can find the report in our Policies, Research section.

Moving to become an academy

How many of you out there are thinking about converting to an academy when the opportunity arises?
There are currently lots of discussions going on about funding formulas and how this can happen. NAHHT representatives have been involved, along with colleagues from national PRUs.org and NAHSL in discussions with DfE personnel.
Realistically, nothing has yet been agreed so it seems unlikely that this will be ready for Sept 2012. In Northants, our line manager has put in an expression of interest, so we could be one of the first to go through.

If there are enough people interested, should we convene a meeting somewhere to share what we have found out so far and to discuss issues face to face?
Let me know and I shall arrange something.

BrainPOP®!

click here for a BrainPOP®!
Please go to http://www.brainpop.co.uk/blog/request-a-popbox/ for all the details.

Well at School website

The Well at School website www.wellatschool.org has been created by teachers working at Chelsea Community Hospital School.
The website provides advice and information for staff in schools on how to best support their students who may be coping with a medical or mental health condition.

To find more information about this and links to other websites that may be useful, see our Links page.

National Survey of Medical Provision - UPDATE

Our sincere thanks to everyone who made the time to complete the extremely long and arduous survey – it was really appreciated.
We collected a total of 19 responses and have been looking at collating the answers to draw some tentative conclusions. We are calling this piece of work a ‘focus group study’ as we are aware that it is not a big sample of our overall settings. I am writing it up as a proper article ensuring that I ‘set the scene’ for our unique education settings.

I am also going to be working with someone from the National Foundation for Educational Research, who was also involved in the ‘Back on Track’ project and has experience and some knowledge of our area of work. The good news is like me, he is a qualitative expert, as this is the area in which we have our strongest evidence. The bad news is that we are both doing this in addition to our day jobs!!

We hope to be lobbying the DfE in the near future to arrange a meeting with some ministers and all the associations of professionals who work in this area of education.

We hope to have further updates for you at the conference.

Cath Kitchen
On behalf of the National Association of Hospital and Home Teaching

Managing the 25 hour provision

How are people managing with this?
Are all your pupils able to access 25 hours?
What creative ways are you using to increase the number of hours without the cost being too prohibitive?
In our new e-Learning Section is a spreadsheet of some of the providers we have found. My thanks to Lynn Lucchese for doing the major part of this and collaborating so effectively. We are not endorsing any of the products and are interested in anyone’s feedback as to who they have used and how good they were.
We are hoping that a number of them will be at our conference in March to be able to talk to you in more depth.
Please e mail your comments (ckitchen@northamptonshire.gov.uk) so we can share.

New Well Being Newsletter

A new issue of our irregular newsltter is now available, with topics that include:
Worklife balance: is it a pipe dream?
Personal well being interventions to try this term

And because it made us smile:
Rules for this academic year -The Second “10 Commandments"
Tips for making it into management - (with Apologies to senior managers!!)

Just follow this link to download the newsletter.

Continuing Professional Development

In most authorities, CPD is taking a bit of a back seat due to budget cuts. If you or any of your staff would like to visit other services or school, please get in touch with any of the committee members. We would welcome visits and know from our own experience that these are very useful learning experiences!