Education is an integral part of the Cambridge Children’s Hospital vision, with dedicated space for learning incorporated into the design to ensure children and young people can continue their education during their hospital stay.
Pilgrim Pathways School - an Ofsted Outstanding, Local Authority provision - already works across our two NHS partners: Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (CUH) and Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust (CPFT), providing tailored education for children and young people with complex mental and physical health needs.
Our school space
The dedicated school space in the new children’s hospital will enable Pilgrim Pathways to expand and consolidate its highly specialised provision under one roof. There will be a main classroom on the ground floor, supported by classrooms on each ward floor. This will increase teaching capacity and allow the school to meet a broader range of needs.
We know that school offers structure and a sense of normality for patients. We recognise that education is a shared social experience, and missing weeks or months of school can have a profound impact on a child’s life. Education is vital to recovery, especially for children who are at risk of social isolation and disengagement due to prolonged absence from school.
Our educational offer
Pilgrim Pathways will support every child aged 5 to 18, through small group lessons or one-to-one teaching, guiding them from admission to transition back into education or training. They will benefit from an individualised learning programme designed around their unique needs, interests, and abilities. Our ambition is for every child, if they are able, is to attend lessons in a classroom setting within the hospital, fostering a sense of normality, time away from their room, and connection with peers.
A key focus for Pilgrim Pathways is to support every child or young person in reintegrating with formal education or training - a vital step in recovery and returning to everyday life. Research shows that regular school attendance leads to significantly better outcomes in health, wellbeing, earning potential, and life expectancy. Pilgrim Pathways will work closely with each child’s usual school to maintain connection and communication throughout their hospital stay.
Our job is to hold the hope that children and young people in hospital can continue to access purposeful and ambitious education through hospital treatment and that they can return to education or training with as little disruption as possible.
Nadine Gooding-Hébert, Headteacher of Pilgrim Pathways School
We have a working group - the School Workstream - dedicated to planning for our hospital school from what it looks like to the kind of service it provides. The school will continue to be a link to normality and structure for our patients. The workstream is made up of clinical and education professionals, the local authority and parent advocates with experience of caring for a child in hospital.
Our engagement
Through creative workshops, we have engaged with children and young people to help inform the planning of the new school in Cambridge Children’s Hospital.
We hosted online workshops for children over seven and their families, and used arts to help them explore past experiences of hospital school and think creatively about what they want it to be like in the future.
We learnt so much about children and families’ experience of being in hospital and what they would like the new school to be like. This has had a huge impact on our plans for Cambridge Children's Hospital. In particular, we learnt:
- How important schooling is to children and families while they’re in hospital
- The real wish to have structure during the hospital day, and to know what is going to happen and when
- The need for good visibility of the hospital’s offer around schooling, including who the staff are and how to contact them
- That good communication between the hospital school and the school back at home is vital
Sometimes it's hard to know where to begin with a subject as emotive as school. I've found that the creative tasks have helped me vocalise the issues we faced and how things could be improved for children in the future.
Parent after attending workshops
You can read more about our creative engagement here (opens in a new tab)