St Mary's Hospital

St Mary’s is a general hospital serving the people of Westminster and the surrounding boroughs. The paediatric department comprises of 3 wards Grand Union, Great Western, West Way and a paediatric intensive care unit.

Grand Union ward houses the bone marrow transplant treatment units. We currently have 3 units with a planned 4th unit. This ward also specialises in infectious diseases. These patients along with the bone marrow patients are treated in isolation. The day patients attend West Way ward. Many of our bone marrow patients attend as day patients after discharge. Great Western ward is the ward for general admissions. We have many re-current patients, mainly patients with sickle cell anaemia or asthma so they know the schoolroom and staff well.

The school has a well resourced classroom on Great Western ward, all patients are encouraged to attend classes in the classroom. If children are unable to come to the classroom due to the nature of their treatment they are taught by their beds. If children are in the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit, teaching staff will ensure that they have access to books, taped stories and, if applicable, other curriculum areas. We have recently installed wireless internet access points to all the paediatric wards and we are developing the use of video conferencing to support learning for patients in isolation.

The teaching team consists of two primary teachers, one secondary teacher and a teaching assistant. We also have input from the school Artist in Residence as well as musicians and visitors from a number of galleries and performance companies. We follow the national curriculum using the creative arts extensively to enrich the experience for all our students.

Children's Work
See the work created by children while they were with us in the school

Meet the Staff
Meet the school staff at St Mary's Hospital

All photos by one of our students, Kieran