The Sydney Childrens' Hospital School came to the attention of the Rotary Club of Botany Randwick when it provided significant support to a long term Rotary Oceania Medical Aid for Children (ROMAC) patient from the Solomon Islands who was undergoing long-term treatment at Sydney Children’s Hospital.Over many years, numerous ROMAC children have benefited from attendance at the School at no cost to ROMAC or Rotary. It is a great example of mutual support between Rotary and the School.
The School provides education for children undergoing long term treatment at the Sydney Children’s Hospital. The school enrols inpatients, outpatients (unable to attend their census school) and siblings of patients where the whole family have either temporarily relocated to Sydney for their child’s treatments.
The School is very disadvantaged because it accepts children already enrolled at other schools whilst they are patients at the Sydney Children’s Hospital and hence it does not attract student enrolment fees or student-based government funding. As a result, it faces daily challenges with delivering a future focused educational service and experience that its students deserve. There is a constant churn of students as they come and go with their treatment, placing an additional burden on staff to co-ordinate the students’ needs with their home school.
As a further challenge, it has no P&C or parent body to raise funds and provide parental support – families of students are already fully committed to looking after the medical needs of their child, and looking after their other children. It is not an option to ask these parents to give, coordinate or organise anything additional on top of what they are dealing with. These parents are often overwhelmed with holding their families together as they weather some of the biggest challenges their child and family will ever face. In addition, many of the students are oncology patients who are immunosuppressed, and strict guidelines regarding cross-infections mean that many resources can’t be shared, or have one-off use.
The Club has provided new desks and storage furniture specifically tailored for educational facilities for the School, whose students, as patients of the Sydney Children’s Hospital, are some of the most vulnerable students in the State. Funding these needs has allowed the School to purchase resources to motivate and engage its students, who are already facing many challenges in life. The desks are all height adjustable, making it easier to accommodate the varying needs of students in wheelchairs or who are unable to sit in normal chairs. The cupboards/storage solutions are aesthetically appealing with curved portions to create mini zones for students and will blend into the overall existing open plan design.
Additionally the cupboards have whiteboards built into them to promote collaborative learning, and also have doors to ensure items can’t inadvertently fall out onto students and/or staff.