For 100 years the St. Elizabeth’s School at Much Hadham, near to Bishop’s Stortford in Hertfordshire has been offering education to young people with severe and complex epilepsy and associated disabilities.

Opened in 1903 by The Daughters of the Cross of Liège an order of Catholic Sisters, the St. Elizabeth’s Residential Special School has developed an extensive system of medical and therapeutic support services to maintain the continuity of education for its students. Without such support their educational programmes would be severely interrupted.

St. Elizabeth’s caters for 80 pupils in all Key Stages of the National Curriculum including those in Key Stage 5, the 16-19 age range. The School operates as part of the St. Elizabeth’s Centre and shares the extensive parkland site at Much Hadham with a “village” of modern bungalow accommodation occupied by over 100 adult residents.

Recently, Kevin McMullen, the Centre’s Chief Executive Officer, conducted a strategic review of the Centre’s provision. During consultations with families, high levels of anxiety and frustration were expressed at the paucity of suitable, supported courses for students when they left St. Elizabeth’s at age 19.

The St. Elizabeth’s Centre is one of only two specialist national epilepsy centres offering provision for all age groups. It became clear that there was an urgent need for training courses to enable the transition from school to adult life with suitable support systems for students in the 19-25 age range with significant medical needs. The parents appealed to St. Elizabeth’s Centre to establish such provision with urgency.

Kevin McMullen and Clare Walker, the Principal of St. Elizabeth’s School, set about the daunting task in late 2002 and now a unique model is emerging ready for a launch in September 2004. It involves a partnership with a housing association committed to building clusters of study-flats on the Much Hadham site and in nearby towns. The students will be tenants of the housing association paying their rents by means of housing benefits. Care and medical services will be offered to the students via a domiciliary agency which is being established by the St. Elizabeth’s Centre and registered with the National Care Standards Commission.

Tuition fees from the Learning and Skills Council will support the day time courses just as though the students were attending a local college from their own homes. At the heart of the curriculum provision is the ‘Essential Skills’ programme designed and accredited by Mencap. Indeed one of the programme’s authors, Matthew Griffiths, has been advising St. Elizabeth’s during the set-up stages. The appeal of the “Essential Skills” framework is that it is tailored to the particular needs of the individual whether they be academic, social or vocational. In a structured and co-ordinated manner it seeks to strip away the life-limiting barriers which can hinder fulfilled, independent adult lifestyles.

All students enrolled on the College programmes will be prepared for agreed lifestyles, mainly back within their own home communities.

It is by forming partnerships that St. Elizabeth’s has been able to move so quickly in responding to the clear need identified by the parent body. The need for such courses supported by dedicated medical and care provision has been endorsed by the surge of internal and external interest for places even before promotion of the College has begun.

Some crucial parts of the complex planning process still need to fall into place before there can be a certainty about the September 2004 launch but positive signals from East Hertfordshire District Council, the planning and approving authority and from the various housing agents are encouraging.

The model has particular appeal in that it affords the students a status as tenants which underlines the objectives of the course – the highest level of independent living. It also comes at a time when the new legal position set down in the Special Educational Needs and Disability Act 2001, known as Senda, is beginning to trigger a clear awareness by the Learning and Skills Council that it is unlawful for disabled students to be treated “less favourably” without “justification”.

The success of this partnership model will be followed with interest.

ENDS