Hospital Schools in Germany
Presentation for the LeHo meeting of
the Board of Experts,
Bucharest, 04/11/2014
Hospital Schools in Germany
1. General situation – Different strokes for
different folks or Each to their own…
2. “Ruhrlandschule“, Essen – Just one example
3. Changes and challenges – New perspectives
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1. General situation - Hospital schools in Germany
 16 federal states
 each state has its own educational
sovereignty and regulations
 7 out of 16 states do not mention
school for kids with medical conditions
 “hospital schools“: different
terms, different concepts
 16 state ministers of education one national conference
 North Rhine Westphalia
 46 hospital schools– mainly linked
to child and adolescent psychiatry units
 2012/13: more than 20.000 pupils
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National Conference resolution for hospital
schools (1998)
Teach children who have to stay in hospital for
a while or cannot attend their home school
regularly because of chronical or long-term
illness
– on the basis of respective state regulations and
state curricula taking into account special,
individual situation / medical condition
– group size: small groups or individual tuition
– staff: teachers from all types of schools
– exams: can all be taken at hospital schools
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2. Ruhrlandschule Essen (Ruhr valley) –
“School for students with Medical Conditions“
• Legal premise: educational laws for Northrhine Westphalia
 students spend presumably at least four weeks in
hospital within one academic year
 all types of schools and grades
 average: 150 pupils/ day = 1.000/ year
 20 % with physical/ chronic illnesses
 80 % with mental illnesses
 six school departments (main building, child
and adolescent psychiatry clinic, two day
units, paediatric clinic, StepOut = home for
about ten youth with drug abuse background)
 about 30 teachers (half for special needs
education) working in ten teams
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Tasks and aims:
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educational diagnostics
teaching, special educational support
counselling and cooperation
re-integration/ bridging gaps/ accompanying transitions
Our students:
• increasing number of students with severe illnesses / disorders
• majority: secondary school and A-level students, increasing number
of primary school students
• majority with special needs demands  growing number with
severe demands in the field of emotional and social disorders
• about 40 % change (home) school at the end of their in- and outpatient therapy
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Professional training
• New technologies:
 Online learning programmes for different subjects
 Use of ICT for teaching
• Communication – How to cope with difficult
situations and conflicts, Improving communication
skills
• De-escalation training
• Deepen knowledge about mental disorders (anxieties,
autistic disorders, computer and online addiction, …)
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3. Changes and challenges – New perspectives
• Changes for hospital schools due to
 changes in health system (much shorter hospital stays,
more out-patient treatment, but increasing case numbers)
 increasing number of severe in-patient cases with high
special need demands
• Effects on hospital schools
 much more time needed for counselling and advising
 increasing number of out-patient students without home
schooling due to long waiting periods for in-patient treatment
 need for ressources for covering re-integration demands
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• Perspectives
 Teachers‘ organisation for Special Needs Education has just
published a book with clear political demands:
- educational laws must be adjusted to new demands
- due to new tasks new name instead of “hospital school“ (e.g.
“Centre for Pedagogics in case of illness“)
- more time ressources for planning and organising school
transitions and re-integration
- low-access out-patient information centres for parents and
students, e.g. in case of education drop-out
 Expert talk in NRW parliament: Organisation of NRW Head
Teachers of Hospital Schools and representatives of child and
adolescent psychiatric units discuss new challenges with
educational experts of different political parties
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