Queen Elizabeth's Hospital case studies (11)

Impact of partnership work done in 2024 (ISC annual Census 2025)

• 8 state schools involved
• 101-200 state school pupils involved
• 70 staff hours given

Impact Statement

The school is very active in supporting teacher training.  We train four PGCE students most years, in partnership with Bristol University. Using our facilities, orchestra and the expertise of one of our music teachers we annually offer a conducting workshop for Bristol University PGCE students.  Two of our teachers (in Music and RP) this year have also helped Bristol University to interview their potential PGCE trainee teachers and one has also been involved giving regular seminars to the trainees.

Unfortunately, due to restrictions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, we had to put many activities on hold, but hope to resume them as soon as is possible.

In the Junior School,   prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, we were intending to host a year 2 soccer tournament for local schools on our pitches at Failand in the Spring term and host a Round Robin of Summer Sports in June, again for local state schools.  Both of these will n ow go ahead this academic year.

In the Senior School, a substantial number of our students have been engaged in voluntary service activities outside school.

As an alternative to sport, usually around 15 sixth formers have volunteering placements for two hour slots on Thursday afternoons at a variety of locations, including local hospices, elderly care homes, primary schools, and a variety of local charity shops. A member of staff has responsibility for co-ordinating Thursday afternoon sixth form volunteering placements and visits the students while they are volunteering, and the feedback received about them is always extremely positive. Unfortunately this activity has had to be suspended temporarily due to the current pandemic, although we will be back up and running as soon as we are able to.

Year 11 and 12 pupils are encouraged to apply to join the National Citizen Service scheme over the summer holidays, organised externally but which includes a charitable / community project element.

The school is also very successful at encouraging pupils to take part in the Duke of Edinburgh programme.  There are currently 146 pupils from Year 10 to 13 completing one of the three levels, all of whom will do at least 1 hour per week of voluntary service in the community for either three, six or twelve months. QEH completed 1560 hours of voluntary service which DofE equates to £7098.00

Service to the community has been a key part of our weekly Enrichment programme in the Senior School.  Normally, Years 7-10 volunteer at Trinity Church every Thursday afternoon, serving tea and coffee to the elderly lunch club.  Year 10 volunteer in care homes in Bedminster (Amerind Grove Care Home) and several homes in Westbury and Clifton, while our Year 9s volunteer in local primary schools, including Christ Church, St Johns, SS Peter and Paul, Cotham Gardens.  Whilst this has not been possible during the pandemic, several students volunteered to exchange letters with members of the Trinity Lunch Club, which proved to be a very successful way of tackling isolation in elderly communities during lockdown.

The school puts on a broad range of dramatic productions and musical concerts and performances, which are enjoyed by members of the wider community. These mostly take place at school but also in venues such as Bristol Cathedral and St George's.  At times these are combined with raising money for charities, or carol-singing at a major shopping centre.  Sadly, due to the pandemic, these events were not able to go ahead as planned last year. 

Staff members have offered Oxbridge interview preparation to schools such as St Mary Redcliffe. The school also loans out school equipment, such as sports equipment, to help local community events.

We have granted Long Ashton Football Club free use of a football pitch for one of their junior sides, and Gordano Rugby Football Club free use of facilities for junior rugby training.

Several of our staff, whom the school has supported through courses to achieve coaching and refereeing awards, also use these skills and qualifications to the benefit of local football and rugby clubs. For example, one teacher is helping to run a football club for Fairlawn School, Montpellier and St Barnabas Primary School, St Pauls on Sunday mornings and we are also loaning the use of some footballs, cones and training bibs.

Although not currently running due to the Covid-19 pandemic, QEH also normally provides use of the school gymnasium on a weekly basis to the Salle Hunt-Roeder Fencing Club and the Bristol Morris Men, both of whom offer membership to young people in the local area.

Links with local state schools

The school seeks mutually beneficial partnerships with other schools and has in a variety of ways enhanced the provision in local state schools. We have this summer joined a group of 15 schools, the two Bristol Universities and Bristol City Council in the Bristol Education Partnership. Its aim is to “broaden young people’s experience of education, opening up new opportunities and overcoming disadvantage”. Two teachers and six students have been selected to be involved with this and we look forward to seeing how we can contribute to this.

One of our maths teachers has been working with the students at Barton Hill primary school for two hours each week. He has been supporting their maths learning in small groups and individually.  The impact of this has been to stretch the most able and give confidence to the less able. He has also been taking two sixth form pupils to help with maths and reading.

Our senior Deputy Head has been trained as an SLE (Specialist leader in Education) and as such has ongoing work sharing his expertise to help raise standards in local state schools, though this is temporarily on hold due to Covid.

Each year we normally host several A Level maths competitions to which all Bristol schools are invited and up to 5 state schools attend. This year we intended to host the ‘Youth Speaks’ debating competition in November in the QEH theatre, with several other local schools invited to participate.  This has unfortunately been moved to Zoom due to the pandemic.

For our large summer drama production we annually invite pupils in year 5 and 6 from Barton Hill Primary School to see our matinee performance. We organise coaches and refreshments and last year they had a short lighting and sound demonstration. We would have organised this again in the summer term but due to the closure of the school this was not possible.

The Covid-19 pandemic has stopped most sporting collaborations, but normally there are a good number of sporting events throughout the year which a variety of state schools take up the invitation to enter.  For example, we host the Gloucester Rugby 7s and the Bristol Rugby 7s tournament at two different age groups and organise it for four other year groups.  We also have a Year 2 invitation Football Tournament for local primary schools and are working on broadening further our selection of games on offer for pupils from local primary schools.