Digital connection and care: Bridging the gap at Northern Health School

Northern Health School (NHS) provides education for students who are too unwell to attend their regular school. If a student meets their admission criteria due to a medical condition that prevents them from attending their regular school, they can enrol at NHS.

Supporting ākonga with these unique needs requires more than just dedicated teachers. It also requires digital infrastructure that is as flexible and resilient as the staff themselves. This is where the partnership between NHS and Network for Learning (N4L) is important.

A classroom without borders

The hallmark of NHS is its adaptability.

"Where the tuition takes place can look how it needs to look – all based on the needs of the students," says Tracy Grieve, NHS business manager.

Tracy oversees the engine room of the school – everything from information technology (IT), administration and human resources to accounts and the fleet of teachers’ cars. NHS classrooms are located in ‘units’, which are both teaching spaces and office hubs for staff. Tracy is located at the NHS’s largest unit and head office in Auckland’s Newmarket.

But the school’s reach is vast.

"It might be that teachers visit a student in a ward at Middlemore Hospital, or in their school of enrolment,” says Tracy. “We have a classroom at Ronald McDonald House and at Haumaru Ōrite, the acute psychiatric child and adolescent mental health inpatient unit at Starship Hospital.

“At our Wilson unit on the North Shore in Auckland, students are residential because of treatment for things like traumatic head injuries, or orthopedic surgery requiring intensive rehabilitation.”

Tracy says ākonga will often come into the classroom in wheelchairs and many have accessibility requirements

“Other students might come to us for a while and, as they get better, transition back to their school of enrolment.”

This transition often involves NHS teachers meeting students in their school of enrolment, or at a local library, to help them regain their confidence.

"Often it takes some time to get them into the classroom when they’re in recovery," says Tracy. "They don't want to see people. They just want to sit quietly in the corner. If we can't get a student into the classroom because they're too unwell, initial lessons might be online."

The digital lifeblood of learning

Since the Covid-19 pandemic, NHS’s reliance on digital learning has grown exponentially, much like every other school. Teachers now frequently use various learning platforms to keep students engaged, regardless of where they’re physically located. Lessons might be online, or teachers might meet the student on Microsoft Teams or Google, with lots of app sharing.

Like other state and state-integrated schools in Aotearoa, NHS’s teaching units are part of the N4L Managed Network, and N4L provides these sites with a fully funded, high-speed, enterprise-grade internet connection.

Safety and security that provides peace of mind

For Tracy and her team, the value of N4L’s network technical specifications is in the online security it provides. When dealing with ākonga who are already facing significant personal challenges, the internet needs to be a safe space, not a source of further risk.

There are a range of ways N4L helps keep NHS safer and more secure online. N4L’s Internet Safety & Security Services provides them with a baseline level of protection. As part of that service, web filtering allows schools to block categories, websites and apps. Email protection provides protection against email-based cyber threats. Meanwhile, N4L applies SafeSearch, a service managed and provided by Google and Bing, which helps filter out adult content in search results.

Ākonga at Northern Health School are taught in the places they need to be for their health, from hospitals to specialised classrooms, and often online.

A partnership built on reliability

Running a school that operates across hospital wards, homes and units is a logistical challenge. Tracy admits their circumstances can sometimes lead to technical hurdles. As NHS continues to grow – they’ve recently moved into a new purpose-built school in Taupō – the stability of their network remains constant. With their Managed Network Upgrade now complete, Wifi upgrades in place for many units and more to come, the school is well-positioned to meet the evolving needs of its students.

At the heart of the collaboration with N4L is a simple goal: making sure every student, no matter how unwell they are, has the opportunity to learn.