Throughout the pandemic National Star has stayed open. It has not been easy but we have been committed to meet the needs of students and their families. The students, who have a range of complex medical and learning disabilities, all have Education and Health Plans (EHCPs) so are deemed vulnerable under Department for Education guidelines for the pandemic.

The cohort is a mix of residential and day students over four sites: Cheltenham, Gloucester, Hereford and Wales. We have several who are considered Clinically Extremely Vulnerable (CEV).

As we provide residential and day education, we sit in two camps: the Department of Health and Social Care and the Department for Education. Both have different guidelines for everything from LFD tests to appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE) which has meant National Star has had to navigate its own way, assessing guidelines and using a risk based approach to decide what is in the best interest of students and staff. We have been carrying out up to 800 PCR tests per week for students and staff since September and since January have used almost 5,000 Lateral Flow (LFD) tests.

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Covid vaccine: lobbying for priority 

When it was announced there would be a vaccine available, National Star swung into action. Initially, it was first mooted that young people with complex disabilities and learning difficulties would be in phase four. National Star, as well as the parents and students and including the president of the student union, started lobbying MPs, NHS Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCG) and anyone else we could think of.

The college’s GP, Dr Iain Jarvis, was determined all students receive the vaccination -he knows staff and students well and has witnessed firsthand the difficulties students and staff had dealt with since last March.

He believes herd immunity is crucial to support those CEV students. By vaccinating every student, the college could move a step closer to normality and ensure all students, including those who are clinically extremely vulnerable, have access to a broader range of learning and therapies.

Dr Jarvis started the conversation with NHS Gloucestershire CCG in early January. We started planning, identifying students, working with families to complete best interest decisions and collating the necessary information and parental consent we would need. We didn’t know if it would happen, let alone when it would happen, but we wanted to be able to move quickly.

We received just a week’s notice that Dr Jarvis, with support of a colleague, would stage a vaccination day on 28 January at the college. Dr Hodges, a colleague from the surgery, would support him. National Star’s nursing team would undergo the day’s training and a parent governor, who is also a GP, would join the vaccination team. The wider Aspen team supported us with their administrator and one of their nursing team.

The aim was to vaccinate almost 200 students and long-term residents. The first challenge was there are 12 residences spread in three locations in Cheltenham and Gloucester, and 70-plus day students. Add to that the challenge of a significant staff absence due to Covid. It would take all teams, including learning programmes and therapy teams, care staff and site services, to work together to make its work.

We decided to suspend the education timetable for the day so we would have sufficient staff supporting students. Having a vaccination makes many of us anxious, but for students with learning difficulties and challenging behaviour it is even more daunting. The therapies team created social stories, which use symbols to describe an event or activity, about what was going to happen on vaccination day. Tutors and other learning programmes staff integrated material about the vaccinations into lessons and one-to-ones to assure students and give them an opportunity to discuss their concerns.

We spoke to parents of day students and booked five-minute drive-through vaccination slots for day students and students shielding at home. The idea was that they wouldn’t need to get out of the car and we could provide a steady flow of students. We included students from Hereford as we wanted to make good use of every drop of the vaccine.

The residential teams worked on a schedule for the vaccination teams to move from residence to residence. Working alongside them would be staff trained in Team Teach, which is positive behaviour management, to support any student who may become heightened and anxious. Students were so well prepared this was only required in three cases.

“An amazing sense of relief for students and parents”

On V Day - 28 January - there was an incredible buzz on the campus. For the first time since last March there was a sense of real optimism, of the first step towards the return of a normality. Some residential staff came to work in fancy dress - in addition to their PPE of course - so to give a sense of celebration to the day and to ease student anxieties.

There was such an amazing sense of relief for students and parents. One parent told us: “Today is such a relief and I shed happy tears. It’s not over but hopefully the end is in sight and we can have real hope we can become families again.”

In seven hours we vaccinated just under 200 young people.

National Star is passionate about multi-disciplinary team working and the focus on the student as an individual. It is the bedrock of what we do. We could never have achieved what we did on Vaccination Day without it. After half term, on 23 February, we will have a second session to catch the rest of the cohort who missed the vaccination.

Then it will be on to the next major milestone - the second vaccination.

Simon Welch is the principal at National Star and Megan Rogers is the director of services for the South