In 1930 the South Australian Education Department appointed Miss Flora MacIntosh to work with twenty pupils. The infantile paralysis epidemic (polio) enlarged her client base to seventy and by 1938 not only did she have a part-time assistant, Miss E. Lade, but also the help of volunteers. The teachers prepared a program of work for every young person and wrote it in their book. The volunteers could proceed working over three floors. They read to the patients, or listened to them read and helped them to write stories, do their sums and undertake craft activities. One volunteer taught musical appreciation and the children formed a percussion band and enjoyed singing. A fete was held each November to raise money for the school as the State Education Department provided textbooks only textbooks.

Miss Macintosh was the only full-time hospital schoolteacher employed by the Department until 1959 when the school was closed. From that date limited teaching of in-patients was done until mid 1969, when an assistant teacher re-opened the school. Additional assistants were appointed in 1970 and 1973. A full-time physical education teacher joined the staff in 1974. In the years between 1974 and 1978 a teacher librarian, a home visiting teacher and an assistant to the principal were appointed. The assistant allowed the principal to be freed from full-time classroom teaching. Two teachers at Escourt House, an annexe of the Children’s Hospital School, joined the staff in 1977, increasing staff numbers to ten.

An annex called The Child and Family Day Treatment Centre opened in Melbourne Street, North Adelaide in 1977, with two teachers and a teacher aide. A team including two social workers, early 1978 added a psychiatrist and an occupational therapist. Young people attending included those having severe difficulties at school or suffering school phobia. This annex is now closed and incorporated into the Hospital.

The physical education teacher worked with physiotherapists, with occupational therapists and dieticians involved with some groups. This work continues to this day under the title of Minimal Motor Dysfunction Unit. The Minimal Motor Dysfunction Unit is a joint effort between our physical education teacher and hospital physiotherapists to help children with coordination problems. It continues to function at the Hospital and has included weekly sessions at Port Adelaide Primary School.

The school staff’s outreach service included visits to other schools to explain the effect of chronic medical conditions on a young person’s learning. The school staff also organised one day conferences at the hospital for the teachers of young people with cystic fibrosis and other chronic conditions like asthma. They published information in booklet form to serve the same purpose as the conferences. A Home Tutor Scheme to assist students with cancer has been coordinated by the school staff for a number of years.

In May 1995 the Queen Victoria Women's Hospital was relocated at the Children’s Hospital site with the hospital being renamed the Women’s and Children’s Hospital. Consequently, the school’s name was changed to the Children’s Hospital School, Adelaide. In the same year a rebuilding project saw the school facility upgraded. At the beginning of 1999 the school in the Flinders Medical Centre, in the suburb of Bedford Park, became the responsibility of the principal of the Children’s Hospital School, Adelaide. Teaching in the North Adelaide site occurs in one primary and one secondary classroom and on seven wards. At the Flinders Medical Centre teaching takes place in one classroom and on the Paediatric Ward (4^th Floor). In the same year the Children’s Hospital School staff trialed a school holiday program, extending the

42 week school year to 48 weeks. The evaluation of this pilot program convinced the State Department of Education, Training and Employment to staff the initiative for the year 2000 and beyond.