5 August 2025

Matthew McCurry, Principal of Hospital School SA, joins us to discuss how his team supports students across South Australia, and beyond, who are navigating illness, mental health challenges, and school refusal. With more than 4,600 students a year coming through their doors, Hospital School SA provides education across three campuses located within major hospitals. Matthew shares how each young person's experience is shaped by a unique set of emotional, cognitive, and environmental factors. He outlines practical strategies educators can use to re-engage students, from shifting mindsets and challenging unconscious biases to creating truly flexible, student-led pathways back into learning.

Show Notes

• Hospital School SA
• We’d love to hear your thoughts on this episode and any ideas you have for future topics. Get in touch with the Teach Podcast team at education.teachpodcast@sa.gov.au.

Transcript

Dale Atkinson: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to Teach a podcast about teaching and learning in South Australia. My name is Dale Atkinson from South Australia's Department for Education, and today we are joined by a man who leads a school that has a fairly special place in the constellation of schools across great state.

Matthew McCurry, who's the principal of Hospital School SA. Matthew, thanks for joining us.

Matthew McCurry: Thanks for having me.

Dale Atkinson: What is the hospital school, let's say for those who don't know?

Matthew McCurry: We are the Department for Education site within the South Australian Paediatric hospitals, so our main campus is at the Women's and Children's. We have a southern campus down at Flinders Medical Centre and a northern campus at Lyell McEwin Hospital.

Dale Atkinson: That's a fairly broad geographic spread, but you've also got a fairly broad remit of activities and things that you need to, uh, provide education for right across the spectrum. Can you, can you explain a little bit about the, the students that you educate?

Matthew McCurry: So you are right. It is, it is statewide, but it doesn't just include South Australia because we also [00:01:00] have young people that come to us from the Northern Territory, from interstate and also internationally. We have about 4,680 students per year. That was last year, and that includes inpatients, so young people staying in hospital, outpatients who are still connected but not needing to stay. And then there is the family program, which are young people who aren't patients but connected.

Dale Atkinson: We’re gonna focus on something very specific in terms of, uh, what you do today, which is strategies for re-engagement and wellbeing broadly. What is the role that you play in terms of reengagement and wellbeing as a school?

Matthew McCurry: There's, there's a number of facets to it. So when it comes to mental health, we have our Supporting Improve Mental Health in Schools program, or the Sims program is what schools would, uh, most likely hear about and that is when a young person has presented for emergency mental health or has been admitted for [00:02:00] mental health and how we transition them back to school after that.

However, there's also young people who have lifelong illnesses, life limiting illnesses, who it doesn't necessarily sit within that mental health space, but it is about transitioning them through maybe some school anxieties and school refusal or school can't, and I wanna make sure we say both. When we talk about school can't and school refusal, because people will choose what language they have in that space.

Dale Atkinson: And it seems like our understanding of school refusal, school can't, is expanding. We we're getting better at understanding what this thing is and, and being a bit more responsive to the needs of the young person. You recently presented to the Wellbeing Conference on, um, some of the thinking around the Sims program and the activities that hospital school SA.

Can you explain sort of broadly what school refusal is and what the contributing factors are?

Matthew McCurry: I think we, we've gotta look at it from the point of view that there's [00:03:00] something within a young person's thinking that is layered or impacted or triggered, or is really thought through in their mind about what is stopping them from attending school.

Is it from getting up in the morning, that point of their day? Is it after they've put on their uniform and, and refusing? Is it leaving the house? Is it not getting out of the car? Is it not walking into school from the car park and so on? So there's a whole lot of layers, but it is, what is it about the school environment or attached to the school environment that is sitting within a young person's thinking to make them feel like that is an impossible step or choice to make.

Dale Atkinson: What's the entry point to starting that understanding journey?

Matthew McCurry: It's really individual because it is really looking at that specific young person and and trying to find out what it [00:04:00] is that sits with them, because then we are looking at those concentric circles, so their own thinking, where family are involved and then where school is involved and where would you start to, to address that.

Connection. Connection. Connection. You know, that relational aspect is really important, but the relational aspect can be the reasoning, or it can be what is affecting that young person. So, you know, we could take into mind things like rejection sensitivity disorder with some of our neurodivergent young people.

So then that's another layer. So you can see that it is very individualised and as schools, the department schools are seeing that more and more, which is a really good vantage point to sit in and less about some of the old school thinking we, which we used to have, which was, this is the student, or this is [00:05:00] our expectation of a high school student because we know that was just, um, who is that?

Who is that ideal student? And so now we are looking at the individual and that's, that's a start.

Dale Atkinson: So as a site, you have recognised that there are individuals or groups of students that are at that point of school refusal school, school can't. What are the strategies that you can employ to start that engagement process with the student and their family.

Matthew McCurry: I think, um, one of the important things is for schools to sort of start off with some questions for themselves and if I give sort of three provocations, my first would be what are the unconscious biases that we might hold about students who sit within that school refusal or school can't? How do we challenge those perceptions or the bias?

So is it our own? Is it other staff? Is it you know, young people or families? So looking at whether that bias sits, if a [00:06:00] student is already disengaged, how will we reengaging or repairing? What's the approach we're going to take? And student centred or student agency, what would it look like? What would school look like?

But also, what would support in this space look like if it was designed by the young person, the young person who is the most excluded, disengaged, or unsupported. So I think schools have to sit in that space first. Because what is the message they're sending out as a school so that any of their young people can say, this is what I see, hear, and feel from my school. And then we make it more individualised.

Dale Atkinson: So I guess the, the starting point really is a projected empathy and, and, and coming at it from the point of view of understanding the perspective of the, the young person and their experience. We spoke with some parent representatives of young people who have experienced a school refusal, school can't.

They spoke about the guilt that is associated from, from the parent perspective, the expectations that they put on themselves, or they feel that society or the school puts on them. What's the engagement that a site should be having with the young person's adults in their lives and how, how does that work well?

Matthew McCurry: I think that parents are, as much in the position as schools are in wondering where this has come from or what to do next. They're also looking to seek support, so that that support partnership is vital because as you said, parental guilt is a, is a big thing. The, the parents have those after hours and those before hours.

So, uh, probably, or we know they're inheriting or, or having to manage, deal with, cope with the, the emotional dysregulation or the communication or the disrepair in their own relationship. And so. If they feel pressured by school or judged by school, [00:08:00] that just adds to that. And then they won't necessarily feel that they've got a partner, an active partner in the process of repair or support.

So checking in with families is as vital as it is to check in with, with young people trying to match up so that there's consistency is really, really important because we know young people, whether they're seeking them or pushing against them. They do want those boundaries. That's what they're yearning for.

So, you know, connection, consistency, that's really reliable and so it also needs to be reliable for the parents as well.

Dale Atkinson: Now, the experience for young people that they have with all the educators across the site is really important, isn't it? And so it's gotta be a real team effort from all your educators if you're trying to reengage a young person.

Matthew McCurry: Yeah. That that's true. And, and I think one of the really important aspects is language and the power of language and how that can make someone feel. What we have is young people making their [00:09:00] own attempt without any sort of guidance, because kids will one day go, well, if this is all happening to me, I'm gonna go back to school.

They walk into school and then a comment from a staff member might be a little bit sort of guilting or shaming without maybe them necessarily thinking that's the language they've, you know, tried to use or were using. And that young person takes that on because it is guilt and shame. And then, you know, the absence they had for two weeks.

They go, well, this is how I felt trying, so I'm, I don't wanna go again. And it becomes, next time, four weeks, and it seems to build. And young people really stick to those things of where they'll say, I attempted and it didn't work, so why would I attempt again?

Dale Atkinson: Now you'd have 4,000 students a year you said earlier you must have a number of examples of when things have gone really well.

Is there one story that you have in your mind about where there's been a success and can you tell us about [00:10:00] that and, and what it was that that triggered the positive outcome?

Matthew McCurry: You know, a number that I sort of put together, but one in in particular, I think about a school's understanding about the idea of being flexible.

Because many schools will think flexible means you can attend every day up until recess time. When that's not flexible, that's a part-time timetable. What I feel happens when we do part-time timetables is we build resilience routines in kids. So they're only having to live within, survive within that time, and it's not giving anyone, including that child, an accurate representation of what they're having to, to face to deal with, to consider, to try. And so when, when a particular school said, look what is flexible to you, and we said it is looking at, well, what does Monday morning look like [00:11:00] to Thursday afternoon? What does it look like uf we could offer them number one. A subject that they love, that they, you know, they feel connected to the teacher, they're happy with the, the peers in that class. Let's start with that. Let's build from there. So not expecting a young person to go, I'll work within a part-time timetable. I'll work within the subjects that are compulsory or you’re saying are the greatest needs.

When that young person saw that they got a choice to start with and it was just enjoying themselves. That's what worked for them and we built from there. So the school wasn't after them being instantly reengaged. It was, you know, saying to them, let's take the time and you know, we do have the time and we automatically fall into that gap of saying, well, we don't, because that's how rigid thinking around frameworks and timetables and, you know, lesson times,

But as a department, we're [00:12:00] saying, you know, know your cohort. Be brave, be bold, and so do that within not just the timetable of the overall school because yes, there's gonna be constraints and, and you know, aspects there, but be flexible for a young person because that is what's gonna be the key for them to feel they can step in and step out.

Dale Atkinson: If you could share one practical tip with educators, with parents in this space, what would that be?

Matthew McCurry: I think it is about giving concrete low pressure choices 'cause they're easier to respond to from a wellbeing point of view. And it means that young people aren't feeling overwhelmed. So instead of saying What's five things that would work, that would help you, you know, going concrete and low pressure, you're more saying, would it help if we put in a shorter time, like, and I know I used this as an example before, like on Mondays you come until recess time [00:13:00] because then the choice is still the young persons, but they're being given some parameters, some safety and if they say yes, that's great. If they say no, what that does is it allows us to then say, well, talk to me about why that won't work.

And I always start my sentences off with young people about talk to me because then, you know, they feel like they've got that voice that many of them feel isn't listened to. That's something that young people tell us all the time, whether that's accurate or not, that's their perception. So talk to me is less confrontational.

You know, tell me can be seen confrontational or why not, can be confrontational. I know it's all about the tone and things like that, but just looking at it from that low pressure is really important.

Dale Atkinson: That's an incredibly useful skill and one that I think we could learn from in lots of areas of our life. Matthew McCurry, [00:14:00] thank you very much for joining us.

Matthew McCurry: Thank you.