BSA Advanced Certificate in Professional Practice for School Nurses

School nurses form a key part of the safeguarding and pastoral care framework within our schools however staff CPD opportunities seldom focus on the key areas to support their professional development. As part of a refocus of the training available through the BSA, we can now offer a standalone Professional Practice Certificate for school medical staff.

This course will link professional practice with current research and best practice to provide a unique opportunity for school nurses, whether working in relative isolation or as part of the medical team, to development their knowledge, skills and practice across a wide range of the key current themes/topics most relevant to their role. In addition, there will be a linked research project which will provide the chance to focus on a specific aspect in more detail.

Course Outline:

The course is tutor led and will consist of 4 separate live online study days spread over a full academic year. The sessions on each study day will be a mixture of presentations often with an external expert, and group discussions.

BSA – HIEDA Certificate in Professional Practice for School Nurses

Study Days for the January module are:

• Day 1 : January 20^th 2025
• Day 2 : February 28^th 2025
• Day 3 : May 6^th 2025
• Day 4 : June 4th 2025

All study Days will be held online via Zoom.

Timings for each study day – 10.00 to 15.45

TO BEGIN YOUR QUALIFICATION IN JANUARY CLICK HERE

• The role of the Nurse in a school setting
• The medical centre in the wider context: inspection planning, managing medicines
• Where to now: progression and development within the medical centre: auditing/department development plans
• Working with children with ASD and ADHD
• Travel Health and immunisations
• Managing a critical incident
• Drug misuse and screening, Guest Speaker, Dave Parvin, Drugsense UK
• Delivering health education in a school setting
• Working with young people with disordered eating
• Mental health risk assessment/working with a mental health lead/pastoral team
• legal issues
• Policy writing
• Sexual health, contraception and screening
• Managing children from overseas with medical conditions
• Supervision/revalidation and clinical supervision
• Working with external agencies
• Course Assignment & Reflection

Course Assignment:

The course assignment provides course students with an opportunity to focus on a specific area of particular relevance to their school/role. This can range from ‘supporting a student with a complex medical condition; a review of the nursing provision in the school; the development of a new appraisal system; the management of medical records across a whole school; health promotion models; to a student guide to accessing specific support for an emotional health issue.

The assignment will take the form of a 2000 – 3000 word written project which can be an essay or a report which must be submitted by July 2025. These will be assessed by the course tutor and the results published/certificates issued in the early Autumn.

Speakers: 

Sinead O’Grady, Lead Nurse, Harrow School

Sinead is an Advanced nurse practitioner with over 15 years of nursing experience across hepatology, haematology and emergency medicine. She now specialises in school medicine and is the lead nurse at Harrow school medical centre.

Sinead’s aim is to improve the health literacy of her pupils and empower them to utilise the variety of health and wellbeing services available to them. She has a passion for health promotion which involves reactively and proactively engaging and educating her pupils during

NB: Please be aware that it is crucial to remain on your assigned course path and tutor group to gain the very best out of your training. Of course, we understand some things are unavoidable however we cannot guarantee alternative placement days, and this may incur an admin charge