Schools, Hospitals, Medical

Schools

There is a small infants school located along 'School Road'. It comprises of a standard modern structure with add ons. There are only a limited number pupils. The next nearest infants school is several miles away in another village. There is no public transport.

There is a senior high school called Marshland High. Although, as the name would suggest this is in Marshland St James, it is in fact not near and is situated some distance two villages away. Again there is no public transport.

Generally education levels in this region have been reported in published figures as low. See reports below related to education and health care taken from local press;

School plunges to the bottom

 Publisher - Lynn News

"GAYWOOD'S Park High School came bottom for GCSE results in secondary school league tables for Norfolk published yesterday.

The comprehensive was 57th out of the county's 57 secondary schools, and was 3,501 out of 3,579 in the country.

Park High also had a high percentage of unauthorised absence – at 4.4 per cent it was four times higher than the national average of 1.1 per cent. The average unauthorised absences in Norfolk was one per cent.

It was also pointed out that a large part of the school's catchment area was considered to be socially and economically deprived.
Hunstanton's Smithdon High School and Hamond's High School at Swaffham were both in the bottom ten schools in the county – ranked 49th and 48th respectively.

Other schools in the area all fell in the bottom half of the county's league table: Methwold High School was placed 44th, Marshland High School was 33rd and Terrington St Clement's High School was 41st.
Swaffham's Sacred Heart Convent School was unranked because it had fewer than 30 pupils taking GCSEs. In fact there were only 14 eligible pupils and of those 93 per cent achieved five GCSEs at grade C or above, an improvement on the previous year's 83 per cent."

 HOSPITALS

There is only one general hospital which is the Queen Elizabeth and is situated on the outskirts of King’s Lynn towards Sandringham. This represents a round trip in the region of 50 miles should you ever need to attend. It is also where an ambulance will be coming from in the case of an emergency. There is very limited parking available and if you find somewhere it will be at high cost with severe financial penalties for infringements. The hospital makes substantial sums from the car parking operation and accordingly wardens will administer penalty notices on vehicles within moments of arrival no matter what the circumstances. According to newspaper reports even those visiting very sick and dying relatives in emergency wards have been forced to pay heavy fines with no regard for their circumstances and no apparent sympathy for their situation so be warned.

The facilities are up to date but like many hospitals they are short staffed and waiting times can prove tedious.