Vranch House is a centre for the treatment of over 2,000 outpatients with physical difficulties, a provider of various therapies throughout Devon and an independent Day School in Exeter for children with significant physical difficulties.

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Last updated: 27/03/2024

Parent's Newsletter Spring 2019

Parent's Newsletter Spring 2019

Date added: Monday 4th February 2019
Latest updated: Thursday 23rd February 2023

 

Parents and Cares of pupils at Vranch House 

Dear Parents and Carers,

Re: Staff and pupil update and Earwig announcement

As some of you may already be aware, the main Vranch House School Physiotherapist, Liz Hutcherson, left us in December 2018 to pursue a career in working with adult physiotherapy clients in the community.  We miss her and wish her every luck in her new line of work.  Once our Commissioners complete their re-procurement process with Vranch House in April 2019, we will be looking to appoint a new full time Physiotherapist in May 2019. 

In the interim, the Physiotherapy provision for the school, as per our Core Offer and our pupils EHCPs, will be delivered by Becky Mills, Hannah McFadden and Kate Moss.  Many of you may know Becky and Hannah from Honeylands and I hope you all know our Head of Therapy, Kate Moss.  If you have any queries or concerns regarding your child's physiotherapy needs, please contact Reception and you will be put in touch with the appropriate Physiotherapist. 

After months of working with Earwig Academic to make sure we continue to deliver only the very best service to our Parents and Carers, I am delighted to announce that we will soon be ‘switching-on' a new function within Earwig.  As of Friday 11th February 2019, Parents and Carers will be able to upload photos and/or videos, with their comments. This exciting development means that Parents and Carers can at last capture their child's progress and achievements at home and share them with their family and the school team at Vranch House.  When you login after the 11th Feb, you will see a new ‘button' that looks like this:

PLEASE KEEP VIDEOS TO 2 MINUTES MAXIMUM AS VIDEOS LONGER THAN THIS MAY BE BLOCKED FROM UPLOADING.

Once reviewed by your child's class teacher, and any evidence of progress assessed against the Early Years Foundation Stage or our VIEW curriculum as appropriate, your uploads will become records on your child's Timeline. 

Although this facility will not be available as a ‘Parent app' as many of you requested, you can still use the Earwig website via any smartphone or tablet device and your Earwig login to upload your photos, videos and any comments.  I hope that you find this process as easy-to-use and intuitive as the rest of Earwig, but if you do get stuck, please do contact me. 

I believe this development represents a very powerful opportunity to build on our partnership with all Parents and Carers in capturing and celebrating all the amazing achievements of each of our pupils.  

This term we also welcomed two new pupils: McKenzie in our Nursery and James in Class 2.  They have both settled in really well and are making new friends already, I hope you will join us in welcoming them to Vranch House.

One of our pupils is presently off school with Type A Influenza (Flu), which can be particularly unpleasant for all our pupils with respiratory needs or compromised immune systems.  Parents and Carers are reminded that the immunization with the Flu vaccine is readily available for children at your local GP.

SNOW

There are yellow weather warnings in place across the county and numerous mentions of snow in weather forecasts for the coming weeks.  Parents and Carers are reminded that in the event of heavy snowfall the Management Team will assess the risks posed to pupils and safe transport to the school and, if the risk is considered to be significant, we will make the decision as to whether or not we close school.  If heavy snow does come to Exeter and we do close the school I will email all parents directly and publicise this closure in the following places:

Dates for your diaries:

Friday 15th February 2019 - ABC Assembly, from 1.30pm

Yours faithfully

Ian Norton

Head of Education