Vranch House

Date added: Friday 25th September 2020
Latest updated: Thursday 23rd February 2023

Dear Parents & Carers

Re: Hydrotherapy, pupil information and Satisfaction Survey

Welcome back everyone!  It has been wonderful to see all of our pupils returning to school looking so well and full of enthusiasm to get ‘stuck in' to learning once again.  We have once again increased our pupil numbers this year and we are still operating at full-capacity, despite still working under the restrictions posed by the ongoing COVID - 19 pandemic.  I have some information to pass on about ongoing Hydrotherapy at Vranch House, as well as a request for your help with keeping our records up to date.

Hydrotherapy

The school Physiotherapist, Head of Therapies and I all met at the end of the Summer Term 2020 to review the provision of Hydrotherapy for all users in both school and our outpatient services.  Whilst we acknowledge that the majority of our pupils very much enjoy being in the water, there are many other educationally or physically beneficial activities and therapies that we build into each child's individualised curriculum to meet their specific needs. In order to maintain the balance of activity and the use of resources between ‘leisure' and ‘need', we have triaged the need of all our pupils and outpatients for Hydrotherapy and allocated all Hydrotherapy places according to each individual's level of clinical need.

As a result, a very small number of our pupils who previously used the Hydrotherapy pool during a ‘class swim' session, but can access a range of other activities and therapies to meet their needs, will only use the Hydrotherapy pool if spaces become available in the revised priority groups.  Again, such occasional-spaces in these groups will be allocated on a triaged needs-basis, by the school Physiotherapist.

We will do our utmost to include all pupils in some Hydrotherapy sessions over each term.  Please accept my apologies for not communicating this change to you all sooner.  If you would like to discuss your child's access to Hydrotherapy at Vranch House, please contact the school.

Pupil Information

As I hope you have experienced, we hold safeguarding the safety and wellbeing of all of our pupils as our highest priority.  In order to maintain this level of care and safety for all pupils, I would appreciate all Parents and Carers taking a few minutes to return the ‘Pupil Collection' sheet that was sent home last week, to let us know who you are happy to have collecting your child from school. 

Anyone with children will know that it is not always possible to collect your child in person, or have their usual nominated adult collect them for you.  For this reason, please compete the box requesting a ‘one-word password'to be given by any ‘unexpected' adult you ask to collect your child from school. If we do not know the adult you ask to collect your child, and they cannot provide this password, we cannot allow your child to leave the premises with that adult.

Thank you in advance for helping us keep all our pupils at Vranch House as safe as possible.

Satisfaction Survey

During the Spring term each year, I usually invite all parents and carers to express their level of satisfaction with the education provided at Vranch House via a short survey.  Due to the COVID - 19 lockdown in March 2020, this did not happen.  To rectify this lapse, I will shortly be inviting all parents and carers to share their views via a similar survey.  I am currently exploring using an online survey-tool for those who prefer to give their answers this way and hope to send out a link to the ‘2020 Parent & Carer Satisfaction Survey' by the end of September.

Music Therapy instrument bags

A quick request on behalf of our marvelous Music Therapist, Sue Pratt: If you were supplied with a bag of musical instruments during ‘Lockdown' (for conducting music therapy via Zoom), can you now please return that bag of instruments to Vranch House.  As COVID - 19 is still preventing some families from attending music therapy sessions in person, Sue would like to use these instruments with other families and so we need to call them back in for cleaning and re-distribution.  Thank you!

I look to hearing all your views in the near future.

Yours faithfully

Ian Norton

Head of Education