Happy new year everyone. We like to start the year as we mean to go on, and that’s with happy schools.

We were delighted to receive this email from the Head of Vranch House School in Exeter who had just had the results of their Ofsted inspection …

Hi Peter,

I just thought I would drop you a line to let you know that Vranch House was inspected by Ofsted in Nov 2022 and found, once again, to be ‘1 – Outstanding’ in all judgement areas. 

My heart sank when the Lead Inspector proposed conducting ‘deep dives’ through ‘subject lenses’, when our curriculum is bespoke and needs-driven.  It was extremely pleasing therefore to be able to sit down with the Inspector during these pupil deep dives and, through interrogation of pupil Timelines, our assessment frameworks and visual pupil progress in the Analysis pages within Earwig, explain why such a ‘subject focused’ approach to this exercise was bordering on erroneous.   It took three days of repeating our ‘why’, and hearing this unilaterally from everyone they spoke to, before the message sunk in for the Inspectors.  I must say that using Earwig as the live receptacle for our bespoke curriculum, collation of evidence of pupil progress and as our assessment tool certainly helped make this last Ofsted inspection much less of a chore!

Parents also spoke effusively to the Inspector about how access to their child’s Timeline gave them a true picture of what they had learnt in school and the progress they were making; that reviewing the videos and photographs from each day gave them an meaningful way to talk about the day with their child.  They said that being able to access Earwig on their phones/tablets and have professionals {our Physio, OT and S&LT, as well as Teachers} share information and instructional videos via their child’s Timeline also makes all the difference.

Thanks to you, Mark, Owen and all the Team at Earwig Academic for keeping Earwig such an invaluable, reliable and well supported tool for all our staff, pupils and their families.

Kind regards

Ian

Ian Norton
Head of Education
Vranch House School