Event brings together professionals supporting students with SEND

These sessions are a crucial component of continuing professional development for SENCo’s, spanning from Primary through to post-16 education.

SENCo’s have been engaging with extensive funded training to enhance their support for students with additional needs.

As part of the "Delivering Better Value in SEND" initiative, educational settings are also working towards creating sustainable SEND systems, processes and support for children and families, based on their individual plans.

Taking this further, the training theme of this session was Cognition and Learning.

Professionals participated in practical group work to take further their knowledge of various learning strategies and how to deliver these in tailored ways to students.

Rebecca Taylor, Head of SEND and Inclusion: “There’s a lot of ongoing work and collaboration between educational settings, the Local Authority and other partners to improve support for SEND in our schools.

“These sessions give SENCo’s a chance to share how they’ve used strategies within their settings, raise any challenges they’ve faced, and problem solve collectively.

“The communication these network sessions allow ensures we nurture a strong relationship between our educational settings and the Local Authority."

SENCo’s shared constructive and positive feedback praising the training suite that offers courses for the whole school including transport staff, ancillary workers, and caterers. They said: “The training offer is excellent and not just for SENCos; everyone can get involved”.

Additionally, independent travel was a significant topic of discussion.

Young people with Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCP’s) can access free travel training, and there are numerous ways parents and schools can encourage independent travel from an early age, including Bikeability, road safety, and planning and using public transport with an adult.

Looking ahead, there were exciting discussions about the evolution of the school workforce.

The Local Authority also updated SENCo’s on progress of capital projects to further create sustainability in SEND, which is part of a long-term initiative focusing on a skilled workforce, closer collaboration between all schools and services, and targeted early-stage interventions.

Parent carers can find more information about SEND and inclusion and travel training on the Local Offer NELC SEND Local Offer | North East Lincolnshire Special Educational Needs & Disability.