SEND School Improvement Programme
Whole Education’s SEND School Improvement programme supports over a thousand schools nationally to develop their provision for students with SEND. This year, we are growing our network and the opportunities available within the programme. In the past schools have taken part in the programme through their MAT or Local Authority. This year we have designed a programme to benefit individual or small groups of schools, who can realise the many benefits of our programme without relying on their MAT or LA.
The programme and network brings with it considerable benefits for you and your school:
A framework and collaborative process to support you and other leaders in your school to develop and embed inclusive cultures and practice
CPD events with exceptional speakers alongside bespoke resources to inspire your staff
Tools to help your school implement high quality strategic action plans
Access to a rapidly growing network of professionals just like you and your school leaders, and support from a highly experienced team to help you get connected to them.
Through this programme you will not only be guided through a tried and tested process for tightening up strategic leadership of SEND, leading to boosted outcomes, but also work in a small group with other schools, learning from and supporting each other, facilitated by our team of experts.
Benefits for Schools
A ready made and tested process and ‘toolkit’ to evaluate and action plan for effective strategic leadership of SEND and inclusion
A programme focused on building confidence and capabilities of leaders to ensure all children have high quality provision
Membership of a national network of leaders in SEND
An extensive catalogue of resources linked directly to the outcomes of your self-evaluation
Training from leading national SEND experts for SENCOs and leaders at all levels - online, face-to-face and recorded
Aligned to the School Inspection Framework through an explicit focus on intent, implementation and impact
Explicit opportunity for school leaders, with their SENCOs, to build strategic coherence across different domains of school leadership as they relate to SEND and inclusion
Access to bespoke advice and support from leading experts such as Gary Aubin, David Bartram and Natalie Packer
Who is it for?
We offer support for settings in all phases of education
Early Years
Primary
Secondary
Post-16
We work with mainstream, special, independent and Alternative Provision settings. The programme is aimed at schools across a range of governance types:
Stand-alone academies
Maintained schools
Federated schools
Individual academies in MATs
It may be particularly useful for local groups of schools who work together through semi-formal arrangements, and want to use these arrangements to collectively drive provision for pupils with SEND.
Quotes from programme participants in 24/25
“The programme allowed us to know exactly where we currently were as a school and what our next priorities were. It brought all of the staff together on the same page. Headteacher”
“The opportunity to work alongside other SENCO’s was great and is something that I haven’t had the opportunity to do for a number of years. The discussions we had about the evaluations and action plans were really useful.”
“The action planning tool was intuitive and easy to use but what I have most appreciated has been the fantastic signposting to resources from the action plan. I feel confident that when I watch clips / read articles recommended through Whole Education they are worth investing time in so rather than trawling through loads of articles to find what I need, it has been done for me. Huge thank you!”
“The self evaluation process was a really good way of getting all of the leadership team to discuss where we are at in terms of SEND.”
“Highly effective and very useful.”
“A reflective process enabling us to understand the area that needs the most attention.”