North West
The Regional SEND Leadership team in the North West work to promote and celebrate the effective and exciting SEND practice across our region.
The North West is a large geographic area with a huge amount of excellent practice and incredible SEN and SEND expertise already present and active within our schools and communities. Currently we are working to connect with and, where needed, develop professional networks to best support all schools in prioritising SEND within their practice.
We encourage people to connect with us by emailing us, joining the Whole School SEND Community of Practice, attending our regional events and join us in sharing good SEND practice locally and regionally.
Meet your Regional SEND Leads
Dawn Cranshaw
Dawn is the West Midlands Regional Lead for WSS. She is a qualified teacher and been in education for 25 years. She has extensive knowledge of Early Years, Primary and Secondary phases of education where she has lead on a range of curriculum areas, projects and leadership positions. She has been a SENCO for 12 years where she has worked in RP and mainstream and been a lead SENCO for her cluster of schools. She is currently a Specialist SEND advisor for Local Authority where she provides strategic advice and support to settings and is involved in a number of collaborative SEND strategies. She also delivers NASENCO in conjunction with MMU and is an Area SEND Ofsted Inspector.
Regional Lead
Hilary Cook
Hilary is currently a Deputy Headteacher responsible for Inclusion in North Chadderton Secondary school in Oldham. She is passionate about meeting the needs of children with SEND and has a background as a SENCO in a mainstream secondary school.
She is particularly interested in supporting students with Social Emotional Mental Health difficulties and has trained in attachment, therapy, and whole-school mental health support. Another area of interest for Hilary is Specific Learning Difficulties (SpLD), she is a specialist assessor for pupils with SpLD in literacy.
Hilary advocates strongly for the inclusion of learners in all areas of school and all activities within it. She also understands the importance of the support and advice of colleagues in the SEND community to allow schools and colleges to support pupils with SEND. It was the work she carried out with other professionals in the SEND community using WSS resources that motivated her to become Deputy Regional SEND Leader, Whole School SEND for North West.
Deputy Regional Lead
Local authorities in this region
- Blackburn with Darwen
- Blackpool
- Bolton
- Bury
- Cheshire East
- Cheshire West and Chester
- Cumbria
- Halton
- Knowsley
- Lancashire
- Liverpool
- Manchester
- Oldham
- Rochdale
- Salford
- Sefton
- St Helens
- Stockport
- Tameside
- Trafford
- Warrington
- Wigan
- Wirral