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Emily Fraser is the Literacy and Phonics Lead and Reception Class Teacher at West Boldon Primary School, a mainstream primary in South Tyneside with a diverse catchment area.

Phil works at Shaw Education Trust as the National Director of Education: Specialist. He joined the trust from Ofsted where he was one of Her Majesty’s Inspectors. Phil had a regional lead responsibility for special educational needs and disability. Prior to working for Ofsted, Phil gained extensive senior management experience as a headteacher and executive headteacher of special schools, residential schools and colleges. He has worked as a local authority school improvement partner and as a leadership trainer for the National College. During his time as a National Leader of Education he led and managed a National Support School and Teaching School. He has a postgraduate qualification in special and inclusive education and has worked internationally to support school improvement.

Phil has significant experience in governance having been a school governor in primary, secondary and special schools, including roles as Chairperson and safeguarding lead. Phil regularly supports local authorities and clinical commissioning groups to improve their offer for children and young people with special educational needs. He is currently an independent chairperson to an improvement board in one of these areas in England.

Phil is a trustee of the national charity Equals which is committed to improving the lives of children and young people with learning difficulties and disabilities through supporting high quality education.

Jane Sharp began her career in education as a science teacher before training to become a Qualified Teacher for Vision Impairment. She has worked as a QTVI for 20 years, both in a secondary resource base and as a peripatetic teacher in mainstream schools. Assistive technology, with its potential to enable children and young people to become independent learners, is an area of special interest and she regularly delivers training on this topic for VI education organisations. 

Jane is currently chair of VIEW, the professional association for the vision impairment education workforce, whose aim is to support professionals to support the children and young people with VI that they work with.

Kelly Ashford has been Deputy Headteacher and Inclusion Lead at Wells Hall Primary in Great Cornard since September 2020. Prior to this, Kelly was Assistant Headteacher and Inclusion Manager at Laureate Community Primary School in Newmarket, where she led the effective implementation of the Maximising the Impact/Practice of Teaching Assistants (MITA/MPTA) project. Kelly is passionate about inclusion and believes that it is our moral responsibility to ensure that all pupils access a high-quality curriculum which is tailored to meet their needs.

Aimee Durning is currently Director of Inclusion and Community at The University of Cambridge Primary School. 

After several years of working as a parent volunteer, Aimee was employed as a Teaching Assistant in 2007. Aimee’s educational career blossomed when she joined the first University primary school in the country. During 2018, Aimee established the University of Cambridge Primary School’s Teaching Assistant Forum, which provides professional development sessions for Teaching Assistants in the local area. Aimee won Classroom Assistant of the Year 2019 at the annual TES Awards and was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List 2021 for her work with Teaching Assistants, Reading for Pleasure and children with Special Educational Needs. Aimee, along with Dr James Biddulph, has recently launched the UK’s first Teaching Assistant Network Hub. In her spare time, Aimee is currently studying with the Open University.

Sarah has worked for over 20 years in the post 16 education sector and feels most comfortable working alongside students and teams who need something different to the regular. Sarah is motivated by: 

• developing aggressive aspirations with teams and students to impact on lives and communities
• watching people grow and then instilling the confidence to push them further
• innovation - never settling for anything – Kaizen!
• challenging herself to change the language used about inclusion to challenge established norms

After starting his professional journey in education as a temporary librarian in 2002, Peter has performed many different roles in FE: mentor, coach, child protection officer, prison liaison, support coordinator, and behaviour lead. Peter is currently the Project and Delivery Manager for the Centre for Excellence in SEND at Derby College Group. Peter's passions focus particularly on: 

• neurodiversity
• behaviour
• personalisation, and
• positive decision making

Teresa Quail is a Qualified Teacher of  the Deaf and Educational Audiologist. She works part-time as a co-National Executive Officer and Magazine Editor with the British Association of Teachers of the Deaf (BATOD). BATOD is the sole professional association for Teachers of the Deaf in the UK. The Association represents the interests of Teachers of the Deaf and the children and young people they teach with a range of Government and other agencies. The Association supports Teachers of the Deaf and organises CPD courses and national and regional meetings to provide relevant up-to-date information and to disseminate good practice. 

Teresa was the Head of the Specialist Teaching Service in a local authority in England maintaining an active caseload across the 0-25 age range. During the pandemic she worked part-time in a secondary school resource base in England. She will soon be commencing a peripatetic QToD role in Northern Ireland.

With over thirty years of contribution to service provision in the disability and autism sectors as a consultant and specialist tutor. Mark recognised the opportunity to combine the WEA/IMAS ‘Inclusion in Rugby’ and ‘Inclusion in Sports’ projects with a national training programme. Mark now works with a number of NGB’s and leads on the training and delivery of Mixed Ability Sports to grassroots clubs across England

Hannah is a pdnet Champion, active member of pdnet Midlands’s regional group, and, Advisory Teacher for Physical Disability, 0-25 years. She has over 30 years of experience of mainstream and special education sectors  as a SENCO, Teacher, Conductive Educator and Advisory Teacher. Passionate about successful inclusion, she has contributed to work streams at a local, county, regional and national level to develop policy, practice and training which contributes to better outcomes for CYP with physical disability. Hannah is also experienced in working closely with others (e.g. learners, parents, speech and language therapists, occupational therapists) to upskill school staff and build their confidence so that children and young people with PD  who use assistive technology are well supported in school.

Emily has worked in education for 23 years, having taught in a mixture of mainstream primary and special secondary schools in various locations and roles, from teacher through to senior leader.  She strongly believes that all children deserve the best possible chance to succeed in life and is passionate about supporting teachers and leaders in making this happen.

For the latter half of Emily’s career, she has focused on working with learners with Special Educational Needs.  Initially as an Assistant Headteacher within a special secondary school and then for the last 3 years as the Director of a Teaching School specialising in SEND.
Within these roles Emily has held responsibilities across a broad spectrum of activities, from curriculum development to the management and development of NQT’s/ITT’s.  Her ability to analyse and interpret data lead to a secondment to develop and roll out a “data dashboard” for use across a multi-academy trust, bringing together all facets of school life into an easily understood summary.

Emily now runs LEARN, a Teaching School in Lincolnshire that specialises in SEND.  Actively involved with the Local Authority and the Lincolnshire Teaching Schools Together (LTT), Emily supports the alignment of the SEND training provision and requirement across the areas active projects to raise the profile of SEND throughout the offer.
 

Amanda has worked in education for over 20 years, with the latter half of her career dedicated to SEND. Having developed practice both as a SENCO and senior leader in mainstream primary settings and at local authority level she is committed to improving outcomes for children and young people with Special Educational Needs and disabilities. She has supported a large number of schools to reflect on and refine their practice and provision for learners with SEND through CPD, SEND Review and by mentoring new SENCOs.

Amanda joined Whole School SEND in 2018 as deputy regional SEND lead for the West Midlands. Since then she has taken on the role of National Coordinator, Deputy Head of Whole School SEND and now Head of Whole School SEND.

Erica is a National Coordinator for Whole School SEND.  She has extensive experience leading on SEND in mainstream schools and multi academy trusts. She began her career as an English teacher before becoming a SENCO.  As well as her work for Whole School SEND, she supports several multi academy trusts. She is an experienced SEND and MAT reviewer and acts as an associate consultant for nasen.

Square Peg is a grassroots not-for-profit Community Interest Company that advocates for change in the education system.  

Established and led by those with lived experience of persistent absence and school attendance difficulties, we exist to raise awareness, inform, educate, provide insight and understanding, influence policy, culture and practice in and around barriers to school attendance and persistent absence.  We work with multi-disciplinary, cross-sector partners in academia and research; all stakeholders across education, health, social care and welfare, legislation and government; technology, innovation and design as well as advocacy, empowerment and campaigns.  

We are experienced strategic partners and champion co-production and courageous conversations.

We work alongside Not Fine In School (who represent the same families) and provide peer to peer support, information, advice and resources.  Now 5 years old, NFIS now has almost 40k members, rising at 1000-1200 membership requests pcm.
 

Senior Manager - Progression, Transition and Removal of Barriers

Kelly leads on The Careers and Enterprise Companies work to remove barriers for young people and support work on progression and transition and works closely with the network of Careers Hubs across the country who support the education institutions in their area.  As a qualified Teacher and experienced in working with young people 11-19 in a variety of settings Kelly is passionate about ensuring all young people have access to the support, they need to make their best next step when approaching key transition points. Kelly is also a Governor at 2 Alternative provisions in the North East.

Education Manager – Resource and Digital Content

Clare is a qualified teacher and former Assistant Principal who leads on The Resource Directory and Inclusion Community of Improvement. She is passionate about ensuring young people have the best possible experience whilst in education, enabling all the skills and abilities they need to succeed in the world of work, both academically and pastorally. Clare has a wealth of experience working in a range of educational settings and is committed to ensuring every young person is supported to reach their goals and career aspirations.

Sarah Watson

During her thirteen years in mainstream secondary education, Sarah has worked as Literacy Lead, Specialist Provision Lead (cognition and learning) and SENDCO. Sarah has Specialist Leader in Education status, an MA in Education and is a Specialist Assessor. Sarah has a particular interest in supporting children and young people with cognition and learning needs access an ambitious curriculum. Sarah also has experience with low incidence needs, leading two resourced provisions for children and young people with sensory impairments. Sarah is passionate about improving inclusion and access in mainstream settings and joined the Whole School SEND team in 2021. She is currently the Assistant Principal, SEND, at The King’s Academy in Middlesbrough.