In this week's show Dale is joined by Fintan O'Regan are discussing how every school leader is a leader of SEND.

Fintan is a trainer and consultant for schools and school support systems including, Social Services, Health, the Police and Foster carers. He has worked with a number of organisations including NASEN, Institute of Education, Leicester University, the UK ADHD Network and the European ADHD Alliance. And before this he was a headteacher of a specialist school for students with ADHD, ASD an ODD. Fintan is a regular here in our studios, he has recorded a number of episodes of the SENDcast, he is a regular speaker at our Virtual SEND Conferences and has recorded a training course for us around Exclusion.

For schools to be truly inclusive on behalf of SEND in order to reach out to all teaching staff and to support the SEND department then whole school leadership team need to be totally committed in their approach to achieving this. Most schools have 3 types of teachers those that appear willing and able to adapt their teaching practices, those that are reluctant and those that might. In order to secure those that might and bring in those who are reluctant this needs to come from the top down.

For a number of years the organisation NASEN has promoted the excellent approach to supporting children with SEND and those that support them especially SENCos with the premise that every teacher and not just specialist teachers are teachers of SEND. However the reality, is that to actually achieve this the directives and application of this in practice really needs to come from all the members of the SLT in order for this to filter down to all of the staff.

Resources/Links:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/send-code-of-practice-0-to-25

https://www.theschoolrun.com/SEN-code-2014

https://www.childrenscommissioner.gov.uk/2020/08/31/supporting-children-with-special-educational-needs-and-disabilities-to-return-to-school/

https://uk.sagepub.com/en-gb/eur/rona-tutt%E2%80%99s-guide-to-send-inclusion/book250123

O'Regan F (2018) Successfully Managing Children ADHD Second edition :Routledge Falmer Press

O'Regan F (2020) Supporting behaviour in the classroom: Sage publications limited https://www.amazon.co.uk/Little-Guide-Teachers-Supporting-Behaviour/dp/1529718554

Contact Fintan O'Regan

Website – www.fintanoregan.com

Email – [email protected]

Twitter – @fintanoregan

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