The SENDcast

Too many children with SEND are missing out on school residential trips every year - and it needs to change.

Nicholas Hands, CEO of Boundless Outdoors, joins Dale to discuss how we can make residentials and outdoor learning truly inclusive for every child.

Together, they explore why so many children with SEND are excluded from residential trips - often not through deliberate decision, but through assumptions, poor planning, and a culture of saying no without even asking the question. Nicholas is refreshingly clear: the activity adaptation is almost always the easy part. It's the funding, the staffing ratios, and the paperwork that create the real barriers.

They also discuss the transformative power of the outdoor environment itself - why it acts as a leveller, why children who struggle in the classroom often thrive outside it, and why the child nobody notices suddenly gets to shine when everyone is facing the same challenge together.

"You can remember the school trip you went on. You can't remember second period French."

Nicholas Hands

About Nicholas Hands

Nick Hands is the CEO of Boundless Outdoors, an outdoor education centre in Malvern dedicated to making the great outdoors accessible to all. With a background in adventure and expeditions — including kayaking some of the hardest whitewater rivers in the world and climbing 20,000ft peaks in Nepal — Nick is a firm believer that anything is possible outdoors.

In 2013, Nick fronted a bid to take on the Malvern Outdoor Centre and turn it around. Over the years, he and his team have transformed it from a loss-making operation into a thriving centre turning over £1.6m, accommodating more than 10,000 children a year. A central focus has been modernising provision to make it as inclusive as possible — most recently through a new £1m purpose-built dining and catering facility.

• B Squared Website – www.bsquared.co.uk
• Meeting with Dale to find out about B Squared - https://calendly.com/b-squared-team/overview-of-b-squared-sendcast
• Email Dale – [email protected]
• Subscribe to the SENDcast - https://www.thesendcast.com/subscribe

The SENDcast is powered by B Squared

We have been involved with Special Educational Needs for over 25 years, helping show the small steps of progress pupils with SEND make. B Squared has worked with thousands of schools, we understand the challenges professionals working in SEND face. We wanted a way to support these hardworking professionals - which is why we launched The SENDcast! Find out more about how B Squared can help improve assessment for pupils with SEND in your school.

If you missed the Tes SEND Show - or were there but couldn't make every session - this is worth a listen. This is a special episode recorded live at the show, where Dale was joined by Simon Airey, an autistic teacher, speaker and neurodiversity consultant, and the founder of Neuroaffirming With Simon. Simon makes the case that there's no wrong way to play. He talks about lining up 37 Radox shower gels in height order, and a child happily waving sticks around the playground on his own, to show why solo play can be so regulating: there are no demands. He and Dale discuss observing without judgement, asking "what are you noticing?" instead of "why are you doing that?", and adding to a child's play rather than trying to change it. Simon's top tips: always observe first, keep resources open-ended, and let children show you what play looks like for them. About Simon Airey

Simon Airey is an autistic teacher, speaker and consultant, and the founder of Neuroaffirming With Simon. He works to bridge the gap between parents and teachers in supporting children, with a focus on neuroaffirming practice, play-based learning and practical classroom inclusion.

Drawing on his classroom experience and lived insight, Simon helps schools and local authorities adopt approaches that work for both children and staff.

About the Tes SEND Show

The Tes SEND Show is the UK's largest event dedicated to special educational needs and disabilities, bringing together teachers, SENCOs, school leaders, therapists and parents for two days of CPD, seminars and exhibitors.

This series brings you short summaries of some of the 2026 seminar programme, recorded on site in our pop-up podcast studio. A new episode lands every Tuesday for eight weeks.

https://tessendshow.co.uk/

https://thesendcast.com/tes-send-show-special-episodes/

• B Squared Website – www.bsquared.co.uk
• Meeting with Dale to find out about B Squared - https://calendly.com/b-squared-team/overview-of-b-squared-sendcast
• Email Dale – [email protected]
• Subscribe to the SENDcast - https://www.thesendcast.com/subscribe

The SENDcast is powered by B Squared

We have been involved with Special Educational Needs for over 25 years, helping show the small steps of progress pupils with SEND make. B Squared has worked with thousands of schools, we understand the challenges professionals working in SEND face. We wanted a way to support these hardworking professionals - which is why we launched The SENDcast! Find out more about how B Squared can help improve assessment for pupils with SEND in your school.

Attendance is not the problem. It's the signal. And until schools start treating it that way, children with EBSA will keep falling through the gaps.

In this episode, Dale is joined by Jack Mallaby, Assistant Headteacher and SENCO at Chiltern Way Academy, a specialist autism provision, to discuss emotionally based school avoidance - and why the answer is never more pressure.

Together, they explore:

- Why bums on seats is not the same as safety, engagement, or belonging.

- Why celebrating 100% attendance without considering why a child achieved it misses the point entirely.

- How a relational approach - relationship before curriculum - reduces incidents, builds trust, and saves time in the long run.

- Why reasonable adjustments are rarely as complicated as schools fear, and why giving a little gets you so much more back.

- Why consequences should replace punishments - and what a genuinely reflective conversation looks like in practice.

- Why collaboration between schools, families, and young people is not optional: parents are the experts on their own children.

"The attendance is the effect. It's what you're seeing as a result of something. It's a flag saying something's going on - but schools often don't see it as a flag."

Jack Mallaby

About Jack Mallaby

Jack Mallaby is an Assistant Headteacher and SENCo working within a specialist autism provision. He previously led Learning Support and SEND in a large mainstream secondary school, giving him experience across both mainstream and specialist settings.

Jack's work focuses on inclusive SEND strategy, EBSA, autism, SEMH, attendance, safeguarding, behaviour, curriculum access and EHCP processes. He works closely with families, schools, therapists, health professionals, local authorities, social care teams and commissioners to develop practical, person-centred support. He is particularly interested in moving EBSA conversations away from blame or compliance and towards understanding, safety, relationship, reasonable adjustments and sustainable re-engagement with education.

• B Squared Website – www.bsquared.co.uk
• Meeting with Dale to find out about B Squared - https://calendly.com/b-squared-team/overview-of-b-squared-sendcast
• Email Dale – [email protected]
• Subscribe to the SENDcast - https://www.thesendcast.com/subscribe

The SENDcast is powered by B Squared

We have been involved with Special Educational Needs for over 25 years, helping show the small steps of progress pupils with SEND make. B Squared has worked with thousands of schools, we understand the challenges professionals working in SEND face. We wanted a way to support these hardworking professionals - which is why we launched The SENDcast! Find out more about how B Squared can help improve assessment for pupils with SEND in your school.

If you missed the Tes SEND Show last week - or were there but couldn't make every session - this is worth a listen. This is a special episode recorded live at the show, where Dale was joined by Samantha, founder of Journey With Me and an independent SEND advisor with over 20 years' experience working across early years and primary settings. Sam was at the show delivering a session on emotional regulation through the lens of neurodivergence, and the conversation covers a lot of ground from that session and beyond. Dale and Sam explore why co-regulation must always come before self-regulation, how neurodivergence presents so differently in girls and boys - and why girls are identified so much later as a result - and why understanding fight, flight, freeze, and fawn matters for anyone supporting neurodivergent children. They also have a fascinating conversation about neurodivergent play: why no play is wrong, what schema play tells us about how children are developing, and why a child who lines up cars or spins wheels rather than building a track is still fully engaged - and deserves to be met where they are, not redirected to where we think they should be. Sam also shares the thinking behind her brand name, Journey With Me - and why her role, as she sees it, is not to pull children towards a fixed destination, but to join them on their own path. About Samantha Asher

Samantha Asher has over 20 years, experience of working with children across the early years and primary education sectors. She previously led an early years team, that was dedicated to supporting children across the Early Years, and Key Stage One with characteristics of emerging SEND.

Samantha Asher is the founder of Journey with me, an independent SEND support service, offering support to Early Years and Primary settings. Her work is rooted in a strengths-based approach, that is dedicated to supporting every child, based on their own unique profile.

Samantha is committed to delivering high quality, flexible support that considers the needs of the children, families and the wider school community. Samantha works closely with educators, understanding the realities and pressures of school life, and is committed to offering practical, manageable and effective strategies. She believes that building strong relationships are at the heart of inclusion and is dedicated to helping practitioners feel confident and supported, enabling every learner to thrive!

About the Tes SEND Show

The Tes SEND Show is the UK's largest event dedicated to special educational needs and disabilities, bringing together teachers, SENCOs, school leaders, therapists and parents for two days of CPD, seminars and exhibitors.

This series brings you short summaries of some of the 2026 seminar programme, recorded on site in our pop-up podcast studio. A new episode lands every Tuesday for eight weeks.

https://tessendshow.co.uk/

https://thesendcast.com/tes-send-show-special-episodes/

• B Squared Website – www.bsquared.co.uk
• Meeting with Dale to find out about B Squared - https://calendly.com/b-squared-team/overview-of-b-squared-sendcast
• Email Dale – [email protected]
• Subscribe to the SENDcast - https://www.thesendcast.com/subscribe

The SENDcast is powered by B Squared

We have been involved with Special Educational Needs for over 25 years, helping show the small steps of progress pupils with SEND make. B Squared has worked with thousands of schools, we understand the challenges professionals working in SEND face. We wanted a way to support these hardworking professionals - which is why we launched The SENDcast! Find out more about how B Squared can help improve assessment for pupils with SEND in your school.

Behaviour policies were never designed to be a log of misery. But for too many children, that's exactly what they've become.

In this episode, Dale is joined by Adam Hayes, Managing Director of Therapeutic Thinking, to discuss behaviour policies - and what it would actually take to make them work for every child.

Adam brings extensive experience across social care and education, and a refreshingly honest perspective on why so many schools are still punishing children for having an unmet need rather than helping them address it.

Together, they explore:

- Why behaviour policies too often focus entirely on deficit - what children aren't doing - rather than building a shared understanding of what we value and why.

- What a behaviour curriculum actually is, and why it's the missing piece that turns a policy from a document on a shelf into something that's lived and breathed across a school.

- Why children should be taught why a rule exists, not just expected to follow it.

- Why every interaction is an intervention, and why children need to feel liked, loved, respected, or safe before behaviour change can happen.

- The problem with rewarding 100% attendance.

- Why we need bold children who ask why — and what we lose when we train that instinct out of them.

"Experiences lead to feelings, and feelings create behaviours. If my intervention wouldn't work in the staff room, why do I think it will work in the classroom?"

Adam Hayes

A candid, thought-provoking, and at times genuinely funny conversation that will make you look at behaviour very differently.

About Adam Hayes

Adam has extensive experience in both Social Care and Education, both mainstream and SEND, having worked across the full range of ages and stages of education. He joined Therapeutic Thinking Ltd. from his role with Hertfordshire County Council.

During his time with Hertfordshire Adam held a range of roles including Area Manager for Integrated Services for Learning, County Inclusion Lead, and Behaviour Advisor and Hertfordshire Therapeutic Thinking County Lead. Adam has a solution-focused approach which ensures that young people are at the centre of all that he does. This child centred work has been positively recognised by the stakeholders he works with. Adam has become the managing director of Therapeutic Thinking and as such is taking this positive, well considered approach forward and sharing it more widely with Local Authorities, Trusts and standalone schools.

• B Squared Website – www.bsquared.co.uk
• Meeting with Dale to find out about B Squared - https://calendly.com/b-squared-team/overview-of-b-squared-sendcast
• Email Dale – [email protected]
• Subscribe to the SENDcast - https://www.thesendcast.com/subscribe

The SENDcast is powered by B Squared

We have been involved with Special Educational Needs for over 25 years, helping show the small steps of progress pupils with SEND make. B Squared has worked with thousands of schools, we understand the challenges professionals working in SEND face. We wanted a way to support these hardworking professionals - which is why we launched The SENDcast! Find out more about how B Squared can help improve assessment for pupils with SEND in your school.

Burnout isn't one big thing. It's lots of smaller things, building and building - until even the smallest demand tips you over the edge.

Joe Fautley, project coordinator at the Council for Disabled Children and neurodiversity advocate, returns to the podcast to discuss burnout, communication, and what it takes to build inclusive environments for autistic learners.

Joe speaks from lived experience. Non-verbal for much of his childhood, he lost hard-won communication skills when he moved to an unsupportive mainstream school, and spent years managing severe anxiety and extended absences. His story is also one of remarkable growth: from a child who couldn't speak verbally, to someone who now delivers public talks and co-facilitates training for education professionals.

Together, Dale and Joe explore the direct relationship between belonging and burnout, why communication and mental health are inseparable, and why the single most important thing a school can do is ask the young person what they need - and actually listen to the answer.

About Joe Fautley

Joe Fautley is an Autistic and neurodivergent advocate with over 10 years of experience in a variety of personal lived experience advocacy and professional training work for Autism, neurodiversity and Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND).

Joe is a relentless and determined advocate for positive change and engages regularly with professional networks across the SEND community with over 6,000 connections and followers on LinkedIn. Joe has delivered many presentations to various audiences.

Outside of his full time day job at the National Children's Bureau (NCB), Joe regularly contributes to various media, providing practical advice for professionals who support Autistic children and young people and adults using insights from his own personal lived experience.

Joe is the co-chair (a voluntary role) of the Staff Disability and Neurodiversity Network, launched in January 2023, for colleagues at NCB, ensuring they are supported and their feedback can influence positive changes in the workplace.

In 2025, Joe was a guest on an episode of the podcast "SEND in the Experts", hosted by Georgina Durrant from Twinkl Educational Publishing, in which he provided advice and strategies to help support teachers and educators.

Joe featured on an episode of the SENDcast in 2024, the #1 podcast for SEND hosted by Dale Pickles, in which he talks openly about his personal experiences of Autism and provides advice for professionals supporting Autistic children and young people in education.

Joe has written articles in several publications in the SEND and children's sector including Teach Secondary, NASEN Connect, SEN Magazine, Autism Eye, SecEd, Headteacher Update and Children and Young People Now Magazine, and featured in a blog for SENsational Tutors.

Joe was invited by NASEN to be a speaker at their conference in Birmingham in July 2025. At this conference, Joe delivered a seminar titled "A Lived Experience: Practical Advice for Educators Supporting Autistic Children and Young People". Joe also joined a panel discussion at this conference with other inspiring advocates who all shared openly their personal lived experiences.

• B Squared Website – www.bsquared.co.uk
• Meeting with Dale to find out about B Squared - https://calendly.com/b-squared-team/overview-of-b-squared-sendcast
• Email Dale – [email protected]
• Subscribe to the SENDcast - https://www.thesendcast.com/subscribe

The SENDcast is powered by B Squared

We have been involved with Special Educational Needs for over 25 years, helping show the small steps of progress pupils with SEND make. B Squared has worked with thousands of schools, we understand the challenges professionals working in SEND face. We wanted a way to support these hardworking professionals - which is why we launched The SENDcast! Find out more about how B Squared can help improve assessment for pupils with SEND in your school.

Today, Dale is joined by Terry Bolton - known as Telboy - a UK-based music producer, independent hip-hop artist, and parent of neurodivergent children, diagnosed with Tourette's and ADHD in his mid-30s to discuss Late Diagnosis, Loud Music and Parenting Neurodivergent Kids.

Terry brings an honest, funny, and at times deeply personal perspective to a conversation that covers late diagnosis, sensory overload, resilience, and what it really means to define success on your own terms.

They explore why Tourette's without coprolalia leaves so many people undiagnosed for decades and how Terry spent years masking his tics on stage without realising it. They also have a fascinating conversation about sensory overload - how context, certainty, and the people around you can completely change a sensory experience, and why the answer is rarely as simple as avoiding the thing that feels overwhelming.

And they talk about parenting: modelling resilience without pretending life is perfect, being honest with your kids about the days you're struggling and running your own race rather than constantly measuring success against everyone else.

About Terry Bolton

Terry Bolton (Telboy) is a UK-based music producer and independent hip-hop artist. As an adult diagnosed with Tourette's and ADHD, and a parent within a neurodivergent household, Terry delivers fast, introspective, and socially aware bars that tackle emotional conflict, stigma, and raw identity. His work focuses on lived consequences, accountability, and authentic representation for the neurodivergent community.

• B Squared Website – www.bsquared.co.uk
• Meeting with Dale to find out about B Squared - https://calendly.com/b-squared-team/overview-of-b-squared-sendcast
• Email Dale – [email protected]
• Subscribe to the SENDcast - https://www.thesendcast.com/subscribe

The SENDcast is powered by B Squared

We have been involved with Special Educational Needs for over 25 years, helping show the small steps of progress pupils with SEND make. B Squared has worked with thousands of schools, we understand the challenges professionals working in SEND face. We wanted a way to support these hardworking professionals - which is why we launched The SENDcast! Click the button below to find out more about how B Squared can help improve assessment for pupils with SEND in your school.

The SEND reforms have generated a lot of conversation - but one perspective has been missing from the debate. What does it mean for trusts? In this episode, Dale is joined by Helen Bray, Director of Inclusion at St Francis CMAT, and Simon Tanner, Director of School Improvement for SEND at Authentic Education, for a wide-ranging and at times refreshingly candid conversation about what the proposed reforms mean at trust level.

Together, they explore:

- Why accountability and capacity must move together - and why simply shifting responsibility away from local authorities without the right funding and workforce risks relocating the pressure rather than solving the problem.

- What the standardisation of EHCPs and ISPs could mean in practice, and why trusts working across multiple local authorities stand to benefit most. - How the Mainstream Inclusion Fund will work differently across schools of different sizes - and why trusts can't simply pool the money.

- Why Helen's trust has moved away from a standalone SEND register and replaced it with a vulnerability dashboard - and why that distinction matters for the children who fall through the gaps.

- Whether the 'Experts at Hand' proposal can actually deliver in practice, given the existing shortage of educational psychologists and speech and language therapists.

- Why executive function training is urgently needed - not just for TAs, but for every teacher in every secondary school.

"If we're going to formally shift greater responsibility away from the local authority model, we have to ask whether schools actually have the expertise, the funding, and the infrastructure to deliver on it — otherwise we're not solving a problem, we're just relocating where the pressure sits." Helen Bray An essential listen for trust leaders, MAT leads, and anyone navigating the SEND reform landscape.

• B Squared Website – www.bsquared.co.uk
• Meeting with Dale to find out about B Squared - https://calendly.com/b-squared-team/overview-of-b-squared-sendcast
• Email Dale – [email protected]
• Subscribe to the SENDcast - https://www.thesendcast.com/subscribe

The SENDcast is powered by B Squared

We have been involved with Special Educational Needs for over 25 years, helping show the small steps of progress pupils with SEND make. B Squared has worked with thousands of schools, we understand the challenges professionals working in SEND face. We wanted a way to support these hardworking professionals - which is why we launched The SENDcast! Click the button below to find out more about how B Squared can help improve assessment for pupils with SEND in your school.

In this episode, Dale is joined by Emma Muir, social media marketer, author, and education communication strategist, to discuss late diagnosis and whether being neurodivergent is a superpower.

Emma received her ADHD diagnosis at 45, on a day when she was also told she had severely fractured her back and her mother was being rushed to hospital. Dale and Emma explore what it really means to receive a late diagnosis and why so many neurodivergent adults spend decades being offered depression medication or HRT before anyone suggests ADHD.

They also have a fascinating conversation about whether ADHD is actually a superpower - and why the answer, as Dale argues, depends almost entirely on context.

About Emma Muir

Emma Muir is a social media marketer, author and Education and Communication Strategist at Clearcut Consultants. She was diagnosed with ADHD at the age of 45, on the same day she received a diagnosis for a severely fractured sacrum and learned her mother had been rushed to hospital. Her mother passed away on Mother's Day weeks later. Emma spent thirteen years as a childminder, during which time she also founded Nurture Socials, a marketing consultancy supporting businesses whose customers are parents. She is the author of Stop Being the Best Kept Secret, the first practical marketing guide written specifically for childminders.

Since her ADHD diagnosis Emma has come to understand and embrace her neurodiversity as a professional superpower. She reads rooms, spots what others miss, hyperfocuses with extraordinary intensity and brings the unfiltered perspective of a parent into every school and business she works with. She believes her ADHD explains every area of her career where she has been most successful. Emma is passionate about late diagnosis, about the power of understanding your own brain and about what becomes possible when you finally stop apologising for being different.

• B Squared Website – www.bsquared.co.uk
• Meeting with Dale to find out about B Squared - https://calendly.com/b-squared-team/overview-of-b-squared-sendcast
• Email Dale – [email protected]
• Subscribe to the SENDcast - https://www.thesendcast.com/subscribe

The SENDcast is powered by B Squared

We have been involved with Special Educational Needs for over 25 years, helping show the small steps of progress pupils with SEND make. B Squared has worked with thousands of schools, we understand the challenges professionals working in SEND face. We wanted a way to support these hardworking professionals - which is why we launched The SENDcast! Click the button below to find out more about how B Squared can help improve assessment for pupils with SEND in your school.

Schools have sensory rooms, sensory audits, and sensory-informed environments – but what about home? For many neurodivergent children, the place they're supposed to feel safest is quietly making things worse.

Today, Dale is joined by Natasha Grays, founder of The Sensory Haven, to discuss sensory support at home and how it supports regulation, learning, and sleep.

Natasha explains why so many families are unknowingly living in homes that are working against their child's nervous system – through lighting, noise, materials, and clutter – and why the good news is that the most impactful changes are often the simplest and cheapest to make.

Dale and Natasha explore:

– Why swapping a harsh overhead light for a soft lamp can shift a child's entire nervous system.

– How background noises that adults barely notice can feel genuinely painful to a sensory-sensitive child.

– Why the hard floors and minimal soft furnishings that look so good on Pinterest can turn a home into an echo chamber of stress.

"It's about making small, easy, practical changes to lower the sensory overload in the home."

— Natasha Grays

An episode full of ideas you can act on today – without spending a fortune.

About Natasha Grays

Natasha Grays is the founder of The Sensory Haven; a sensory design consultant, speaker, and CPD-certified Sensory Integration Facilitator helping families create calmer, more supportive home environments for neurodivergent and sensory-sensitive children.

With over 20 years of international interior design experience, alongside lived experience and extensive self-education around sensory processing, emotional regulation, nervous system wellbeing, sleep, and neuroinclusive environments, Natasha helps families better understand how lighting, noise levels, visual clutter, layout flow, and sensory stress can impact behaviour, anxiety, sleep, focus, and overall family wellbeing.

Natasha is also the creator of the S.E.N.S.O.R.E.E. Wellbeing Solution, a framework which underpins her approach to sensory wellbeing and sensory-friendly home design. Through sensory home audits, consultations, educational talks, and practical online content, she supports families in creating homes that feel calmer, safer, and more regulating for everyday life.

Her work has been featured in The Parent Teacher magazine, and through her YouTube channel, The Sensory Haven, she shares relatable skits, sensory design advice, and realistic wellbeing strategies to help reduce overwhelm and support emotional regulation, without the need for expensive renovations or perfectly curated homes.

• B Squared Website – www.bsquared.co.uk
• Meeting with Dale to find out about B Squared - https://calendly.com/b-squared-team/overview-of-b-squared-sendcast
• Email Dale – [email protected]
• Subscribe to the SENDcast - https://www.thesendcast.com/subscribe

The SENDcast is powered by B Squared

We have been involved with Special Educational Needs for over 25 years, helping show the small steps of progress pupils with SEND make. B Squared has worked with thousands of schools, we understand the challenges professionals working in SEND face. We wanted a way to support these hardworking professionals - which is why we launched The SENDcast! Click the button below to find out more about how B Squared can help improve assessment for pupils with SEND in your school.