12th March 2025
Programme Outline - Creative inclusion
Keynotes
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Mark Vickers MBE
In Conversation with Ofsted
Mark will be joined by senior officers from Ofsted for a fireside chat to discuss the SEND and inclusion landscape and future Ofsted developments.
Frances Akinde
Creative Solutions for Truly Inclusive Classrooms
Explore Practical Strategies: Learn innovative, easy-to-implement techniques for fostering inclusivity in classrooms, ensuring every student feels valued and supported.
Focus on Strengths-Based Approaches: Understand how to highlight and build upon the unique strengths of all learners, including those with SEND, to create a more empowering learning environment.
Embed Inclusion in Daily Practice: Discover creative solutions to integrate Universal Design for Learning (UDL), assistive technology, and diverse teaching materials into everyday classroom practices for long-term cultural change.
Ginny Bootman
Title: tbc
Session Outline to follow
Panel Discussion

Panel members to be announced shortly
Workshops
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Nathan Burns
Teacher Educator, known for his expertise as Mr Metacognition
Developing Independent and Resilient Learners
Exploring a range of different metacognitive strategies, this session will explore how we can up-skill our learners to provide them with greater resilience and independent learning skills. The strategies provided will be suitable for all learners, and possible to implement across all educational contexts without the need for more finance or staff.

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Ginny Bootman
SENDCo, Advocate and Author
Traffic Light Teaching
Session outline to follow

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Heba Al-Jayoosi
Assistant Head and Deputy Regional Lead
nasen Whole School SEND
Evaluating the use of Flexible Seating in a Mainstream Primary School for neurotypical and neurodivergent pupils
In this session, Heba will talk about her collaboration with academic partners, to introduce and evaluate the use of flexible seating as a whole-school adaptation, in a mainstream primary school. She will share the process, findings, and implications of the evaluation for education settings.

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Ann-Marie Oliver
Director of Education, Ethos Academy Trust
Understanding Trauma in the Classroom
The session will cover:
• Adverse childhood experiences
• Toxic Stress and the brain
• Understanding responses fight, flight, freeze
• Intervention and relational practice

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Danny Ross
School Improvement Officer, Ethos Academy Trust
Creating a Culture of Care: Embedding Nurture in Education
The session will cover:
• Applying the six principles of nurture in the classroom
• Creating a safe and inclusive learning environment
• Ensuring nurturing structure of the day
• Teaching social-emotional skills

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Kate Longworth
CEO, Gaia Learning
Power of Personalised Learning Pathways
Explore how interest-based interdisciplinary learning can ignite interest and engagement and build skills across subjects while meeting learners at their individual levels.
In this workshop, we’ll share Gaia Learning’s approach to designing personalised interest-based courses & lessons, showcasing how variable outcomes and rubrics help learners of all abilities engage with the same tasks in meaningful ways. You’ll leave equipped with strategies to integrate learner interests into classes and projects, create differentiated rubrics, and design lessons that promote autonomy, creativity, and deep learning.

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Cath Kitchen
Chair of the National Association of Hospital Education
Include me! Ideas for supporting learners with medical conditions in your school
There are an increasing number of learners in our schools with complex health conditions, which need to be considered in terms of inclusion. This workshop will explore a range of strategies and approaches you can use practically in your school to support learners who have medical conditions. This will include reflections from young people with complex health needs and their 'top tips' for educators around the best way to support them to attend.

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Nathan Burns
Teacher Educator, known for his expertise as Mr Metacognition
It's Oracy, Stupid!
We are clear that oracy is crucial to develop in the classroom, but how exactly do we go about doing this? This session will explore the overlap between metacognition and oracy, and explore a range of effective approaches that we can take to support the development of oracy, discussion and effective questioning in the classroom.

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Amy Walters
Deputy Head, Ark Teacher Training
Ryan Kendall
Inclusive ITT: training teachers in special schools
Primary Curriculum Lead & Tutor, Ark Teacher Training
As an ‘outstanding’ school centred ITT provider, Ark Techer Training works with over 100 primary, secondary and all-through schools nationally, with around half of them beyond the Ark Schools network. For the past three years, we have partnered with several special schools, which has provided an incredible opportunity to uphold our aim of developing confident and proficient teachers to embark on their career in multiple settings.
Working collaboratively with schools which specialise in teaching children with a range of special educational needs (PMLD, SEMH and SpLD) has benefited all parties, as we have evaluated how the signature strategies within our programme are relevant (or not) to these specific settings and how they can be interpreted and adapted so they address the needs of the trainee and their pupils, ultimately raising expectations for everyone.
In this workshop, we would like to share our evolving contribution to developing trainees within special schools and our ongoing challenges and opportunities to learn from professionals and children who work in these settings every day. The focus will be on codifying teaching techniques that positively impact pupils in mainstream and special schools and how these are developed in trainee teachers through a model of instructional coaching. We would value your expertise during the workshop as we work collaboratively to interpret and develop action steps that would support trainees to develop their practice.
This workshop is an excellent opportunity to work with and feed into a receptive and responsive ITT provider who are determined to improve the recruitment and retention challenges of the teaching profession by developing teachers with high self-efficacy in whichever setting they choose to pursue.

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Aimee Bedford
Behaviour and SEMH Trust Lead, Ethos Academy Trust
Therapeutic Play
The session will cover:
• How play can support brain development to the age of 25
• The benefits of play when supporting pupils with SEND
• Practical activities that can be used to support learning and transitions

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Sophie Moss
Headteacher, River Tees Primary Academy
Bridging the Gap: Effective Transition and Inclusion Support
Supporting transitions and fostering inclusion are vital components of a thriving educational environment, especially when catering to students with diverse and complex needs. This workshop is designed to share expertise, strategies, and real-world practices and aims to empower educators to create a more inclusive and supportive learning experience for all students especially those with Social Emotional and Mental Health needs.
Throughout the workshop, we will explore how an alternate provision provides tailored support during key transition periods, such as moving from primary to secondary, or transitioning into specialist settings as well as outreach support for students needing some intervention. The session will highlight effective practices, including personalized transition plans and collaborative approaches with families and professionals.
