SEND CPD Opportunities
Operational SENDCo Development Programme
The Operational SENDCo Development Programme is run in collaboration with Kernow Learning and aims to provide career development opportunities for our support staff and/or those considering a career as a SENDCo. This programme also adds operational capacity across our schools. The programme covers 10 modules and involves 5 face to face theory sessions, school-based tasks, and a self-reflection journal. Delegates on the course are assigned a mentor and have the opportunity for placements in other settings.
Person-centred approaches for enabling student voice
A workshop for staff involved in working with students across all areas of SEND: this workshop offers a chance to explore different approaches to gaining student voice, developing your toolbox in this area and helping all students to feel central to their plan/do/review cycles.
We will look at Talking Mats, a range of visual cards tools, reflective debriefs and tools to support children in being prepared for meetings.
You are also invited to bring along to this session any tools that you find useful in your work with young people to share with colleagues.
Emotionally Based School Non-attendance (EBSNA) Session 1
A two-session workshop that aims to build knowledge, understanding and practice in the area of emotional based school non-attendance.
In the first session will explore the push and pull factors of EBSNA, look at some assessment tools that can be used when EBSNA is evident and you will have the opportunity to reflect on the current response to EBSNA in your own school settings.Intervention Training: Draw and Talk
Draw and Talk is a 1:1 intervention that supports children and young people across the primary and secondary age range who are experiencing challenges in emotional well-being, adverse childhood experiences and/or worries in their life.
It is a structured, time-limited intervention which is child-led and facilitated by an adult.
Those attending the training will then be equipped to begin the 1:1 intervention and will be expected to attend online group supervision sessions for the duration of the intervention.
There will be the expectation that those attending the training will be given at least one session/week to work with an identified student and be released from their timetable to attend the supervision sessions.
Intervention Training: Lego Therapy Groups
Lego Therapy is a small group intervention facilitated by an adult who has attended the initial training session.
Lego Therapy groups directly work on social communication, expressive and receptive language skills, attention and listening and executive functioning skills.
The training will go through how to set up, facilitate and run a Lego Therapy Group and follow up online support and supervision sessions will be provided to facilitate the development of these groups in school settings.
Pre and post measures are built into the intervention to ensure that the intervention is identifying the impact of the time allocated.
Lego Therapy Groups can be successfully run in KS1/KS2 and KS3; they are also an excellent intervention for use in ARB and/or specialist school settings. In order to develop and run this group intervention successfully in your school, there will be a requirement to ensure Lego kits are purchased and maintained in the individual school settings.Assess/Plan/Do/Review Toolbox Development: Positive Behaviour Support Planning
A PBS plan is a document created to help identify, make sense of and address the underlying need that an observed behaviour may be communicating. PBS plans are helpful in situations where behaviours are becoming challenging within a school context and where a closer analysis is required to identify unmet needs. The purpose of PBS planning is to help young people build new skills and ways of communicating their needs and support all key staff working with a young person to use the same approaches and strategies to connect with them. This workshop will explore polyvagal theory, levels of regulation and the arousal cycle to provide a framework to understanding behaviours that can challenge.
Understanding The Blank Levels; a framework and intervention for supporting language understanding and communication
This workshop provides an awareness of The Blank Levels as a framework that can be used by schools to support planning, identification of children who may require more support in understanding language around them and within their learning.
There will be the opportunity to look at whole school level approaches, targeted approaches, assessment and intervention for children who may require this.
The Blank Levels is an approach that is best placed at a whole school level where all staff have an awareness and understanding of this.
This workshop will provide an initial overview and awareness raising for those who have a strategic position in school and who may be interested in piloting the development of this approach in their settings.
Reflective Practice Session: Solution Circles Workshop
A workshop which will explore the use of solution focused approaches to develop practice for school staff. The use of solution circles is a helpful approach that can assist those supporting school staff move forward with a situation that feels challenging or ‘stuck’.
You will have the opportunity to experience a solution circle and reflect on current provision of reflective practice in your own school settings. The best hope for the session is for participants to leave more confident in facilitating a solution circle approach with colleagues in your settings.