SEND Collective

When educators and leaders are equipped with the tools, trust, and professional development they need, they can focus on what they do best: teaching, guiding, and inspiring learners to overcome barriers and achieve their potential.

This event offers a timely and practical exploration of how trauma-informed, inclusive, and motivational teaching practices can help address the growing pressures across the further education and skills system for all learners, whether they are progressing from school to college, starting an Apprenticeship, or those returning to learning as adults.

While support remains uneven across the system, our focus is on building the confidence and capacity of educators and leaders to respond effectively to diverse learner needs within a system-wide culture of inclusion. Drawing on current policy and research evidence, the event will explore how inclusive practice can underpin equitable access, participation, and achievement across the learner journey.

Attendees will engage with, for example, practical approaches including reasonable adjustments for Apprentices and employers, adaptive assessment strategies that uncover hidden barriers to learning (particularly in English, maths, and digital inclusion), and approaches to address the intersections between SEND, neuro-inclusion, and socio-economic disadvantage.

Breakout sessions will share good practice in delivering effective SEND and inclusive provision within FE and skills, focusing on policies and approaches that create psychologically safe learning environments, strengthen professional resilience, and build partnership with employers and local skills systems, ensuring every learner, at every stage, can achieve.