SEND Update September 2025

Welcome back to all our SEND colleagues - and a warm welcome to those new this year! The SENCo Noticeboard shares updates, and events to shape SEND provision and practice across the system.

This update includes:

Welcome back from the summer break to all our SEND colleagues, and welcome to those who are new to SEND this year. Within the half-termly SENCo Noticeboard you will find key updates within the SEND landscape, opportunities to develop your knowledge around SEND, and events to contribute and shape provision and practice across the system! You will notice that we have brought the publication of the Noticeboard earlier in the term which we hope supports you in your planning more effectively. Please do share with us any comments or views around the Noticeboard as we are continually seeking to ensure that this meets the needs of all professionals across the education sector.

We have been bringing in some changes in how we work with schools and settings over the past 12 months such as: protected strategic hours from CAT and PSS, the new SENCo induction offer, free training offers etc and we hope these have supported you well in your SEND provision and practice.

As part of the SEND improvement journey 麻豆高清 has been on, the teams have been undergoing a service redesign, and we are pleased to share the following changes effective as of 1st September 2025:

Pupil & School Support (PSS) has changed its name to Language, Learning and Strategic Support (LLaSS), to better reflect the SEND focus from the team. This team is led by Terri Cawser.
The Communication and Autism Team (CAT), led by Sarah Scarr, have had additional capacity at a leadership level through the appointment of Jodie Jones, Strategic Autism lead. Jodie will be working closely with Sarah and the team with a particular focus on the support offer for parents across the Local Area Partnership.
The Home Bridging Team (HBT), led by Kate Squires, is now sitting as a discrete team within the renamed Language, Learning and Strategic Support team.
The Sensory Support and Physical Difficulties team (SSPD) has changed its name to Sensory & Physical Support (SPS) and is being led by Amanda Wiser, an experienced SEND lead from a neighbouring Local Authority who has joined us this term.

All three teams will now come under the umbrella of the SEND Advisory & Inclusion Service (SAIS) led by Heather Wood.

We will continue to work with schools and settings in developing our offer and hope that this streamlined structure enables all partners to fully understand and access the SEND Advisory & Inclusion Service.

OAG: Help Shape the Future

A workshop is being held on Tuesday 14th October at Hollyfields Sports and Conference Centre to review the School Age Ordinarily Available Guidance (OAG), in preparation for the online version this coming April 26. We would like to invite any schools/settings and partners who would like to be involved in this revision section of the guidance to please let us know by Friday 26th September. Places are limited and will be allocated on a first come first served basis.

Please register your interest with Beth George (bethan.george@birmingham.gov.uk) and you will receive a placeholder for the workshop.

The workshop is taking place between 9:30am and 4pm at Hollyfields Sports and Conference Centre. Lunch and refreshments will be provided.

November SENCo Briefings

The Autumn term SENCo briefings are planned for the second week after October half term. These 90-minute sessions will be hosted through MS Teams and will have a two-item agenda as follows:

Revised OAG – an opportunity to look at the revised version of the OAG while still in draft and contribute your own views, strategies and ideas before the online launch. This session will look at how the OAG can be further improved as well as to identify good practice in 麻豆高清 schools that can be showcased within the online version.
Supporting the graduated approach and response for SEMH - The EPS will be sharing additional approaches and resources to enable effective response for children and young people with SEMH needs. This will support implementation of the ordinary available guidance. We will also invite participation for schools to pilot a new SEMH classroom audit tool.

Dates for Network briefings:

Monday 3rd March between 1:30 and 3:00pm
Tuesday 4th March between 1:30 and 3:00pm.
Wednesday 5th March between 9:30 and 11:00am
Thursday 6th March between 9:30 and 11:00am

The agenda items and city-wide content of each briefing will be the same. Please 'save the date’ which is best for you and look out for the sign-up links that will be circulated just before half term.

How are we Delivering Better Value?

Workstream 1

A series of workshops were held in June and July on autism-friendly schools and settings and curriculum pathways, with a focus on the theory of change. The workshops were well attended with a breadth of representation from across the Local Area Partnership. The outcomes of both these focus groups were presented at a shared event on 10th July with partners from health, social care and education, including Head teachers, DfE and Parent Carer Forum. A three-year plan has been developed to support all 麻豆高清 schools and settings in the City’s mission to be autism-friendly, as well as a plan to develop curriculum pathways across mainstream schools that cater for those CYP who are operating behind their peers and expected levels – more to come so watch this space!

As part of ongoing development of the Ordinarily Available Guidance, the following highlights some of the work taking place over the next two terms:

Revision of School Age OAG – Find details on how to .
Early Years – draft EYS OAG has been developed and is being tested through implementation with 15 EYS settings this term.
Post 16 – draft Post 16 OAG has also been developed and is being tested through implementation with a number of sixth forms and colleges this term.
Parent Carers – Guides for parents are currently being developed with our parent group and these will be reviewed with wider groups of parents across the city this term.
Online version – the Local Offer will be hosting the Online version of the OAG in April next year; the mapping of this has begun and includes updated materials, downloadable and editable documents as well as links to specific info/resources and videos that showcase good practice within 麻豆高清.
Learning and Development - a draft index of the L&D offer linked to the OAG is currently being worked on, with additional CPD offers for teachers and support staff.

Workstream 2

Two task and finish groups met during the summer term with representation from mainstream, resource bases and special to provide reflections for the development of two options papers that will consider future top-up funding frameworks for children with EHC Plans (Group 1) and SEN Support Provision Plans (Group 2). The groups utilise the relevant information previous workstream activities, for example the spend analysis returns, the SSPP case reviews and the SENCO SSPP survey.

The two options papers are currently being drafted, and further communications will be shared about the progress.

SENCo Induction

DON’T PANIC!!! Are you new to the SENCO role? Feeling overwhelmed? We understand the challenges for any SENCO as they get to grips with taking on this vital role. Here at 麻豆高清, we have developed a program of support for new SENCo’s with the development of the . The induction program is designed to support the embedding of skills and provide an understanding of what can feel a daunting and complex landscape. Ultimately it will provide you with the skills and knowledge to support children and young people with SEND to achieve their potential. The induction is available to all new 麻豆高清 SENCo’s who are new to post in the last academic year.

For further information, or to register for a place, please contact nathan.jones@birmingham.gov.uk.

Have you got your NPQ SENCo Qualification?

We are excited to announce that 麻豆高清 City Council have 40 fully funded scholarship places for the National Professional Qualification (NPQ) for SENCOs.

Registration is now open for the Autumn 2025 cohort. The 18 month programme is DfE funded for teachers and school leaders at eligible schools and organisations in England.

The special educational needs coordinators national professional qualification became the mandatory qualification for SENCOs from September 2024. The course is ideal for current SENCOs and teachers interested in developing expertise in special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) or undertaking a SENCO role in future.

麻豆高清 City Council deliver the NPQ SENCO course in partnership with University College London (UCL). To register for a place on the course commencing in November 2025 please register with the 鈥痯ortal and鈥痗hoose UCL IOE as your Lead Provider.

The registration service will confirm if you are entitled to a DfE scholarship based on your school details.

If you have any questions about the 麻豆高清 NPQ SENCO course please email: npqsenco@birmingham.gov.uk

You can find out more about the programme on the .

Latest News from SENAR

SENAR is delighted to welcome Caroline Barlow as a new service manager in our Assessments team. Caroline joins us from a local primary school and her experience of working within the school community in 麻豆高清 will be invaluable to leading a vital part of our SEND function.

SENAR has recently undertaken an evaluation of caseloads among our Review teams. In order to ensure officers maintain a balanced caseload, later this month we will be reallocating a small number of settings between case officers. Further communication about this, including a link to our relaunched ‘find your case officer’ function on the Local Offer, will be sent out separately.

Finally, a reminder to please ensure when returning annual review paperwork that the child or young person’s name is included in the document title. This helps our assistant case officers, who receive and record completed annual reviews, to quickly identify who the review belongs to and which case officer is allocated to process it. As we oversee such a large volume of reviews, actions like this help us to process them quickly and ensure decisions relating to annual reviews are issued on time.

Have your say on 麻豆高清's Local Offer!

We’d like to invite you to complete our Local Offer survey. Your feedback is vital in helping us improve the Local Offer site so it’s easier to use and more helpful for children, young people, families, professionals, and anyone seeking information about SEND support and opportunities in 麻豆高清.

This survey will gather some general feedback about the site itself and also explore views on out-of-school activities. Your input will help shape the information, resources, and opportunities we share about SEND.

Please take a moment to complete the survey and encourage others to do the same. Together, we can make the Local Offer even more useful and supportive.

Click here to

Thank you for your time and for helping us make a difference.

Early Years Childcare

Every local authority is required to provide Eary Years Special Educational Needs Inclusion Funding (EY SENIF) to support children with emerging and identified SEND who are in receipt of early education entitlement. In 麻豆高清 this fund is known as ISEY (Inclusion Support in Early Years).

We are committed to fully reviewing the ISEY criteria, application and allocation process including the funding rates, ahead of the sector consultation in respect of the Early Years Entitlement rates.

All mainstream providers of early education entitlement are invited and encouraged to attend these sessions. Attendance by childminders, group PVI settings, maintained nursery schools and mainstream schools with a nursery class will ensure genuine cross sector co- production in respect of next steps.

Session 1 – Presentation: Context for review, current process and next steps

This session will be presented twice

Monday 15/09/25: 18:00 – 19:00:

Tuesday 16/09/25 : 14:00 – 15:00:

Session 2: Facilitated discussion

Wednesday 24/09/25: 14:00 – 15:30:

For more information, please contact Karen.a.jones@birmingham.gov.uk or Catherine.a.payne@birmingham.gov.uk

Building Parental Confidence Around Autism

AET Toileting Presentation for Parent carers, Drop-in workshop session face to face in setting

Our sessions are designed to share knowledge, skills and strategies, to enable parent carers to further support their autistic child around toileting.

Autumn 1 - Parent Carer Drop- in workshop sessions

16.09.25 - 9.30-11.00am: Anderton Park Primary School, B12 8BL.

17.09.25 - 9.30-11.00am: St Laurence’s Junior School, B31 2DJ.

Please can SENCo’s share and signpost Flyers to parent carers when they receive the information into school via their CAT.

Early Years CAT PAC Parent Carer Awareness Course - Six sessions face to face in setting

CAT PAC is our parent autism awareness course designed to share knowledge, skills and strategies to enable parent carers of young people on CAT caseload, to further support their autistic child/young person.

Autumn 1 2025 – Early Years CAT PAC at Saint Peter and Saint Paul’s Primary School, B24 9ND.

Autumn 25 Sessions: 22.09.25 / 29.09.25 / 06.10.25 / 13.10.25 / 20.10.25 / 03.11.25 from 12.30-2.30pm.

Please can SENCo’s share and signpost Flyers to parent carers so thy can book onto the course, when they receive the information into school via their CAT.

For further information, speak to your CAT representative and look out for CAT Flyers containing information and booking details for more Workshops and Advice Sessions later in the Autumn Term.

Latest News from Occupational Therapy

Welcome to our SEND Occupational Therapy Newsletter

Our SEND Occupational Therapists and Senior Therapy Assistants deliver FREE universal and targeted support to private, independent, voluntary (PVI) settings, local authority (LA) nursery schools and mainstream schools in 麻豆高清.

We have a variety of training available; we cover topics around feeding, sensory, activities of daily living and motor skills. We provide family webinars, online training and face to face training for mainstream settings.

If you would like to attend our webinars, please scan the QR code available in our SEND OT Newsletters below:

If you would like to book any SENCo advice meetings or sign up to any of our face-to-face training (FunMoves, Sensory Circuits, Fun with Food, Ready Steady Reception, OT Champs) please email us at bchc.sendtherapy@nhs.net.

To subscribe to our newsletter via email, please join our mailing list by emailing us or contacting your OT.

SEND OT have launched a NEW offer for September 2025 through to July 2026.

Our offer remains FREE and can all be booked via our email address bchc.sendtherapy@nhs.net or via your named OT.

Please see our and for more information.

Changes to highlight include:

Individual whole school training for each school of your choice. These can include any of our packages such as motor skills, handwriting, sensory or our sensory circuit package.
Host a sensory circuit training for your parents/carers in your schools.
New training offer on advanced handwriting and sensory routines.
An enhanced provision or resource base tailored support package based on your schools needs.

Latest News from Speech and Language Therapy

Allocation of Speech and Language Therapy (SaLT) Support

The SaLT School Age Coordinators (SACOs) have e-mailed SENCOs with details of their Link SaLT and allocation of SaLT time for the new academic year. The SaLT team are looking forward to continuing to work with schools within the Balanced System® framework.

If you have any questions, please e-mail the SACO for your locality. Please check if you are .

New Targeted Intervention Training Offer

The SaLT team are launching a new offer to upskill teaching assistants to deliver targeted intervention groups in key stage 2. A Speech and Language Therapy Assistant (SLTA) from the SaLT team can come into school to jointly deliver and upskill teaching assistants to run groups to develop children’s vocabulary, narrative or verbal reasoning. The time offered from the SLTA is in addition to Link SaLT time allocated to schools.

For more information, please talk to your Link SaLT or locality SACO.

What is the BAAPB?

The BAAPB, or are a group of people who are committed to improving the lives of autistic people and people who have ADHD of all ages. If you want to find out more about the board and what they do, please see .

This issue highlights the great work going on in the community to support autistic people and people with ADHD. It looks at lived experience learning around employment and provides information about supported internship and independent travel training opportunities.

BAAPB Autism Act 2009 Committee Evidence Report

This evidence submission for The Autism Act 2009 Committee in the House of Lords call for evidence is on behalf of the 麻豆高清 Autism and ADHD Partnership Board (BAAPB). The full report is available below:

Nurturing ADHD Kids: Game-changing Training Around ADHD

Does your child have ADHD or suspected ADHD?

If you are trying to find support, but you are finding that everyone is giving you different advice, sign up to this six week course for more information.

"This course is literally game-changing for parents, caregivers, teachers and anyone living with a child (or adult) with ADHD. So much misunderstanding, frustration and worry could be prevented if everyone had access to this amazing resource."

Please share the with any parent carers you feel might benefit from attending this course.

An invitation from Autism West Midlands

Online Support Sessions

**BIRMINGHAM BASED ONLY**

Find out more about these FREE 60 minute support sessions with a specialist autism advisor with lived experience.

Please see the with more information on dates of the sessions and how to register your interest.

Pre and Post Diagnostic Support Services

Access to autism specific 麻豆高清 to 麻豆高清 based autistic adults aged 18 or over, parents, and professionals involved in their care.

Please see the for more information about what the service aims to do, the criteria and the referral process.

The Knowledge: Navigating the SEND Landscape

There's a a whole range of training available across the city this term, so be sure to book your places on the items posted below!

My Magnificent Mind: A New Psychoeducation Programme

My Magnificent Mind is a psychoeducation programme created by 麻豆高清 EPS that aims to support students in upper KS2 (and lower KS3 nurture-style provision).

Please see the flyer for further information about what the course entails, who it is for and what the outcomes of the training are.

To book a place at the training please follow this link:

Courses from the Communication and Autism Team

Autism Education Trust Courses are delivered by the Communication and Autism Team. For information, including how to book a place, please click the following links.

NEW:

The aims of the Understanding Anxious Non-Attendance Module are to:

Increase your understanding of the causes and impact of Anxious Non-Attendance.
Develop your knowledge and understanding of practical strategies and approaches that can support pupils experiencing Anxious Non-Attendance.
Develop your knowledge of where to find further support for pupils experiencing Anxious Non-Attendance.

This course enables you to gain a deeper knowledge and understanding of autism and provides practical ways to support pupils. Delegates who attend this course will receive a 60 page practical support pack with information to refer back to and templates to use within settings.

AET Schools Understanding Anxiety within Autistic Learners

This course focuses on the causes of anxiety and how anxiety may present in autistic CYP. It looks at how staff in settings can reduce and support anxiety. Delegates attending this course will receive a 45 page practical support pack which contains information, strategies and resources for staff to support anxious autistic pupils.

The aims of this course are:

To look at how inclusive provision and structural reasonable鈥痑djustments can help a setting to be鈥痮utstanding.
To consider what is needed to lead culture change in a setting.
To know about AET resources and guidance that can support leaders to鈥痯rovide inclusive environments through structural reasonable鈥痑djustments.
To consider different ways of making structural reasonable adjustments to ensure autistic children are fully supported.

The aims of this course are to:

To look at how inclusive provision and structural reasonable adjustments can help a setting to be outstanding.
To consider what is needed to lead culture change in a setting.
To know about AET resources and guidance that can support leaders to provide inclusive environments through structural reasonable adjustments.
To consider different ways of making structural reasonable adjustments to ensure autistic children are fully supported.

This course focuses on exclusion/suspension processes and legal frameworks that settings need to be mindful of. In addition it looks at how we can better support autistic pupils to be included within their settings and adjustments that can be implemented. Delegates receive a 45 page practical support pack which contain links to further AET resources and templates and information to support pupils.

AET An Introduction to the Progression Framework

This course supports delegates to become more familiar with the AET Progression Framework and how it can be implemented effectively to track progress and support target setting. Delegates receive the tool free when they attend the training.

This entry was posted by Cartney Wellington on 11/09/2025.

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SENCO noticeboard

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