Core Training for SENCOs in Early Years Settings

Course overview

This course enables all SENCos to have a greater understanding of their role and responsibilities. These three half day sessions each cover different aspects of the SENCO's role. At the end of three sessions, SENCOs will have a greater understanding of how to manage and organise their work, how to identify children, make referrals and organise groups.

SENCos will be expected to attend all three sessions, will be visited in their setting and will receive an information pack. SENCOs will be presented with a certificate at the end of the three sessions.

This training is suitable for:

• SENCOs in Hackney’s early years settings.

• Target audience:
• Early Years
• Primary

Early Years Senco Conference

Cost and Location TBC

• Target audience:
• Early Years

Makaton Level 1

Course overview

Makaton signing and symbols can be used to support a range of learners to develop their expression and understanding. This nationally accredited one-day Level 1 course (replacing the first part of Makaton Foundation Workshop) provides a detailed introduction to Makaton’s place in supporting communication as well as practical sign vocabulary and an introduction to using symbols. Videos show how Makaton can be introduced at home or in an education setting. 

Course objectives

• To learn signs and symbols of the Makaton language programme (stages 1-2).
• To understand how Makaton can be used to help pupils with communication difficulties to access learning and social interaction at school.

Who should attend?
SENCOs, teachers, learning support assistants and teaching assistants in primary and secondary mainstream and special schools responsible for using and teaching.

 

• Target audience:
• Early Years
• Primary
• Secondary
• Post 16

• Included in package:
• Not Included

SEND Conference

 

Hackney’s annual SEND Conference will be merging this year with Wellbeing and Mental Health in Schools (WAMHS) to host our first Inclusion and Mental Health Conference on Wednesday, June 18th, 2025.

Venue:  Teeside University, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, Here East, Press Centre, 14 E Bay Ln, London E15 2GW

 

A joint SEND and WAMHS conference to explore the complexities and importance of inclusion in order to better support our practice around mental health in Hackney schools.

Key note speakers and a series of workshops that will provide you with:
- Practical interventions and effective tools you can bring back into your practice
- Exploration around the challenges to inclusion
- Collaborative approaches across Education and Health

 

£120 +VAT per school.

We encourage SENCOs and Mental Health leads to jointly attend; please place a booking for one member of staff and email cpdadmin@hackney.gov.uk with the names of any additional delegates.

 

Confirmed Keynote Speakers:

• Amanda Allard, Council for Disabled Children: Offering a national perspective on SEND and SEMH
• Liz Cracknell, Anna Freud Centre: Presenting on Adaptive Mentalization Based Integrative Treatment

 

Workshops (choice of two):

• Understanding and exploring the impact of self- advocacy on learning and wellbeing for pupils with SEND. Learning from pupil, parent and teacher perspectives.

Learning to self- advocate is important to pupils' learning and well being so how do we help our pupils to self- advocate successfully?  This workshop will review key findings and insights from Hackney's current Self- Advocacy pilot, including successes and challenges. Attendees will be able to identify the essential skills, environment and resources needed in their schools to get started.

 

• Regulation in the classroom (learning from the Partnership for Inclusion of Neurodiversity in Schools (PINS) project

How we talk about and to children about regulation impacts significantly on their progress and experience of learning.  Autistic and ADHD children regulate differently, and an understanding and acceptance of what this looks like can help our teachers to manage their own expectations of their classroom and, in turn, regulate their stress.

 

• Reflective practice in schools in the context of supporting children with SEMH needs

An introduction to reflection and reflective practice, what it is, why it is important in the context of supporting CYP with social, emotional and mental health needs. Models of reflection that can be used by teachers. An introduction to solution circles as a model of group supervision

 

• Supporting boys' emotional development

The workshop will invite participants to discuss 'boys talking' and explore the barriers. It will be an experiential space to open up a discussion around how boys talk about their feelings through a structured discussion. We will be thinking about how boys are socialised, the impact of social media and who should be addressing this. An opportunity to reflect on some of the issues facing boys and how we are supporting them.

 

• Creative therapeutic approaches to inclusion in the classroom and beyond

School staff and CAMHS Practitioners who would like ideas to support creative engagement with young people who may struggle to engage with traditional therapeutic/teaching approaches which rely more on verbal communication. Workshop will be experiential and  provide attendees with exercises that can be applied individually and within a group/classroom setting.

 

 

• Joining the Dots: early intervention pathways for autistic children in schools

This workshop will explore how we can stay curious about the reasons for a child's presentation and be responsive to individual strengths and needs when we suspect possible autism. What does good practice look like in terms of early conversations with parents and class based intervention? CAMHS will also share emerging practice around their new Hub and Spoke diagnostic model.

 

• How Hackney services can successfully collaborate with schools to support children and young people with EBSNA

This workshop will involve sharing of learning, resources and best practice from the EBSNA pilot, alongside an opportunity for schools and clinicians to share their own experiences of what works well and what the barriers are.

 

• CALM at All Saints Catholic High School: A Whole-School-Approach to Self-Regulation and Emotional Wellbeing

This workshop will explore a whole-school-approach project aimed at fostering a culture of emotional awareness, resilience, and self-regulation among secondary school students, the All Saint's Catholic High School's CALM approach. You will gain: an understanding of the core principles of CALM, insight into how CALM fosters a culture of and resilience for all students, practical tools and approaches to support self-regulation and reduce dysregulation, evidence of successful implementation and opportunities to reflect on how the approach can be adapted and embedded within their own professional settings.

• Bereavement

This workshop will provide attendees with some best practice research for schools and practitioners when supporting children and families following bereavement, as well as sharing some initial themes from a scoping audit into bereavement practices in Hackney. Attendees will have the opportunity to reflect together about how this might inform practice in their own settings

 

• Target audience:
• Primary
• Secondary
• Early Years