Session 1 of 3: Leadership and Culture
- Online
- 19 Oct 2026 (13:45 - 14:45)
Led by Rachel Hargreaves, Chief Executive Officer, Ascent Academies' Trust, and Becky Jones, Director of SEND, Inclusion and Vulnerable Groups, GLF Schools.
The opening session explores what it takes to build and sustain an inclusive culture across a group of schools, rather than in a single setting. We begin with your own role: what working strategically actually involves, where your time is best spent, and who else needs to be on your team for that work to land. From there we look at how you come to know the schools you support, from the experience of their SENDCos and headteachers to the everyday signals in language, feedback, and pupil and family voice, so you can quality assure provision and identify where support is most needed.
We also consider how you enrol others in a shared vision for inclusion and communicate it with clarity, drawing on trusted resources including the Teacher Handbook: SEND, the EEF's guidance on SEND in mainstream schools, and the Five Principles for Inclusion. You will leave with a clearer sense of your priorities and a practical view of how to balance alignment across your schools with the autonomy each one needs.
This is the first of three sessions. You must book on all three sessions to participate.
Online
Suitable for: Senior Leader, Inclusion Manager/Leader, Governor
Meet your trainer
Rachel Hargreaves
Rachel is the CEO of Ascent Academies' Trust, a six-school specialist MAT in the North East and North Yorkshire. In her twenty-eight years in education, Rachel has worked across the sector in special schools, a mainstream secondary school with resourced SEN provision and all age mainstream and specialist Multi Academy Trusts. Rachel has been a headteacher/executive headteacher for 15 years and took up the post of CEO in January 2025.
Rachel has been Nort East regional lead for Whole School SEND since 2019.
Rachel has a National Professional Qualification in Headship and Executive Headship, an MSC in Leadership and Organisational Change and is an accredited Coach. Rachel is committed to improving the quality of provision for all children and young people with Special education needs and disabilities and developing the professional practice of colleagues in all settings.
Meet your trainer
Rebecca (Becky) Jones
Becky is an Executive Assistant Headteacher and Inclusion Lead across 5 Primary Schools in Oxfordshire run by the Multi-Academy Trust GLF Schools. She has previously held positions as Headteacher of Ambitious about Autism’s Treehouse School in North London and as Acting SENCO in a large secondary comprehensive. Becky holds Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) and completed an MSc in Psychology of Education at the Institute of Education, a Post-Graduate Diploma in Applied Behaviour Analysis at Bangor University and holds the NASENCO Award through Oxford Brookes University. She is a Specialist Leader in Education in the area of SEND. In her role as SEN Improvement Lead across GLF Schools, Becky currently leads the GLF Primary SENCO Network, facilitating exchanges of good practice between schools across the MAT. Becky has experience of designing and implementing SEND-specialist CPD programmes and developed a Teaching and Learning Policy based around current research on Cognitive Load Therapy. Becky has a sound knowledge of SEND practice, policies and research and is dedicated to improving education for children and young people with SEND.
