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West Midlands

From the densely populated major city of Birmingham, to the rural areas of Shropshire and Herefordshire, the West Midlands is a diverse region.  Through our work so far, it is clear that there is a dedication to improve outcomes for learners with SEND across our region from families, schools, and professionals.   We aim to build on existing effective practice for our population of pupils with SEND so that children experience success in their learning and parental confidence improves.

We aim to do this through Whole School SEND’s vision to grow a ‘Community of Practice’ – a network where knowledge, skills and solutions are shared. This will build from the successful work that already exists within our region – sharing what is working and good news stories. We will identify the gaps and seek to work with local practitioners, our partners and family groups to respond to these areas through training, resources and support.                                                     

We believe that long term relationships are important in this process of improvement for children and young people with SEND. So links with professionals such as SLEs, NLEs and advisory services, through teaching schools, consortiums, academies and Local Authorities are vital to ensure that high quality SEND provision is sustainable and embedded within our schools.

The values of Whole School SEND which are central to the Community of Practice underpin all our work in the West Midlands. Sign up to access free resources and updates on training, research, opportunities to work together.

Image shows West Midlands region on a map

Local authorities in this region

Birmingham, Cheshire East, Cheshire West and Chester, Coventry, Dudley, Herefordshire, Sandwell, Shropshire, Solihull, Staffordshire, Stoke, Telford and Wrekin, Walsall, Warwickshire, Wolverhampton, Worcestershire.

Your Regional SEND Leads

Regional Lead

Dawn is the West Midlands Regional Lead for WSS. She is a qualified teacher and been in education for 25 years. She has extensive knowledge of Early Years, Primary and Secondary phases of education where she has lead on a range of curriculum areas, projects and leadership positions. She has been a SENCO for 12 years where she has worked in RP and mainstream and been a lead SENCO for her cluster of schools. She is currently a Specialist SEND advisor for Local Authority where she provides strategic advice and support to settings and is involved in a number of collaborative SEND strategies. She also delivers NASENCO in conjunction with MMU and is an Area SEND Ofsted Inspector.

A professional headshot of Dawn Cranshaw

Dawn Cranshaw

Deputy Regional Lead

Alison is the West Midlands Deputy Regional Lead for WSS as well as being the Headteacher of an outstanding generic secondary special school in Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire. She moved into this role having spent 11 years at Keele University running the PGCE Secondary programme and lecturing on the International Diploma in Education in India and Thailand.
 

silhouette generic black

Alison Parr

Deputy Regional Lead

Conrad currently works within the within the school improvement team at the Mercian Trust as its Director for Social Mobility. Previous to this role, Conrad served as a senior leader, for ten years, within one of the Trust’s secondary schools where he was also SENCo and pupil premium lead. Conrad has previously been a facilitator on both the NPQML and NPQSL programmes, undertaken training to become a school and MAT SEND reviewer, is a PP systems reviewer and an SLE (SEND). Within his professional practice Conrad is also a specialist teacher (Dyslexia) 
 

Image shows Conrad Bourne, Deputy Regional SEND Lead for the West Midlands

Conrad Bourne