So, it's just a couple of days before the Towards a Positive Future Special Educational Needs conference in Newbury - if you can make it at all, it'll be well worth the trip.
My presentation is all written and it includes some up to date information on the pathfinder trials for the SEN Green Paper for Surrey. What I've found is that those commentators outside the pathfinder really know little about what is actually happening within the workstreams.
Tomorrow, I'm off to a couple of meetings for the Surrey pathfinder, including the latest for the Education, Health & Care plan. We'll be reviewing a draft plan drawn up by the pathfinder lead, Susie Campbell who has collated lots of feedback from a previous meeting - quite an undertaking and I'm looking forward to seeing what she's come up with. Our feedback from Family Voice Surrey parent-carer forum was quite comprehensive.
Saturday's conference still has a few paces left and they can be boked online at http://www.wordswell.co.uk/tapf-conference-2012/booking.php
Among the keynote speakers are:
Clive Rawlings - Barrister - The Coalition Plan for Special Educational Needs: Cohesion or Corrosion?
Charlie Mead - Educational Psychologist - The Careless System
Martyn Sibley - Social Entrepreneur who has one aim 'To Change the World for Disabled People'
Jane Asher - Actress and President of the National Autistic Society
Delegates can also choose from a range of seminars including OT- Equipping young people with SEN and parents for Life After School; Differentiation in the classroom for children with autism; SLT - the SCAEP multi-sensory social communication skills programme; Getting Good Social Work Services; Implications of the Green Paper for Children with Dyslexia and Developing Communication Skills for Pupils with Down's Syndrome.
I'm really looking forward to meeting Debs Aspland, the chair of Kent parent-carer forum, who's delivering a presentation drawn from her experience as parent of a child with a diagnosis. We've built up a friendship via twitter and Facebook and narrowly missed meeting at the Labour SEN policy review meeting a few months ago. Social media is fab for making connections like this, especially as a parent of children with special needs, which can be socially isolating.
So, really hope to see you there if you can make it. And if you do, don't be shy and make sure you come up and say hello!
Tania is an experienced broadcast and print journalist & author. She also runs a PR, web & social media consultancy, SocialOro Media.
Tania is a rare disease & chronic pain patient advocate with Ehlers Danlos syndrome.
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Good luck with the conference – it sounds fantastic and I’m totally green with envy for anyone who is lucky enough to be attending.
Unfortunately finances won’t allow it for me but hopefully I’ll make the next one.
I’m sure you’ll have a fantastic day 🙂
Ann, there may be bursary places left. Why not give Wordswell a call – follow the link above.
Ann
Please e-mail me via http://www.wordswell.co.uk contact page if you can come as I now have 6 bursaries available as people have dropped out and it would be such a shame to waste the places at such a great event. Do pass this on to anyone else you know too.
kind regards
Janet
Hope all goes well. I would be interested in this, but I’m already booked in for another conference on the same day (the one conference of the year lol). It’s great to know that such a thing is happening, though. Thanks for this blog it’s a great way to keep up-to-date with all things SN 🙂
Thanks Zoe! Will be writing about it next week, so you’ll get the highlights.