On Thursday 22nd October 2026, the Council for Disabled Children (CDC) ran a national online event for SEND Leads, DCO/DMOs and Commissioners from across the country.
The aim of the event was to update the sector, share knowledge and best practice and learn from each other. The main plenary session consisted of:
• Welcome, introductions, poll and objectives for the day (Anna Gardiner, Interim Director, Council for Disabled Children (CDC)).
• An update from the Department for Education (DfE) with a focus on partnerships (Claire Burton, Director of SEND&AP, DfE).
• Learning from the What Works in SEND programme to support future SEND reform (Natalie Parish, ISOS Partnership).
• Learning from our systems transformation work in local areas (Anna Gardiner, on behalf of Sam Paccia-Folkins, Programme Lead, CDC).
A recording of the plenary session can be found here.
Attendees at the event were also given the opportunity to attend 2x workshops on a variety of topics. Please find the workshop recordings on the links below.
1. Inclusion Bases: policy and implementation – opportunities and risks (Daniel Stavrou, Assistant Director, CDC).
2. ScopeSEND: An International Analysis of SEND Policy & Practice (Professor Susana Castro-Kemp, Professor of Inclusion, University of Birmingham).
3. The SEND reforms and specialist FE (Clare Howard OBE, CEO, Natspec & Ruth Perry, Senior Policy Manager, Natspec).
4. Strategic and Systemic Borough-Wide Transition Support: Ensuring No Child Falls Through the Gap (Erin Bundey, Enfield Strategic Lead for Transitions & Brad Cassidy, Deputy Head Teacher, St Ignatius College).
5. Renewing the Ofsted/CQC area SEND inspection framework: building on strengths and revising the current framework (Matthew Cunningham, Policy Lead for Area SEND Inspections, Ofsted).
6. Experts at Hand: Building a Locality-Based Model of Inclusion Through Multi-Agency Collaboration (Jayne Elliott, Inclusion & SEND Delivery Manager & Jacqui Dundas, Service Director, Children's Health and Wellbeing, Wakefield Council).
7. The benefits of collaborating with Early Years Stronger Practice Hubs (Theresa Johnson, East of England Early Years Stronger Practice Hubs).
Slides from the plenary session and the workshops are attached below.