Dr Janet Rose is a currently Principal of Norland College and a former Associate Professor and Reader in Education at Bath Spa University. She has a wealth of experience in supporting children and young people, including those who have experienced trauma. She led the national pilot research project Attachment Aware Schools and Trauma Informed Practice, which comprised a comprehensive programme of support for children and young people affected by early attachment difficulties, trauma and neglect.   She is also co-founder of Emotion Coaching UK which trains and researches the use of Emotion Coaching as a practical strategy to support the development of children’s and young people’s self-regulation, behaviour, wellbeing and resilience, including children and young people who have experience trauma. She has worked closely with numerous Virtual Schools and organisations who support Looked After Children and is currently a member of the Ministerial Care Leaver Summit. She is the author of numerous academic and professional publications related to attachment and trauma, the most recent of which is a book entitled Emotion Coaching with Children and Young People. Janet is also a Level 1 Theraplay practitioner and a Sensory Attachment Intervention practitioner. She is currently undertaking a Fellowship programme with the University of Massachusetts on Infant Mental Health.

 

Miranda: Miranda Barker works as a Senior Lecturer in Education at Newman University with a focus on Special Educational Needs and Inclusion. In the past, she has worked as a primary teacher, SENCO, Specialist Teacher for Warwickshire and MAT Lead for Inclusion.

 

Keith Bishop is a qualified youth worker who has been working with children, young people and their families for over three decades. He has been a foster dad for over ten years and takes a keen interest in children with care experience and the families who foster them.

He is a Senior Lecturer in Social Policy and Programme Leader for the ‘Working with Children, Young People and Families’ degree at Birmingham Newman University.

Professional qualifications BA PGCE NPQH PQSI Current role 2017 to present:

• Consultant working to support the role out of attachment and trauma informed practice with four LAs, 3 FE colleges and a national charity.

Formerly 40 years of experience of working with young people in education:

• Head of the Virtual School for Children in Care and Care Leavers in Stoke-on-Trent 2009-2017, with responsibility for the education, training and employment pathways for 930 children in care and care leavers aged 0-25
• Strategic lead for ‘Learning Pathways’ in Stoke-on-Trent – commissioning and the operational hub framework for all alternative provision in the city
• 20 years of senior leadership experience: head teacher, associate head and deputy head in mainstream 11-18 and in special education for children with social, emotional and mental health needs.
• Ofsted inspector.
• Chair of West Midlands Virtual Heads
• Developed West Midlands Post 16 Learner Support Agreement – in Stoke 15% improvement in ETE and cross border protocols for the support of OOC CiC
• Vice chair of NAVSH [the National Association of Virtual School Heads] 2015-17
• Member of Buttle Trust Quality Mark steering group for CiC and Care Leaver support in HE and FE – all FEs and HEs in Stoke achieved this Quality Mark and doubled numbers in HE

Contributed to national policy and practice for children and young people in care:

• Housing and Leaving Care
  • In 2012 Tony, working with young people in care in Stoke-on-Trent and social care – developed the idea of the ‘House Project’ – www.thehouseproject.org – a new way of providing a home and holistic support for Care Leavers.
  • In 2014 he was successful in gaining £600k funding from the DfE Innovation Programme to set up the House Project and in 2016 he gained a further £3.7m from the DfE Innovation Programme to extend the project to 5 more Local Authorities.
  • After leaving Stoke in 2017, he was consultant till 2021 for the National House Project which become a charity in 2018.
  • 2023 – there are 22 House Projects nationally, working with 450 young people. Zero tenancy breakdowns and 100% of young people are in education, training, or employment.
• Mental health – attachment and trauma
  • University of Oxford Rees Centre and Alex Timpson Trust Attachment and Trauma Awareness Programme in schools – steering group member.
  • Member of expert group that developed DfE guidance on ‘Mental Health and Behaviour in Schools’ – 2018 · Founder and trustee of ‘the Attachment Research Community’ 2017 – 2021 – www.the-arc.org.uk – patron Sir John Timpson. ARC’s mission is ‘All schools attachment and trauma aware by 2025’.
  • Education representative on Social Care Institute for Excellence Expert Group on the mental health of children in care 2016
  • Education representative on NICE Guideline on Attachment 2015
  • Education representative on NICE Quality Standard for Attachment 2016
  • Expert witness Parliamentary sub-committee on the mental health of children in care 2015
  • Member of Minister of State for Vulnerable Children and Families – Edward Timpson – 2014 expert group on the education of Looked After Children.

Tina Coope is a former teacher with a Master’s Degree in Education who, until 2019, taught across a number of settings including both special and mainstream schools.

At the age of 7, Tina’s daughter developed the sudden onset of severe neuropsychiatric symptoms. Her daughter went very quickly from thriving in a school setting to requiring a one-to-one teaching assistant and developing special educational needs.

Five years later, in early 2019, Tina founded the charity PANS PANDAS UK, and was taken aback by how many other families were supporting children with strikingly similar symptoms. She started to volunteer for the charity, creating the resources that she wished had been available for her own family. In 2020, she became the education lead for the charity.

 

Chief Executive Officer, Liberty Academy Trust

National SEND Representative, ASCL

A leading thinker, writer and advocate who is always compassionate, creative, and authentic, Nic is currently the CEO of Liberty Academy Trust, which is a small Trust of specialist schools for autistic children and young people.  With over 25 years’ experience in education which spans primary, secondary, mainstream and specialist provision, her research interests are in the factors which contribute to educational underachievement.

 

She is a Council member for ASCL (Association of School and College Leaders) as the national SEND representative, and a member of the Ethics, Inclusion and Equalities Committee. She was founding Chair of the Women Leaders’ Network.

 

In September 2021, Nic was made an Honorary Teaching Fellow at the Centre for Teacher Education, University of Warwick, in recognition of her commitment and contribution to Teacher Education and Research.  She is co-author of Inclusion: A Principled Guide for School Leaders, published by Routledge, whilst Inclusion: A Principled Guide for Early Career Teachers is due for release in January 2025.

 

She can be found via X (formally Twitter) @Nic_Crossley1

 

“Nic is one of a very small number of leaders whose impressive career provides a unique insight to the way schools manage and deliver SEND provision, which she leverages for the benefit of some of the most disadvantaged young people in our schools”.

(Wiltshire Virtual Conference, December 2023)

 

 

 

 

 

Recent Publications

Articles

Crossley, N (2024) Three Policies to Get SEND Working Better Now (London, Schools Week) Edition 361, pp23 Available at: https://rb.gy/oaxovz

Crossley, N (2024) Ofsted Inspections: 8 Tips for Making Complaints (London, Times Educational Supplement) Available at: https://shorturl.at/VrckJ

Crossley, N (2024) Ten Questions with Nic Crossley (London, Times Educational Supplement) Available at: https://shorturl.at/HuJ1Z

Crossley, N (2023) National Careers Week: Six Ideas to Support Students with SEND into Work (London, Schools Week) Available at: https://bit.ly/4046Qqo

Crossley, N (2023) Why Wait until 2025 to Tackle the SEND Postcode Lottery (London, Times Educational Supplement) Available at: https://bit.ly/3KvVmWV

Crossley, N (2022) Children with SEND are Vulnerable – and the most exposed (London, Times Educational Supplement) Available at: https://bit.ly/3YZyUuO

Crossley, N (2021) Voices for Change (London, Association of School and College Leaders) Available at: https://bit.ly/3at2Sk3

Crossley, N (2020) Closing the Opportunity Gap for Learners with SEND Beyond the Pandemic (London, Queen Street Group) Available at: https://rb.gy/2odeiu

 

Books:

Crossley, N and Hewitt, D (2025, publication pending) Inclusion: A Principled Guide for Early Career Teachers (London, Routledge)

Crossley, N and Hewitt, D (2021) Inclusion: A Principled Guide for School Leaders (London, Routledge) Available at: https://bit.ly/3oeqbbe

 

Contributions to Educational Inquiry:

UK Parliament: Public Services Committee (March 2024) The Transition from Education from Education to Employment for Young Disabled People available at: https://shorturl.at/WWYZW

UK Parliament: Education Select Committee (March 2023) Special Educational Needs (SEND): Oral Evidence into the SEND and AP Improvement Plan available at: https://shorturl.at/tLQ0u

After spending eight years as a primary school teacher, Ben completed his PhD exploring the disruption of hetero and cisnormativity in UK primary schools, he is now a senior lecturer in Education Studies at Birmingham Newman University. He is interested in critical pedagogy, education for social justice and how enacting everyday activism can shift social norms to support more equitable systems.

 

Sohail is Senior Lecturer for Primary Initial Teacher Education on the PGCE and Undergraduate programmes. The main emphasis of Sohail’s teaching is around promoting an engaging and practical science experience/curriculum for all students and working towards the goal of maintaining children’s curiosity. After graduating with BSc (Hons) Environmental Biology from the University of Birmingham, Sohail completed the Graduate Teacher Programme (QTS) based in a Birmingham primary school. This followed employment with Education Welfare Services, working with vulnerable children across the city as well as working as an Integration Assistant supporting children on the Autistic Spectrum. He then went on to work as a primary school teacher in schools across the West Midlands before joining Birmingham Newman University in 2011. Sohail completed his MA in Education where his research focus was around the potential impact of a Forest School approach on the practice of trainee teachers in primary schools. Over a number of years, Sohail has continued to develop an existing partnership with Malardalen University in Sweden, taking groups of postgraduate students to explore the benefits of outdoor learning for children and young people. Sohail hopes to renew this partnership post-Covid. More recently Sohail has been involved in the launch of the Anti-Racism Framework for ITE/ITT. Having attended the launch event at Leeds Beckett University in March 2023, Sohail has begun to embed the framework into the UG and PGCE programmes. For example Sohail has delivered sessions to whole cohorts where the framework has been introduced to students alongside ideas as to how anti-racism pedagogy can be embedded into students’ school placements. In addition key documentation has been amended to reflect the commitment of all university and school staff, alongside all students, to comply with the key messages within the Anti-Racism Framework for ITE.

Charlotte Moore has been lucky enough to be a specialist teacher of children with Social, Emotional and Mental Health needs for the last 13 years and now works with teachers and leaders across Birmingham in both special and mainstream settings to support the development of teaching practice around meeting the social emotional learning needs of all pupils.

Nick originally trained as a secondary History & Politics teacher in mainstream 11-18 schools. He has worked as a Middle and Senior Leader in a diverse range of schools, including several inner city 11-18 mainstream schools, gaining the National Professional Qualification for Headship in the process. Nick currently works as Director of Futures Teaching Alliance, and works in strategic school improvement within The Futures Trust, a MAT of nine schools in Coventry, Warwickshire and Leicestershire. Futures Teaching Alliance leads work with teachers, leaders and education professionals across Warwickshire, West Midlands, Leicestershire, Oxfordshire and Northamptonshire to provide teachers with the ‘Golden Thread’ of teacher professional development. Futures Teaching Alliance is also a Teach First National SCITT Regional Delivery Partner. Nick is a member of the MAT Central Team, Best Practice Network National Advisory Board and sits on the MAT Headteacher Board and Curriculum Leads Steering Group. He is also a Trustee of the Attachment Research Community.