Real Training now an accredited NPQ provider, supporting leadership in education
Following a tendering process we’ve been accredited by the Department for Education (DfE) as a provider of the new National Professional Qualifications (NPQs).
Why have the DfE changed the NPQs?
Having reviewed the ever-changing demands on educational leaders at all levels, the DfE have reformed the NPQs so that they:
- Prepare leaders more effectively for the range of leadership roles in today’s school system.
- Develop a strong and sustainable pipeline of talented, motivated leaders at all levels
- Put the best schools and organisations in the driving seat of leadership professional development.
- Focus on quality and diversity of provision.
Real Training is offering NPQs at three levels. These courses are suitable both for those currently in the relevant leadership role and those aspiring to move up into a leadership position.
All three courses are designed by education practitioners and educational psychologists to provide current, innovative and practice-focused training that will give school leaders the insight and tools they need to become highly effective leaders.
Launching these new NPQ courses alongside our established National Award for SEN Coordination, and the Masters in Leading Inclusive Education we’ve co-created with Middlesex University, we are continuing to develop new programmes – and constantly evolving existing ones – to foster a culture of outstanding leadership at all levels. And, as with all we do, this is with the aim of improving outcomes – for students, for education professionals and for schools.
NEW discount scheme accessible for all Real Training delegates
Following Real Group‘s 2017 acquisition of Dyslexia Action Shop, Dyslexia Action Training and Professional Development and the Dyslexia Guild, we are now able to offer an exclusive discount scheme. From now on, all current Real Training delegates will benefit from a 10% discount on all shop purchases.
The Dyslexia Action Shop is the first port of call for educators and parents to buy resources – everything from psychometric tests to books and games stocked.
Access your 10% discount today
To claim your 10% discount, you’ll need to complete the steps below and, once done, your saving will be applied to all purchases automatically.
- Register with Dyslexia Action Shop to create an online account.
- Contact the shop to advise us that your account has been set up and activated by calling +44 (0)1784 222339 or emailing shop@dyslexiaaction.org.uk. Your student discount will be applied to your account.
- Purchase the required assessment tests through shop@dyslexiaaction.org.uk.
We were delighted to watch our MEd SEND, PGCert and PGDip graduands graduate at Middlesex University on 12 July. Congratulations to all of our 290 graduates this year. We’re really proud of you.
We’re at stand B9 of London’s Autism Show at the end of this week (16–17 June).
This Friday, Dr Sue Sheppard speaks about challenges and opportunities in supporting the needs of students in schools: current issues and research.
Our very own Sue can be found at The Hub: Theatre 2 on Friday 16 June 2017 (12.50–13.10).
In the words of Dr Lorna Wing, Lead Consultant at the Lorna Wing Centre for Autism:
‘Sue combines her extensive psychological knowledge with considerable problem-solving skills to devise unique, creative paths for each individual. Her flexible and pragmatic approach is at the heart of her practice and ensures achievable outcomes in each context.’
With our upcoming CAP course on the horizon, we were delighted to speak with some of our previous course delegates about how using CAP has benefitted their practice. Dr Yehuda Marshall (consultant clinical psychologist) and Deborah Smith (specialist teacher) discuss cognitive profile analysis, and how the domain structure of CAP has deepened their understanding of a client’s strengths and weaknesses. Head to our People page to read the interviews in their entirety, or find them in the forthcoming issue 19 of The Send Practitioner.
In March, we were so pleased to welcome a new addition to the Real Group team: Mark Farthing.
As our new head of operations, Mark will be overseeing and managing many different elements of the business, to ensure that we continue to provide a consistently efficient and outstanding experience for our delegates as we grow. We spoke to Mark about his professional background and the effect he hopes his new role will have on the company.
What were you doing in your previous role, before joining Real Group?
‘Before joining Real Group, I was employed as a master scheduler at a company called Cummins. I worked in a few different roles during my seven years at the company, but that was what I was doing most recently. The role involved taking orders and then planning all of the production for the plant, on the basis of what the best plan would be for the lines to actually build the product.’
What is your background in terms of previous employment and education?
‘My role at Cummins has really been the central point of my career so far – which was based in manufacturing – but my degree was actually based in psychology and music technology. There wasn’t a particularly clear path for me in those subjects at the time, so I started to build a career in management: managing people, production lines, and professional staff as well, and also planning large portfolios of work.’
What particularly attracted you to the role within Real Group?
‘I’m really passionate about managing people and helping them to develop, it’s something that I really enjoy. As well as that, the role is very local to me, and Real Group is of course based in the field of psychology, which was a real draw – it’s very exciting to be part of that world again. I didn’t think that I would get the opportunity to be part of it because I didn’t pursue any postgraduate study.’
What is the main purpose of your role?
‘My role is still very new and will develop more over time, but I will mainly be managing the team and bringing an operational standpoint to the role. So, for example, I will be looking at data analysis, process improvements, mapping out our processes in the department, looking at our budgets and hourly costs – all things that I have experience of, which are quite important for us to know. I want to make sure that people are given the opportunity to progress in the way that they would like to and that they can see a clear path to the next stage of their development. It’s important that people have a vision of how they would like to progress because I believe that is how you get bigger and grow as a business.
‘I think it’s a very exciting time to be part of a business like Real Group, as we are in a massive period of growth in which the company is becoming a real, professional entity. We have to be very careful operationally as we move from looking after hundreds of delegates, to thousands. That is what I believe my role will be based around largely – looking at whether we need to increase our resources to facilitate that kind of growth. I haven’t been here very long so I have a lot to learn, but it’s a really good challenge to have.’
What have you particularly enjoyed since joining the company?
‘So far I have really enjoyed meeting and getting to know the team. Everyone I have spoken to has been so welcoming and nice and they are all really helping me to learn – so I feel like I have hit the ground running. It’s nice to work with people who have such a historical insight into the company, are open and willing to learn, and help others to learn. Some members of the team used to do multiple roles and as the company gets bigger that isn’t really viable anymore. My role – as I see it – is to ensure staff members take ownership of what is theirs, with a broader view of the business, and that is quite a fine balance to strike with people. It’s a good challenge to have, that we are looking at growth.’
Is there anything you are particularly looking forward to within your role at Real Group? Perhaps something you are planning on implementing or launching?
‘I am still very new to the role of course, but I am working on analysing course feedback at the moment which is very exciting; I really want to use that to its full potential. We know that we are already doing a great job, but it is important to calibrate yourself with that feedback constantly, so that we know how we are seen by our customers. We are making a lot of changes within the organisation and looking at those changes from an internal point of view, so we must make sure that we hear the customer’s voice and understand how they see things. We also have a lot of IT projects underway, which I am working to prioritise and make sure that we focus our efforts appropriately, as those projects affect marketing, operations, and our delegates.’
What are your interests outside of work?
‘I play saxophone in a band and we regularly play shows on weekends. I also go running every day and I play cricket as much as I can in the summer.’
By Edward Farrow
Towards the end of March, Professor Simon Baron-Cohen and Dr Sarah Hendrickx took part in two key interviews for April’s forthcoming gender and autism issue of The SEND Practitioner, while Dr Wenn Lawson penned an important piece on autism and gender dysphoria. Issue 19 will also feature an overview of Brian Lamb’s recent webinar for our MEd and SEND Programme delegates and an in-depth interview with Ruth Deutsch (co-creator of the Cognitive Abilities Profile).
It will publish towards the end of April.
Please do feel free to sign up if you’d like to receive it by email.
Edward Farrow
On Thursday 23 February, I was thrilled to pop along to the Whole School SEND Summit for a smorgasbord of speeches, panels and roundtable workshops on building a community in SEND provision. Edward Timpson MP (our most recent contributor to The SEND Practitioner) delivered the keynote and set the tone for an edifying day. Post-lunch and post-roundtable workshops, I returned to the lecture hall to see a panel of speakers discuss how to ‘make the invisible visible’. This energetic debate, chaired by Simon Knight, featured a panel of people from across the education sector. At the very heart of this discussion was the need to ‘look outside of the SEN community to learn from the experiences of others’.
During the debate, I was struck by George Fielding’s (chair of the Whizz–Kidz Kidz Board) impassioned introduction and Simon Knight’s (Director of Education at the National Education Trust) forensic response to a parent’s question on the Code of Practice. Why? Because neither George nor the parent hailed from the typical conference complement of senior school leaders and teaching professionals. And this fact is refreshing and pressing and important, because if we are to really make a difference to the lives of those with SEND, then engaging fully with parents and those with SEND in this way will help us to ensure that we are truly ‘school-led and user-informed’.
With this in mind, I have transcribed George’s and Simon’s excellent speeches. If you get a moment, they’re really worth a read.
George Fielding
‘It’s what you do with what you’ve got’
‘Hello, my name is George Fielding, I am the chair of the board of young trustees at Whizz-Kidz, which is the largest organisation representing wheelchair users across the UK and so it is my great, great pleasure to represent them today and hopefully give you some sort of a sense of where I’m coming from and what I think needs to be changed in order to make the education system better and more accommodating for those with SEND.
‘What’s the use of two strong legs if you only run away? What’s the use of the finest voice if you’ve got nothing good to say? What’s the use of two strong arms if all you do is push and shove? What’s the use of two good ears if you can’t hear those you love?
‘That was a verse in a song that I was listening to a week ago called: “It’s what you do with what you’ve got”. And as I was listening to it I was thinking about what I was going to say today. And what those four lines reflected to me was [that] actually either everybody has a disability or nobody does. That I don’t want to sound controversial, but we all thrive in different environments, we all have different talents, abilities, different backgrounds, different experiences, different values, different beliefs and a different culture.
‘Put me on a stage and ask me to sing and dance and I can’t do it. So, I am better than my non-disabled peers in some environments, but I am much worse compared to them in others. That is just human nature, we’re all human beings. And I think that, really, what we have to do (without trying to preach to the crowd) is champion difference. There is one word that I do not like that I hear all the time and it is curriculum.
‘I do not like the word curriculum because the three core subjects that you have: English, maths and science. To me, they all seem to champion some sort of formula, some of structure, some sort of way of doing things. And the message is that if you learn that structure and repeat that structure again and again and again, you’ll always come out with an acceptable answer. You may disagree about English, but what is punctuation for if not to be put in the right place. And I don’t wish to say that to be controversial, but I wish to say – in a sense – that I think that a lot of people, they sit in class, and they don’t think their school/their society fits. They don’t think that their society is accessible or accommodates them.
‘There are four Ls to the education of people with SEND for me. People with SEND can Love, they can Learn and they can Lead. They can Learn because they can move around, they can meet and they can be mobile and they can have their voice heard. By having their voice heard they can Lead and they can be fantastic representatives in society and they can Love too. We have passions, we have desires we are, as I have said, human beings. Play on those emotions, use them, tap into the great swathes of talent that [are] currently untapped in society and you will see a much more colourful, much more vibrant and sustainable society. Because it is through teachers…parents and everyone in this room learning those three Ls, that there’s a fourth – and that is that people with SEN will Learn.
‘The most important point to me is that an education doesn’t have to have happened in a classroom. My education has happened by meeting people, by speaking with people and by voicing my opinion and by campaigning. If we limit education to a classroom and we don’t actually think about what is educational and we don’t use our expertise to help young people with disabilities/SEN transition and be proud of who they are, then we won’t get anywhere.
‘I am a proud wheelchair user, I am a proud Brit and a proud man. There aren’t many people who would say that for fear that in my community they won’t be understood. So thank you for giving me a stage on which to speak on and give up that platform to others too and I will champion you and all that you do in the future. But accept that difference [and] diversity is what makes Britain, is what makes our country, is what makes society liveable. It’s what makes us thrive and sometimes conversations need to start and people need to speak up if we ever want to see change at all. Thank you very much.’
Simon Knight
Responding to a parent’s question about chapter six of the Code of Practice
A parent’s question
‘Do you think that enough is being done about implementing chapter six of the Code of Practice (SEN support in schools’ barriers to learning) – in terms of a shift from IEPs to the graduated approach?… The graduated approach itself is a different way of doing things and I just wonder whether enough support has gone in to schools to actually enable them to see the difference and the shift in thinking that’s required to make that work well.’
Simon’s answer
‘I think that that’s a really important question. I think that it’s one of those ones that probably needs to be dealt with in two different ways. There’s a policy and accountability piece that sits with that and there is a pedagogical and a pragmatic piece that sits with that.
‘So, the accountability structures are such that quite often teachers do not feel particularly compelled to put their hands up and say “I don’t do this very well, I would like to do it better”. And so the nature of performance-related pay, appraisals and Ofsted makes it difficult for people to be truly honest about [what] their professional capabilities are and some of the work that we’ve talked about a little bit here today is about trying to create structures where we can support that. Because the barrier to learning is not always a learning difficulty, sometimes it’s a teaching difficulty, and we need to understand how that relationship works – and we need to be much more honest about that.
‘The other challenge that we’ve got, which is kind of a structural challenge, is the fact that a graduated approach, even a targeted approach is a developmental approach – and yet [has] all of the accountability of the chronological approach. So we talk about having mastery of the curriculum, but we want chronologically determined accountability structures. Those two don’t work. You cannot have a developmentally prescribed curriculum based upon the individual needs of a person and expect them all to be at a certain level by the time that they’re 11. So there’s a real challenge there for school leaders, a real challenge to be able to implement, which I suspect that the vast majority would want to be able to do, which is to focus on meeting the needs of the child. Because, at the moment, what we’re doing is that we’re focusing on meeting the needs of the system. And that system doesn’t actually reflect the needs of the children that they have within it. So that’s part of it.
‘And the other side is the amount of support that teachers are given to actually develop those skills. And so I spend quite a lot of my time working with people who find it quite tough working with kids with SEN. And it basically comes down to confidence and competence, [which] is that nobody’s actually shown how to do it so they don’t think that they can. And actually there isn’t anything special really about what we do in the specialist sector, despite its name, I wish it was something remarkable. It’s just really really good teaching based on really really good evidence that comes from the child rather than some sort of overarching structure.
‘So from two directions: we need to challenge the accountability and policy piece and we need to support and encourage practitioners to be more honest about what they do well and what they need to do better. And where families come into that is that teachers need to be much more confident about using the knowledge that sits within the family unit. Being able to draw that into the classroom so that those barriers to learning are not just being challenged by professionals who perceive themselves as being the fount of all knowledge, but work collaboratively with families who actually have an awful lot [to share] to drive the progress of children much more rapidly when we work in partnership.’
An article by Brian Lamb OBE in issue 18 of The SEND Practitioner has been amended.
One sentence of Brian Lamb’s piece (‘The SEND reforms: Where are we now?’) was changed and an additional sentence was added as follows.
From:
‘A survey carried out by the parent carer forums found that 84% of parents were fully or largely engaged in the strategic planning and co-production of SEND services…’
To:
‘A DfE survey of local authorities found that 84% of parents were fully or largely engaged in the strategic planning and co-production of SEND services and that 83% of parents were fully or largely engaged in making decisions about their own SEND provision. The DfE survey of parent carer forums found lower satisfaction: 64% felt that parents were fully or largely engaged in strategic planning, while 51% felt that parents were fully or largely engaged in decisions about their children – the latter an improvement on the previous survey.’