Introducing Bright Futures SEND Outreach

20 Jul 2022

Bright Futures Educational Trust is delighted to be able to announce the launch of Bright Futures SEND Outreach. This new service is available to all schools and educational settings and aims to develop confidence and knowledge of staff to ensure SEND pupils succeed and achieve. SEND Outreach is a partnership of schools and colleagues from Bright Futures and its wider networks, who collectively have many years’ experience and expertise in working with SEND pupils across all key stages.

Bright Futures has been providing SEND outreach support to schools across the region for a number of years. Melland High School is both a support school for Central and East Manchester High schools and was designated as a National Support School. The Melland team alongside Bright Futures Educational Psychologists and wider SEND SLEs from across the Trust and networks have done an amazing job of developing a well-respected quality profile in this field. In addition, the Trust created a SEND SLE team who also provide SEND reviews, SEND support and SEND CPD; and the Trust offers a SEND ITT route.

As the need for expertise in SEND grows, not only in specialist schools but also in mainstream education, more time and resource has been required from Melland. The Trust has also grown at scale and pace especially with the double Teaching School Hub designation, equally there is a widespread appreciation of the quality of the school-to-school support Bright Futures offer. SEND provision is central to quality first teaching and learning and should be at the heart of school improvement.

Around 1.4 million pupils in England have been identified as having a Special Educational Need and/or Disability with a majority of these pupils attending mainstream schools.

Bright Futures see this as the perfect time to launch its Trust SEND support and to centralise the coordination of its SEND offer through the Development Network.

John Stephens, CEO of Bright Futures Educational Trust, commented: “School improvement is at its best when things change for the better for all children and young people. Through the SEND Outreach we want to support colleagues in making the best possible provision for students with SEND, building the capacity of staff to understand and better meet the needs of all children. We also know that the SEND Outreach will help us to identify more excellent practice across the sector that we can share and celebrate.”

What are the benefits of Bright Futures SEND Outreach?

Even better provision for children with SEND
Even better support for teachers
SEND will gain a bigger profile
SEND will be embedded in school peer reviews, at the heart of school improvement
With a MAT approach both of Bright Futures’ specialist schools will be involved, as will all Trust schools’ SENCOs

What is the offer from Bright Futures SEND Outreach?

Led by in-house expertise, Bright Futures SEND Outreach will provide: