Hello and a warm welcome...
To the new SEND Bulletin. You are receiving this bulletin as you are signed up for the Education and Skills newsletter.
The SEND bulletin is aimed at all education and childcare providers within Sheffield who support young people with SEND. It will come out to you once a month to provide you with specific SEND updates and training/resources.
This first issue is all about meeting the SEND leadership team. Find out who they are and what their teams do to support you.
If you would like to provide any feedback on this issue then please click the button below.
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Please encourage other education professionals to sign up so that they get the bulletin directly to their e-mail inbox.
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Hi, I'm Rose Ward. I am the Head of Special Educational Needs within Education & Skills, one of the directorates within Sheffield City Council.
I have worked for the council for just over 14 years. I started my time in the Multi-Agency Support Team, moving through into the Inclusion Commissioning Team before finding my role within SEND.
Prior to working in the council, I have been lucky enough to work in many educational establishments, in Sheffield and across the region.
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We wanted to start this SEND bulletin, with names to faces – faces to names, so you get all the Team Leaders faces in one email!!
The teams that make up the SEND Service in Sheffield include:
- SEND Statutory Assessment and Review Service
- Educational Psychology
- 0-5 SEND Support Service
- Autism and Social Communication Team
- Deaf/Hearing & Vision Impaired Service
- Local Offer Communication and Engagement Officer
- Personal Assistant to the Head of SEND
I will let them tell you a little about themselves and their teams…..
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Hi, I'm Kathryn Challis. I am the Service Manager for SENDSARS.
I joined Sheffield City Council in September 2021 as a Locality Manager and secured the position of Service Manager in January 2022. Previous to that I worked at Lincolnshire Local Authority as a SEND Caseworker.
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My team are responsible for completing all statutory assessments and processing annual reviews for all children and young people with Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plans in Sheffield. We currently maintain 4677 EHC plans and receive around 40 requests for new assessments each week.
You can contact my team by telephone or e-mail.
Telephone: 0114 273 6394
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Hi, I'm Deborah Page. I am Principal Educational Psychologist (PEP) with Sheffield City Council. I have been an Educational Psychologist (EP) for 26 years and was PEP in Derbyshire for 8 years before joining Sheffield Educational Psychology Service in December 2021.
I started my education career as a secondary science teacher. I have also worked as a teacher in a special school for children with physical disabilities and with a Traveller Education Service.
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The Sheffield Educational Psychology Service work with all schools in Sheffield. They work with children in the Early Years and young people up to the age of 25.
You can contact my team by telephone or e-mail.
Telephone: 0114 250 6800
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Hi, I'm Helen Sanders. I am the Service Manager for the 0-5 SEND Support Service.
I have been in post since 30th March 2022 and I am a qualified early years specialist teacher. I have also worked across the Primary phase in school and in several local authorities. I have most recently worked in Wakefield supporting children and young people from aged 0-19 (25 with SEND) alongside Social Care, Mast, Primary/ Secondary School and post 16 colleges Schools/ Settings and Educational Psychology.
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The 0-5 SEND Support Service consists of Early Years Inclusion Teachers, Early Years inclusion Assistants, Portage Home Visitors. We have three elements to the service: Portage, Sheffield Early Years Language Centre and Early Years Inclusion Teachers and Assistants.
You can contact my team by telephone or e-mail.
Telephone: 0114 273 6411
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Hi, I'm Laura Chambers. I am the Service Manager for the Autism and Social Communication Team. I joined the team at Sheffield in Dec 2021.
I have spent a large part of my 18 year career (so far) in Doncaster. I originally trained as an Early Years teacher becoming a leading early years specialist prior to a move to a large International school in Bangkok. It is here that I realised my love of SEN and returned to the UK to gain a Masters qualification in Autism. I have spent the last 10 years as a Senior Leader at an Outstanding Special School in addition to an Outreach role, supporting schools meet the need of their autistic pupils.
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My team offer support and guidance to schools and teaching staff on autism approaches. We are continually bursting with ideas of how to creatively meet need. We hope our investment in training and coaching will have a huge impact on schools confidence and quality first teaching approaches to meet the needs of all pupils displaying social communication differences. We are a proud Autism Education Trust Training Partner and currently offering Train the Trainer to schools and settings across the city.
You can contact my team by telephone or e-mail.
Telephone: 0114 273 6412
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Hi, I'm Bernadette Rose-Dean. I am the Service Manager for the Deaf/Hearing and Vision Support Service. I co-ordinate support for students with a vision and/or hearing loss in different settings and liaise with corporate partners.
I began my career as a teacher in mainstream schools in the Derby area but quickly developed a passion for working with students who have SEND. My teaching career has taken me from Derby to Atlanta USA (where I worked as a First Grade teacher) to Chesterfield where I worked as both SENCo and a teacher for the Support Services for Special Educational Needs, to Rotherham as the Head of Service for the Visual Impairment Team and twice to Sheffield. In this incarnation, I have been with Sheffield City Council for 12 months and previously I worked for the council for 5 years as a qualified teacher of visual impairment.
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The Deaf/Hearing and Vision Support Service are a team of specialist qualified teachers who specialise in Hearing loss (QToD) or vision loss (QTVI). Also in the team, there are specialist teaching assistants, educational audiologists, Deaf instructors, resource technicians and (hopefully soon) habilitation officers. They work in mainstream settings, specialist settings, colleges and nurseries supporting students who have a hearing and/or vision loss.
You can contact my team by telephone or e-mail.
Telephone: 0114 273 6410
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Hello there! I'm Wayne Priestley. I am a Communication and Engagement Officer for the Local Offer. My main duties are to update the Local Offer website, promote it, help co-produce it with families and young people and collate the SEND Newsletter and this very bulletin.
I have worked in SEND in Sheffield for 3 years as a Data Quality Officer and as an Inclusion Officer in SENDSARS prior to this role. My husband and I are foster carers and we currently have 2 boys (17 and 10) living with us. Before working at the Council, I worked at HSBC for 10 years as a Planning and Support Manager.
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The Local Offer website (on the Sheffield Directory) has moved onto a new web platform. Promotion of this will happen very soon so watch out for it!
I am wanting to get out and about in schools/nurseries/colleges in the near future to meet parents and SENCOs to get feedback on the new Local Offer website, to see what you and parents would like to see on there. If your school/nursery/college would like to be involved and have me along to meet you and your parents, then please get in touch.
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Hello, I'm Louise Shepley. I am a Personal Assistant to Rose Ward, Head of SEN.
I started my journey into Sheffield City council when I started volunteering for a local Sure Start in Firth Park in 2002. After a year of volunteering, I got the job as receptionist in the Multi Agency building in Firth Park known as First Start. For a whole 16 years I worked in Early Years where I have seen so many babies turn into the most amazing young men and women.
I joined Education and Skills (SEND) in 2021 as Rose Wards Personal Assistant and haven't looked back.
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I have a son with autism and dyspraxia, so I am very passionate about supporting and working towards improving the lives of our young people of Sheffield.
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