Championing Inclusion: Enhancing SEND curricula and pedagogies
Lee Lister, Group Executive Principal for Education Partnership Northeast, has enhanced organisational SEND practices from both sides of the Centres for Excellence programme. Lee’s engagement with this programme has been transformational for reforming internal SEND practices, but also for other FE and skills providers. Lee’s connection with this programme started with a request for peer review:
‘Two years ago, we applied to ETF for a peer review. Western College was one of the Centres for Excellence, so they came up to us, followed by a reciprocal visit to them. It was an incredibly useful experience; whilst we knew we had a good SEND provision, it highlighted lots of additional practice that we could have been doing and should consider, including our relationship and leverage with the local authority as well as the stakeholders that we needed to engage with differently.
‘We absorbed this guidance and information, and at the time, we were a “Good” Ofsted High Needs provider. However, due to the support and work that we did with Western College, at our last inspection in 2024, we received “Outstanding” across all judgement areas, including for our High Needs provision. I attribute that not only to the excellent staff we have within the college, but also the knowledge base that we gained from ETF’s Centres for Excellence peer review with Western College. I do firmly believe that positioned us in a very different way.’
Becoming a Centre for Excellence in SEND
Lee’s positive experience of receiving a peer review led to further exploration of how to engage with the programme:
‘Our ELT [executive leadership team] are ambitious and to further develop our 10-year vision for exceptional SEND practice, we decided that we wanted to become a Centre for Excellence. We applied to ETF [Education Training Foundation] and were successful. The 2025–26 academic year was the first year that we operated as a Centre for Excellence. Our college group is the North East Construction CTEC hub, but we also wanted to be recognised as one of the best providers in the country for SEND. That’s why we applied to be a Centre for Excellence in SEND with ETF. We were delighted when we were successful.’
Developing a skills-led SEND curriculum
Discussing how being a part of this programme has impacted SEND practice, Lee shared:
‘One of the biggest things we worked really hard on was developing our specialist SEND curriculum. We worked very hard to develop a really robust curriculum, which was skills-led. When Western College visited us, they identified some further improvements we could explore in terms of experiential learning, getting the students out of the classroom more. So, we then returned and refined our curriculum. Importantly, we have shared this curriculum and learning with every one of the five colleges we’ve undertaken a peer review with. Embedding an understanding of how to link the curriculum back to the preparation for adulthood framework, ensuring they understand the need for a scaffolded, skills-led curriculum and avoiding the common trap of offering only a nurturing curriculum in SEND, has been beneficial for both these colleges and their students with SEND.
Improving High Needs funding and local authority engagement
‘In the new contract year, we have peer reviews to undertake with colleges, we will be helping their staff teams to understand their SEND curriculum better, because I firmly believe you can’t get outstanding outcomes for students if your curriculum is not structured correctly. One other key aspect we received great support from Western College on was how to leverage funding to better provide support and outcomes for students. How we engage with the local authorities and how we agreed our commission places for High Needs was key information we took away and we implemented a different approach. As a result of this, we nearly tripled our number of High Needs funding places at the college, all because of that work. Every time we go into colleges, we help review their funding model. Due to our Centre for Excellence theme being people, we ascertain who is sitting around the table having the conversations with the local authority about funding. And if they’re not at the right level or they’ve not got the right knowledge base, then college should consider a revised approach, as we did.’
Building national SEND partnerships and expertise
Beyond curricula, pedagogical and funding enhancements, engagement with the Centres for Excellence in SEND programme comes with other benefits:
‘We’ve connected with so many people through ETF. We’ve made better connections with nasen and with Natspec. We’ve made lots of different connections at ETF. It’s been a really pivotal year for our college and our journey to exceptional. We were very local to the northeast. Now, we undertake SEND work nationally, including facilitation at national conferences. We’re involved in the development of the new preparation for adulthood framework. I was also part of the working group that developed the competencies for ETF’s new Specialist Status in SEND [SSSEND], and we’re now delivering national training for some private sector organisations and ITPs [independent training providers]. I believe it’s enhanced our reputation, and every single person that we supported with a peer review, we are still in contact with.’
Supporting lasting improvements in SEND practice
Looking back on Education Partnership Northeast’s involvement with the Centres for Excellence in SEND initiative, Lee reflected:
‘I think what I’m most proud of is everything that we’ve done over the last 10 years at our college for young people and adults with SEND, we’ve then supported other colleges and helped them to get on that journey. That to me is really important. We decided to further support colleges this year with additional training days, which weren’t part of the contract, but we volunteered to do it as we felt it was important to continue the support after the peer review. Now that has been featured as part of the project for next year. Having a fresh pair of eyes on something can often result in improvements to something that is already powerful. I believe the addition of the training days will be highly impactful.
‘The project has slightly shifted for next year, but with the underpinning principles remaining the same. ETF has been brilliant and listened and reflected on how the project can continue to grow and develop.’