Rona Tutt’s Guide to SEND & Inclusion

How to give children and young people who have SEN and disabilities (SEND), the support they need in the environment where they feel most fully included, should be a key concern of every teacher and practitioner.

Drawing on her years of experience and conversations with a range of professionals, as well as the thoughts of children, young people and families who have encountered a number of settings, SEND expert Dr Rona Tutt examines both the benefits of the recent SEND reforms and also the opportunities that have been missed to meet needs more flexibly. Content focuses on:

• Creating a climate where all children can thrive
• An appreciation for the variety of innovative ways school leaders are meeting the needs of students
• A consideration of the wider context of SEN from local to national level

Clear and accessible, this is an inspiring read for anyone concerned with how individual needs are best met, rather than where their education takes place.

Dr Rona Tutt OBE   has taught pupils of all ages in state and independent, day and residential, mainstream and special schools. She has been a winner of the Leadership in Teaching Award, received an Outstanding Reviewer Award for her work on the International Journal of Educational Management and an OBE for her services to special needs education. She is a Past President of the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) and continues to be involved in their work, particularly in the field of SEND.

Since moving on from headship, Rona she has been in constant demand as a speaker, reviewer, writer and judge.  She has been on the Expert Reference Group of the Autism Education Trust (AET) since its inception and was the Interim Chair of Hertfordshire’s All-Age Autism Partnership Board from April 2015- March 2016. In the same year, she was asked to be on the Strategic Advisory Group for ‘Kids,’ a charity for disabled young people and their families and to be their writer for the DfE- funded  project Making it Personal, which is known as MIP3.  She represents NAHT on the Special Education Consortium (SEC) (an umbrella group for over 30 organisations involved in SEN & disability); the Joint Unions Group on SEN Issues; and the National SEND Forum (NSENDF).

Rona is vice chair of governors at two schools, one is a secondary school for pupils who have  moderate learning difficulties (MLD), autism, and speech, language and communication needs (SLCN). The other is an all-age school for profoundly deaf pupils, where many pupils have British Sign Language (BSL) as their first language rather than English. Having trained originally as a Teacher of the Deaf, Rona is working through her exams in BSL and learning about deaf culture.

Rona is the author of: ‘Every Child Included,’ (2007); she co-authored ‘Educating Children with Complex Conditions - understanding overlapping and co-existing developmental disorders (Dittrich and Tutt 2008); wrote ‘Partnership Working to Support Special Educational Needs and Disabilities in 2010; co-authored How Successful Schools Work – The Impact of Innovative School Leadership (Tutt and Williams 2012) and ‘The SEND Code of Practice: 0-25 years’ (Tutt and Williams 2015).