ND SEND Conference 2021: Building a more confident and inclusive space

Speakers

• Dr Paul Sutton Artistic Director, C&T
  Dr Paul Sutton

  Artistic Director, C&T

  Paul is the founder of C&T, with over 30 years experience in theatre, learning and digital. He is a respected applied theatre practitioner, teacher, academic and author.

• Karen Wallace-Jones Make/Sense Theatre, Drama teacher in PRU
  

  Karen Wallace-Jones

  Make/Sense Theatre, Drama teacher in PRU

  Karen trained at the University of Warwick and Drama Studio London. After working as a professional actor and running her own early years storytelling business, she trained formally as a Secondary Drama teacher, choosing to work in her training year in a SEN school.
  Since then, Karen trained with Oily Cart theatre company/Rose Bruford College in creating multi-sensory theatre for PMLD/ASD audiences. This led to her developing her own immersive style of theatre for complex needs at her school, and subsequently as Head of Creative Arts, delivered a joint collaborative project developing it with another local SEN School. This, and several other theatre projects with her diverse cohort of students, led to her department winning a Reading Cultural Award in 2019 for their inclusive school productions.
  In March 2019, Karen gained a place on an Erasmus scheme learning from SCEN:SE Theatre (performing arts/drama for people with complex disabilities) and Glada Hudik Theatre (an neurodiverse, integrated theatre company) in Hudiksvall, Sweden about their cutting edge cross-arts work. In November 2019, after several years of training drama teachers from the University of the Arts, Utrecht, in SEN Drama at her school in Reading, Karen was invited to speak on diversity in the arts at The Crossing Cultures Festival in the Netherlands.
  Karen is a trained Arts Award advisor and has 7 years experience of delivering and assessing it for SEN young people from Discover to Silver level. She was instrumental in her previous SEN school gaining Artsmark Platinum status and has delivered training to teachers within the BASS (Berkshire Alliance of Special Schools) in creative approaches and SEN Drama.
  Karen runs Make/Sense Theatre, making theatre for, by and with the neurodivergent community in Reading, Berkshire. She is also currently working as a part-time Drama teacher in a Pupil Referral Unit combining Drama and her training and skills in therapeutic thinking, trauma-informed approaches, and Theatre of Resilience to work with SEMH/SEN young people. This is whilst studying for a Diploma in Neuro-Dramatic Play- an attachment-based drama intervention used with children who are traumatised, abused or neglected.
  Karen currently volunteers with the Executive Committee of National Drama as their SEND Advisor.

• Lana Selby Drama teacher & Dramatherapist
  

  Lana Selby

  Drama teacher & Dramatherapist

  Lana grew up in Cape Town, South Africa. She made sure she was in every annual school play, no matter how big or small the part. She studied for a BA in English and Drama at the University of Cape Town and trained as an English and drama teacher in 1990. She taught in secondary schools during the latter years of the apartheid era in South Africa and was a member of a theatre – in – education company, devising and performing in plays addressing the AIDS crisis in Africa at the time, racism and gender discrimination. She moved to London in 1994 to train as a dramatherapist.
  For the past thirty years, Lana has worked extensively in educational (mainstream and special needs), mental health and forensic clinical settings. She has taught in both mainstream and special needs schools in inner and outer London boroughs. As a therapist, Lana has worked with clients of all ages and clinical needs; with charities, in schools, on acute and rehab mental health wards and in a prison. She has mentored and supervised newly trained arts therapists.
  Drama is the creative medium through which she has taught, challenged, supported and inspired students, service users and clients.
  Lana is currently part of the Arts Therapies team in a special needs secondary school in London.

• Melanie Coles Early Years SENCO – Bemerton's Childrens Centre, London
  

  Melanie Coles

  Early Years SENCO – Bemerton's Childrens Centre, London
• Shelly Coles ASD Lead practitioner – Cambridge School, London
  

  Shelly Coles

  ASD Lead practitioner – Cambridge School, London