Bett2023: What can visitors interestedinSEND expect?

Since its inception over 35 years ago, Bett has brought people, practices, ideas and technologies together across all areas of education. As partners, nasen joins Bett’sSEND exhibitors and speakers at Bett 2023 at the ExCeL exhibition hall, London, from 29-31 March 2023 to help SENCOs, school leaders and teachers understand howtoachieve the best possible outcomes forstudents with SEND.

Atthe event, visitors will have accesstofreecontentsessions from experts, government agencies,advisors and teachers, all based on harnessingtechnologyto deliveraninclusive and representative curriculum.Inanticipation of theevent, we takeaquicklook at some of the CPD that visitors accessedin2022, along withthe technologybeingshowcasedatthe event

Seminar Content

While the seminarsessions for2023 aren’t yetconfirmed youcan gain an idea of thetypes of content that will be availableby looking at thosefrom 2022 Forexample, in theBettAcademy Live Theatre in the NorthHall, Greenwood AcademiesTrustpresented asession on ‘Empowering all studentswith solutions that areinclusive by design’. Theteam shared itsexperiencesofusing Microsoft education’sbuilt-inaccessibilityand inclusionfeaturestosupportall learners.

In anotherseminar session, Dr Louise Karwowski,director of education at Cognassist, spoke about harnessing the power of cognitiontoensure no learner is left behind. Visitors to her presentation, ‘Neurodiversity in Education’,were asked to imagine harnessing cognitive technology andinsights to understand eachindividual learner.Right from the start, Dr Karwowski introduced delegates to the conceptofneurodiversity and its importance in education. West SuffolkCollegealsojoined the session,sharingits story of employing cognition to enhanceits learners’ experience

On the sameday,Bob Usher from LGfL, The National Grid forLearning,highlighted the range of inclusivesupportservicesavailabletoall schools, alongwith CPDfor teachersand support staff. Usher shared innovative approaches to integrating immersive technologies into everyday teachingand learning to support theadoption of Universal Design forLearning.

On the secondday of Bett,Vicki Redhead,principal, and Kayley Roberts, deputy principal, at Bishop Creighton Academy were joined by Annie MacIver, head of capability,digitalstrategy for education at the Department forEducation (DfE), andnasen’s Michael Surr,totalkabout theDfE’s pilot scheme to improve capabilitiesinassistive technology

On the same day,Michael Surr also offered advicein‘Understanding and embedding assistivetechnology in classroompractice’.

The session considered assistive technologies that arereadilyavailable as standardin most commonly usedsoftware resources

On thefinalday of Bett, the Friday, we recommend visitors planonvisiting the Tech in Actiontheatre in the South Hall.In2022 alarge team of e-safety experts including Alison Watts, prevent and e-safety education officer at Buckinghamshire Council,and Thomas Boardman,prevent and e-safety educationofficer from StonyDeanSpecial School, demonstratedBao,a free online learninggamefor studentswithSEND, which includes lessonplans,guidance and case studies addressing e-safety challenges across Europe. The session, ‘InteractiveE-Safety game for SEND children and young people’, wasdesigned to helpstaff andparents to increase their confidence in having ongoingconversations withchildrentohelp themtotakeresponsibilityfor theironline safety

AlsoonFriday,AlexGrady, head of WholeSchool SEND at nasen,looked at the association’sexperience of professionaldevelopment gathered over thepast twoyears and consideredwhatwas most effective at improving SENDprovision across aschool. In her session, entitled ‘Using technology to supportprofessional development groups in SENDand inclusion’,she discussed the impact of WSS onlineprofessional development groups,WSS webinars and WSS support for localauthorities. Her presentation ledtodiscussion of ablended modelofCPD andnasen’s SENDCPD Pathways forschools; allfullyfunded andfree to access Anotherpresenterwas inclusion expert Carol Allen, who wasinconversationwith comic actress and writerSally Phillips in a‘Fireside chat’. Thesefun, lively sessions provide visitorswith inspirational thoughts and ideasonSEND and Inclusionineducation.

Sen Area

Bett is also curating arangeofcompanies across keyareasofschooloperations andpedagogytoprovideits visitorswith accesstonew products and services. Thisyear, visitors can book meetings with suppliers throughConnect@Bett, providing opportunities for conversations on specific challengesand potential solutions

For example,visitors that want to support theirstudents with SENDwho find time management achallenge maywanttovisit the Boost Education team on stand SH65. Boost, availableoniOS,Android andweb apps,has been developedspecifically forstudents with time management, organisation andmental health challenges. If your area of focusismaths, youmay want to visitthe JellyJames team on stand SL14, whoseDynamo Maths resource has been designed specifically to supportstudents withdevelopmental dyscalculiaand those who needadditional support to catchup. Another resourcethatisproviding supportfor manyareas of development is Construct3 by Scirra: stand SH80. In addition to the valuable skills that codingand game development provides, it canalsoteach children of all ages and abilities howtoproblem-solve, be creative andcollaborate.Gamedevelopment canalso often be suitedtopupils with autism and related conditions, as wellasthose with complex needs, and social, emotional, mentalhealth challenges; atendency to haveenhanced visual andspatial skills helps identify errors in cascading lines of codes. Scirra’s Construct 3isa webbased game building toolthat givesanyone the ability to creategames and is idealfor teachingthe concepts of bothblock-based and text-based computer programming using ascaffoldedapproach. nc www.nasen.org.uk

Bett is open to

It is web-based andthe entrylevel is free of charge.

Andfinally, if youare looking for solutions to help to transformchildren’sliteracy,consider avisittostand ED-D66 where Mighty Writer, winner of theEducationResources Awards, Teach Primary Awardsand TeachEarly Years awards, will be demonstrating howits resource teaches thewhole process of learning to write, fromspeaking in simplesentences through to planningand editing increasingly complex and sophisticated stories. Its coreage range is forfour to sevenyears,however it canbeused with children from those who are learningtospeak, up to the very able. It teachesfiction and non-fiction writing andhelps children to becomeindependent andcompetentwriters.