Monday 23rd September saw the Youth Sport Trust’s Lead Inclusion School conference take place at Edgbaston Stadium in Birmingham. Over 45 people attended in total from our Lead Inclusion Schools with Inclusion Development Coaches and Inclusion Consortium Partners in attendance as well.

The day began with a welcome video from ex Paralympic swimmer and member of the consortium Kate Grey, reflecting on the incredible summer of sport. This was followed by reflection from Head of Sport and Inclusion at the Trust, Vicci Wells, who showcased some of the key successes from Inclusion 2024 so far:

• An incredible 55,000 interaction the network has had with their activities
• A total of 763 Continuous Professional Development events delivered,
• 4,043 schools given advice, training and guidance on inclusive PE and School Sport
• Over 7,700 members of school workforce have seen inclusive practice modelled by Lead Inclusion School practitioners.

Throughout the day, attendees had the opportunity to hear from experts from the Lead Inclusion Schools, with Iain Mills from The Parkside School leading a session on sensory circuits and Lesley Byrne from Slated Row delivering her top tips for creating Sport Sanctuaries within school to support students to self-regulate.

It was great to have the support of our Inclusion Consortium partners on the day, to share new resources, amplify the networks’ current work and empower future practice. We had a visit from Activity Alliance who launched the new Inclusive PE e-learning resource, free through Inclusion 2024. This was particularly exciting for participants on the day to see, as a number of the Lead Inclusion Schools contributed towards the co-creation of this resource.

During the afternoon session, Whole School SEND delivered a workshop on the importance of collaboration. A key element of this was identifying how the network can strengthen the partnership with Whole School SEND regional leads throughout 2024 and into 2025.

We also welcomed Lorna Goldie from Swim England, who championed the recent release of the Oscar the Otter water safety videos. She collated feedback from the network surrounding the challenges and best practice examples in schools for this topic and spotlighted the upcoming assessment tool for schools to use to analyse their water safety practice.

Finally, it was wonderful to have Boccia England delivering activity through the lunch break and gifting a Boccia set to each of our schools to create additional opportunities for inclusive practice!

Feedback from participants was incredibly positive. One person said, “A great day, useful to network with fellow colleagues and share ideas and solutions to challenges” while another highlighted the value in “Being able to meet Lead Inclusion Schools in other areas to hear how they are delivering projects and tackling challenges is really valuable.”

The value of connecting in person should never be underestimated. Members of staff from the Lead Inclusion Schools left feeling inspired and invigorated with a suite of resources to get their teeth into and fully informed and motivated for the academic year ahead. Conferences such as this are an opportunity for us all to reflect on the successes of last year, overcome challenges as a collective and action plan for the year ahead.

Inclusion 2024 is a programme funded by the Department of Education which aims to improve the quality of schools’ physical education and school sport provision for SEND pupils working with PE leads, teachers, SENDCos and teaching assistants. Find out more.