Overview

@ResearchSEND was co-founded by Michelle Haywood and Professor Michelle Shaw, Institute of Education, University of Wolverhampton to promote the importance of research in meeting the needs of learners with SEND, through events, collaboration, publications and research projects.

@ResearchSEND has three strands:

• Researching the bigger picture considers research undertaken across the educational landscape and considers research undertaken by large research organisations such as EEF, commissioned research projects and large scale work undertaken by Universities.

• New researchers. New voices encourages teachers undertaking their own personal research to have the space to share that work. This may be to support their CPD and may be part of a further study project, for example a Master’s Degree.

• ChangeMonday uses the hashtag #ChangeMonday to make research accessible enough to be able to change practice, if that is what is required, easily and simply

Collaboration

The West Midlands SEND Forum – is aiming to be a group of representatives who support pupils with SEND in various forms from Initial Teacher Education (ITE) to members of Senior Leadership teams in schools and FE settings through to the statutory functions of an LA.

The forum is in its early stages but aims to analyse and consider provision within the WM in order to improve outcomes for pupils with SEND across the region. 

Publications

@ResearchSEND published its first publication ‘ResearchSEND in Ordinary Classrooms’ in June 2019.

ResearchSEND was developed to promote the importance of research in meeting the needs of learners with SEND through events, collaborations, publications and research projects.

Here, Michelle Haywood and Professor Michael Jopling edits a collection of short essays spanning the latest SEND-related research and detailing how practice can be enhanced by that research. Each chapter ends with accessible bullet points on how the research can be integrated into the classroom.  Click here to order.

Research Projects

@ResearchSEND was set out to support classroom practice, so to continue with this vision an online @ResearchSEND Focus group for classroom practitioners has been established.

Teacher Research Group

The intention is for this group is to support the work and philosophy of @ResearchSEND and help develop relevant conferences, events and research projects, as well as teacher members supporting research projects in any way they are able.

The group is in the early stages, so some activity will be proposed and actioned by the group, but initially we are gauging interest to develop terms of reference and an online meeting schedule.

If you are a classroom practitioner and are interested in getting involved in @ResearchSEND activity please contact us and we will invite you to our #Slack group (an online discussion forum).

As a thank you to group members we would like to offer benefits such as complementary tickets to certain events (before the tickets go on sale), an option to lead roundtable discussions and chance to contribute to publications.

As a starter we would like the @ResearchSEND Teacher focus group to help us with our current research project, https://michhayw.wordpress.com/are-all-ability-groups-named-after-colours/ where we are collecting data on the names of ability groups in primary schools, we just need the names of the groups, what level of ability they support, and which year group they represent.

Contacts

Please do contact us if you feel you could contribute to @ResearchSEND