The SENDcast

Play is often the first thing to disappear as children move through school – but for many neurodivergent children, it may be the most powerful learning tool we have.
Ange Anderson, Therapeutic SEND Advisor, joins Dale to discuss how play schemas can help adults better understand behaviour, communication, and wellbeing.
Together, Dale and Ange explore:
– Why play-based learning is so often misunderstood or abandoned too early.
– What schemas are, and how recognising them can completely reframe what looks like challenging behaviour.
– Why following a child's lead – rather than directing them – can unlock engagement that more traditional approaches simply can't reach.
"Play isn't just what children do – it's how they tell us who they are."
— Ange Anderson
 
About Ange Anderson
Ange Anderson is a former specialist school head, SEND advisor and author specialising in therapeutic, sensory and play-based approaches for neurodivergent children and young people. Her work focuses on helping professionals and families better understand behaviour, communication, wellbeing and learning through practical, relationship-based approaches.
Ange is particularly passionate about purposeful play, sensory profiling, schemas, therapeutic interventions and the rights of children with complex needs and PMLD to lifelong learning. She is known for translating theory into realistic, meaningful strategies that busy staff teams and families can use in everyday practice.
Alongside her writing – books, articles and research papers – and training, Ange delivers school training days, conference talks and online resources across the UK. Her work combines professional expertise with warmth, creativity and a strong belief that children learn best when they feel safe, understood and engaged.
Ange Anderson Amazon Author Page
DIR Floortime training
 

B Squared Website – www.bsquared.co.uk 
Meeting with Dale to find out about B Squared - https://calendly.com/b-squared-team/overview-of-b-squared-sendcast 
Email Dale – dale@bsquared.co.uk 
Subscribe to the SENDcast - https://www.thesendcast.com/subscribe
The SENDcast is powered by B Squared
We have been involved with Special Educational Needs for over 25 years, helping show the small steps of progress pupils with SEND make. B Squared has worked with thousands of schools, we understand the challenges professionals working in SEND face. We wanted a way to support these hardworking professionals - which is why we launched The SENDcast! Click the button below to find out more about how B Squared can help improve assessment for pupils with SEND in your school.

AI is everywhere right now - but how useful is it really for families navigating the SEND system, and how do you know when to trust it?
In this episode, Dale is joined by Ben Cosh, founder and CEO of Silva, to discuss AI in SEND: what it can do, what it can't, and why families shouldn't have to wait years for help.
Ben built Silva after living through the reality of year-long NHS waiting lists, overwhelmed teachers, and private assessments that cost a fortune but came with no support afterwards. His own experience - three years to identify his daughter's unmet needs, and another three to get everything stable - is the reason Silva exists.
Together, Dale and Ben explore:
- Why AI should never be thought of as a single thing - there are now 628 different AIs, and they are not all equal.
- Why none of them are doctors, and why their confidence can be deeply misleading.
- How to find the right AI for the right job - and why where it gets its information from matters enormously.
- Why behaviour is always communication, and how understanding that changes everything about how you respond to a struggling child.
- What Silva is doing differently - and why families shouldn't have to wait years to get the right support.
"Each AI is different - and what none of them are is a doctor that can diagnose."
Ben Cosh
 
About Ben Cosh
Ben Cosh is the founder and CEO of Sylva. He built Sylva after experiencing first-hand how broken the system is: years-long NHS waiting lists, overwhelmed teachers, and private assessments costing a fortune, with no support afterwards. 
Before founding Spicy Minds, Ben built a renewable energy company that developed over £300m of wind and solar farms, became the fastest-growing in the South West and appeared in the Sunday Times Fast Track. He earlier worked in Downing Street (2001–2003) and is a former management consultant (PA Consulting), engineer (QinetiQ), and active angel investor in digital health and edtech.

B Squared Website – www.bsquared.co.uk 
Meeting with Dale to find out about B Squared - https://calendly.com/b-squared-team/overview-of-b-squared-sendcast 
Email Dale – dale@bsquared.co.uk 
Subscribe to the SENDcast - https://www.thesendcast.com/subscribe
The SENDcast is powered by B Squared
We have been involved with Special Educational Needs for over 25 years, helping show the small steps of progress pupils with SEND make. B Squared has worked with thousands of schools, we understand the challenges professionals working in SEND face. We wanted a way to support these hardworking professionals - which is why we launched The SENDcast! Click the button below to find out more about how B Squared can help improve assessment for pupils with SEND in your school.

Autistic burnout is talked about on social media, but how many of us truly understand what it looks like - and what it takes to recover from it?
Sarah Griffiths, children's author, meditation teacher, and parent advocate, joins Dale to discuss autistic burnout and the story of her daughter Eva.
Sarah shares, with honesty and warmth, how Eva - autistic and ADHD, and a skilled masker for years - collapsed into severe burnout at the start of Year 6. Her executive functioning all but disappeared. She couldn't leave the sofa. The family slept downstairs for three months. And at every turn, the systems that should have helped them either didn't respond, didn't understand, or made things worse.
Dale and Sarah also explore what autistic burnout actually is - a nervous system shutdown, not a behaviour or a mental health condition - why removing demands is so much harder than it sounds, and why a diagnosis alone means very little without the understanding to go with it.
This is also a story of hope. Nine months on, Eva is making positive steps forward in her recovery - and beginning to imagine a future on her own terms.
 
About Sarah Griffiths
Sarah Griffiths is a children's author, meditation teacher, parent advocate and former primary teacher, raising awareness of autistic burnout and the growing crisis facing neurodivergent children and families. After supporting her own daughter through severe burnout and school trauma, she began sharing their journey publicly – leading to hundreds of parents connecting with similar experiences.
Through her books, including Eva's Voice and Finding Stones for Grandma, Sarah uses storytelling, mindfulness and lived experience to help children and families feel seen, supported and understood. Her work focuses on emotional wellbeing, sensory overwhelm, recovery, and creating more compassionate conversations between families, schools and professionals.
Her book Eva's Voice launched on 16 February 2026 and is available on Amazon.
Sarah Griffiths Amazon Author Page
Eva's Voice on Amazon
Advocacy page on Facebook

 
B Squared Website – www.bsquared.co.uk 
Meeting with Dale to find out about B Squared - https://calendly.com/b-squared-team/overview-of-b-squared-sendcast 
Email Dale – dale@bsquared.co.uk 
Subscribe to the SENDcast - https://www.thesendcast.com/subscribe
The SENDcast is powered by B Squared
We have been involved with Special Educational Needs for over 25 years, helping show the small steps of progress pupils with SEND make. B Squared has worked with thousands of schools, we understand the challenges professionals working in SEND face. We wanted a way to support these hardworking professionals - which is why we launched The SENDcast! Click the button below to find out more about how B Squared can help improve assessment for pupils with SEND in your school.

Trauma-informed practice is one of those phrases everyone nods along to – but how many of us truly understand what it means, or what it actually looks like in practice?
Dr. Asha Patel, founder and CEO of Innovating Minds, joins Dale to discuss what we really mean by trauma-informed practice.
"Trauma-informed practice is a way of being. It's not a switch that you can switch on and off."
— Dr. Asha Patel
It starts with the adult being regulated, aware of how they are feeling, and able to offer that calmness to the young person in front of them. You cannot support a dysregulated child if you are dysregulated yourself.
Dale and Asha also explore why the word 'trauma' puts so many people off – and why it shouldn't. Trauma doesn't just mean the most extreme experiences. It is a normal human response to overwhelming situations, and it shows up everywhere, every day. Understanding that changes everything about how you respond to behaviour – because behaviour is always communication, and asking why someone is struggling will always lead somewhere more useful than asking what they have done wrong.
They also discuss why giving someone your undivided attention is one of the most powerful things you can offer, why trauma-informed practice is not about lowering expectations or excusing behaviour, and why the biggest barrier to getting this right is often simply not knowing where to start.
About Dr Asha Patel
Dr Asha Patel is a qualified Clinical Psychologist and the founder and CEO of Innovating Minds, a multi-award-winning social enterprise dedicated to early intervention in mental health. Drawing on her expertise in forensic mental health, Dr Patel launched Innovating Minds in 2016 to bridge the gap between access to clinical expertise within education, health and social care.
A passionate advocate for mental health equity, Dr Patel empowers frontline professionals to deliver trauma-informed psychological services to enable young people to access education, training and employment opportunities.

 
B Squared Website – www.bsquared.co.uk 
Meeting with Dale to find out about B Squared - https://calendly.com/b-squared-team/overview-of-b-squared-sendcast 
Email Dale – dale@bsquared.co.uk 
Subscribe to the SENDcast - https://www.thesendcast.com/subscribe
The SENDcast is powered by B Squared
We have been involved with Special Educational Needs for over 25 years, helping show the small steps of progress pupils with SEND make. B Squared has worked with thousands of schools, we understand the challenges professionals working in SEND face. We wanted a way to support these hardworking professionals - which is why we launched The SENDcast! Click the button below to find out more about how B Squared can help improve assessment for pupils with SEND in your school.

The SEND reforms have generated a lot of discussion – but one significant gap has gone largely unnoticed. Where do specific learning difficulties fit in?
Dale is joined by Louise Selby, a dyslexia specialist, and Janet Goring, an SpLD specialist, for a lively and at times eye-opening conversation about what the shift from four broad areas of need to five areas of development could mean for children with SpLD.
Together, they explore:
Why cognition and learning has disappeared from the new framework – and why this is a significant oversight.
Why dyslexia, dyscalculia, and SpLD maths don't fit neatly into what remains.
Whether a stronger universal offer can really compensate for the absence of a dedicated cognition and learning category.
The important distinction between a diagnosis that unlocks funding and one that tells a child: this is not your fault.
Why quiet children who are struggling but not disruptive have always been at risk of being overlooked – and why the new framework may make this worse.
About Louise Selby
Louise has worked in a number of SEND settings, more recently for 11 years in the advisory service for Specific Learning Difficulties at Hertfordshire Local Authority, before becoming freelance.
Louise's first book, Morph Mastery, a Morphological Intervention for Reading, Spelling and Vocabulary, was published in 2021 by Speechmark (Routledge) in 2021. Her recent two books, "All About Dyslexia, a practical guide for primary/secondary teachers" were published in December 2024 with the same publisher, and her 4th book, Morph Mastery for Small Groups, is in the pipeline.
Louise's passion is in enabling, equipping and empowering staff in schools at grass roots level to meet learners' needs. 
About Janet Goring
Janet Goring worked as a teacher for 25 years, firstly as a primary classroom teacher and Advanced skills teacher for Maths and assessment, before training as a specialist SpLD teacher/assessor and completing a Masters with a focus on supporting number sense through games.
She chaired the SASC (SpLD Assessment Committee) Working Group on Dyscalculia and Maths Difficulties which produced the 2025 guidance on the assessment of Maths Difficulties and Dyscalculia.  
Having retired as Manager of a local authority team of specialist Literacy and Numeracy teachers in 2023, she now focuses on training in maths difficulties for mainstream and specialist teachers.
Where are dyslexia and dyscalculia in the 2026 SEND Reforms?

B Squared Website – www.bsquared.co.uk 
Meeting with Dale to find out about B Squared - https://calendly.com/b-squared-team/overview-of-b-squared-sendcast 
Email Dale – dale@bsquared.co.uk 
Subscribe to the SENDcast - https://www.thesendcast.com/subscribe
The SENDcast is powered by B Squared
We have been involved with Special Educational Needs for over 25 years, helping show the small steps of progress pupils with SEND make. B Squared has worked with thousands of schools, we understand the challenges professionals working in SEND face. We wanted a way to support these hardworking professionals - which is why we launched The SENDcast! Click the button below to find out more about how B Squared can help improve assessment for pupils with SEND in your school.