The SENDcast

Wellbeing, culture, and inclusion are more than buzzwords - but too many schools tick the boxes without making the real change that matters.
In this episode, Dale is joined by Cathal Lynch, Director of Wellbeing Quality Mark, to discuss 'Wellbeing, Culture and Inclusion'.
"The anxious brain is not a learning brain. The more we can reduce anxiety, the better learning and behaviour outcomes will be."
— Cathal Lynch
Together, they explore:
Why school culture always exists - whether leaders shape it intentionally or not.
How to build genuine belonging by actively listening to the views of pupils, parents, and staff.
The role of executive function in behaviour, transitions, and learning - and what schools can do about it.
Why structure, routine, and consistency are not about control, but about reducing anxiety and cognitive load.
How to codify practice so that good work survives leadership changes and scales across a whole school.
View all podcasts | Visit our SENDcast Sessions shop
 
About Cathal Lynch
Education leader, coach and author of Building Belonging
Cathal has extensive leadership experience in mainstream and special education, including as a National Director of SEND and a MAT co-founder. He is an Associate Education Expert for the Key, a coach, assessor and facilitator on the NPQEL and author of Building Belonging, a systematic approach to school improvement and emotional wellbeing.
 
https://www.wbqm.co.uk
[email protected]
https://www.linkedin.com/in/cathal-lynch-2b076a7a/
 
CPD SESSIONS
Train with Cathal Lynch
Go deeper with Cathal in one of his focused 1-hour CPD sessions — each just £10 and shareable with your whole school.
https://thesendcast.com/shop-home/
 
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 – [email protected] 
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.

Sport has the potential to be a powerful, positive force in the lives of neurodivergent children - but without the right awareness and approach, it can become yet another environment where they feel excluded.
In this episode, Dale is joined by Liz Day, founder of Collectively Diverse CIC, to discuss 'Neurodiversity and Sport: Creating Safe, Inclusive Spaces Where Neurodivergent Children Can Thrive'.
Liz brings a wealth of personal and professional insight - as a former county-level gymnast, specialist PE teacher, and neurodiversity expert who completed a Master's in Psychology at the University of Exeter in 2024, exploring mental health literacy in young people.
Together, they explore:
Why sport and physical activity can be transformative for neurodivergent children - and why PE lessons too often have the opposite effect.
The importance of psychological safety in sports settings, and what coaches and clubs can do differently.
Why children with EBSA still need access to physical activity, and how to make it happen.
How parents can communicate their child's needs effectively with sports organisations.
The link between physical activity, emotional regulation, and mental health.
This episode is essential listening for parents of neurodivergent children, coaches, and youth sports club leaders - but also highly relevant for teachers, SENCOs, and anyone supporting the wellbeing of children and young people.
View all podcasts | Visit our SENDcast Sessions shop
 
About Liz Day
Liz is an experienced trainer and facilitator, passionate about mental health, neurodiversity, and cultivating a safe environment for all. She began her career as a teacher with a specialism in PE, drawing on her background as a former county-level gymnast and lifelong love of sport.
This shaped her inclusive teaching approach and continues to influence her work today — sport remains central to her identity and wellbeing.
https://www.collectivelydiverse.co.uk
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61572518254058
https://www.instagram.com/collectivelydiverseUK/
[email protected]
 
Useful Links
EBSA Toolkit for Schools
Compass Panel
 
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 – [email protected] 
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.

This Deaf Awareness Week, we welcome Samantha Baines to the podcast to explore what it's like living with hearing loss and deafness. Samantha is an award-winning actress, comedian and broadcaster who discovered she was deaf nearly 10 years ago and now advocates for accessibility.
Samantha shares practical insights, challenges misconceptions, and explores what meaningful accessibility looks like in everyday life and in education. They discuss:
The language that deaf communities prefer (and why words matter).
How to make meetings, classrooms and public spaces more accessible.
The role of BSL interpreters, captions and lip-speaking (and why "one size fits all" doesn't work).
Practical ideas schools can apply.
"People just assume deaf equals absolutely no hearing. And actually, it is more complicated than that."
Samantha Baines
View all podcasts available or visit our SENDcast sessions shop!
 
About Samantha Baines
Samantha Baines is a multi award-winning woman. An actress, broadcaster and a bestselling author as well as a business woman, speaker and mentor. She is a proud deaf and disabled person and advocate for women and disabled communities.
 
Samantha presents on The One Show, BBC Morning Live, Rip Off Britain and BBC Radio London, researching stories with her journalist background. As an actress she has starred in Netflix's The Crown, Romesh Ranganathan's sitcom Avoidance, Alan Carr's comedy Changing Ends, Call the Midwife, Silent Witness or Magic Mike Live (directed by Channing Tatum). She is a voting BAFTA member, and has been a judge National Television Awards and the Nasen Awards. Her personal appearances include ITV's Loose Women, Sky News, ITV News and Andrew Neil's This Week. After seven years of stand-up comedy, two sell out Edinburgh Fringe runs and a UK tour, Samantha has proved her comedy chops but these days sticks to being funny on TV, social media, speaking events and books.
 
A proud deaf and disabled woman, she is hearing aid wearer, lipreading and is learning BSL. Samantha is ambassador for the Royal National Institute for Deaf people, patron of Stagetext and the author of two children's books with deaf protagonists; the award-winning Harriet Versus the Galaxy (which she also voices on Audible) and Bloomsbury Education book The Night the Moon Went Out as well as bestselling non-fiction book Living With Hearing Loss and Deafness: a guide to owning it and loving it. Samantha is working on a new children's book serie to be announced soon.
 
A regular on radio stations (yes even though she is deaf), Samantha can be heard on BBC Radio 2, BBC Radio 4, BBC Radio London, Virgin Radio, she uses video calls for her interviews so she can lipread.
 
A professional speaker and event host, she is a TedxOxford speaker and has spoken at the House of Commons, BAFTA, BFI, FCA as international events. She is host of the multi-award nominated, smash-hit podcast The Divorce Social. A 'Times Podcast of the Week', a No.1 relationship podcast on itunes and reaching over half a million downloads, the podcast has won awards at the International Women's Podcast Awards, the British Podcast Awards (bronze) and has had a total of ten award nominations. 
​
As well as being a successful author, Samantha has written for publications including The Guardian, The Radio Times, The Telegraph, Time Out, Huffington Post and Stylist Magazine. 
 
​Samantha is also founder and director of a boutique social media management company Penguin in the Room and luxury accessories brand Baines London which raises money for charitable causes.
 
 
Contact Samantha
https://www.samanthabaines.com/
https://www.facebook.com/samanthabaines
https://www.instagram.com/samanthabaines/
https://www.tiktok.com/@samanthabaines
http://www.twitter.com/samanthabaines
http://www.youtube.com/user/samanthabaines
 
Useful Links
Living With Hearing Loss and Deafness: A guide to owning it and loving it 
Signature deaf awareness course
 

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 – [email protected] 
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.

Who Will Be SEND? Questions, Not Answers on the Reform Ahead Dale Pickles, Managing Director, B Squared
England's SEND system is on the cusp of its most significant reform in a generation - but one crucial question is going largely unanswered: who will actually be SEND under the new framework?
Dale has written another thought-provoking paper - and again he's recorded it too, so you can take it in without having to work through 34 pages of reading. He unpacks the quiet but profound shift hidden within the proposed move from four areas of need to five areas of development. The SEND register has long been used as a catch-all for children who need help - not all of whom have genuine special educational needs. The reform is set to separate those two groups, with major implications for children, families, schools, and SENCOs.
This paper explores the four distinct populations affected by the changes, what the removal of Cognition and Learning as a category really means, why mental health is being repositioned as a universal concern, and how the familiar SEND vs non-SEND data comparison is about to become meaningless.
Crucially, Dale argues that this reform is not about removing support - it's about making sure the right support reaches the right children, honestly described.
Essential reading for SENCOs, school leaders, and anyone who cares about what happens to the children the system has always struggled to see.
He is always open to conversations, so feel free to get in contact with your thoughts.
Here are the timings for the different sections:
Start - 00:00
Introduction - 01:37
Section 01 - 05:28
Section 02 - 09:35
Section 03 - 16:48
Section 04 - 27:09
Section 05 - 47:57
Section 06 - 01:02:53
Section 07 - 01:09:21
Section 08 - 01:21:58
Section 09 - 01:34:18
Section 10 - 01:40:49
Closing - 01:47:02
Useful links...
Who will be SEND? document - https://bsquared.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Question-Who-will-be-SEND.pdf 
Fixing a Broken System document - https://bsquared.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Fixing-a-Broken-System-1.pdf
Listen to Fixing a Broken System - https://thesendcast.com/special-episode-fixing-a-broken-system/
SENDcast Session FREE Briefing on the White paper and SEND Reforms - https://thesendcast.com/product/whats-in-the-schools-white-paper-for-send/
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 – [email protected] 
Subscribe to the SENDcast - https://www.thesendcast.com/subscribe
Fixing a Broken System document - https://bsquared.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Fixing-a-Broken-System-1.pdf
SENDcast Session FREE Briefing on the White paper and SEND Reforms - https://thesendcast.com/product/whats-in-the-schools-white-paper-for-send/
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.

Did you know that a third of autistic people experience serious mental health challenges? This striking statistic is highlighted by Dr Joanna Grace in her latest podcast 'Barriers to Mental Healthcare for Autistic People'.
"Autistic people have been actively removed from research about mental health."
Dr Joanna Grace
A sensory engagement and inclusion specialist, Joanna emphasises that while there is substantial research on mental health, we often don't know if it applies to autistic individuals. During the podcast, they discuss:
The prevalence of inaccurate mental health diagnoses among autistic adults.
The impact the differences in interoception has on diagnosis.
Practical strategies to support mental health within the autistic community.
Mental health has significant consequences for the quality and length of life. By understanding the risks and barriers, we can empower ourselves and others to take proactive steps in addressing these challenges.
Please note this podcast covers sensitive topics, including suicide, and carries a trigger warning.
View all podcasts available or visit our SENDcast sessions shop!
 
About Dr Joanna Grace
Joanna Grace is a sensory engagement and inclusion specialist, doctoral researcher, author, trainer, TEDx speaker and Founder of The Sensory Projects.  
Joanna has worked with people with learning disabilities and neurodivergent conditions aged from 0-100 (well 1 day old – 87 years old to be precise) in a range of settings and context. 
Through all she does Joanna is seeking to contribute to a future where people are understood in spite of their differences. 
 
Contact Dr Joanna
www.TheSensoryProjects.co.uk
www.Facebook.com/JoannaGraceTSP
https://x.com/Jo3Grace
[email protected]
https://www.youtube.com/@TheSensoryProjects
 
 
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 – [email protected] 
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.