These courses are designed for anyone involved in the access arrangements process in their centre, and for Access Arrangements Assessors carrying out assessments for access arrangements or the disabled student’s allowance. Communicate-ed is an Authorised Assessment CPD provider for the SpLD Assessment Standards Committee (SASC). Most of our SBCPD courses are SASC approved core hours for renewal of SpLD Assessment Practising Certificates. Please see the ‘What does the course cover’ tab for more information.
Please note, we have a few other short courses available as webinars that we ran live but recorded for future bookings. These include:
Please click here to view and book these webinars.
†If you have access to a copy of the test(s) you have chosen you will find it helpful to have the manual to refer to during the presentation. However, this is not essential as the presenter will show the appropriate pages on the screen. Most of the tests have record/examiner forms produced by the publishers; you will need an original copy of the appropriate form(s) for each test you have chosen. We can supply you with a form for a small fee, please click here for an order form (164 KB pdf).
The course tutors are Caroline Read, Lia Castiglione, Ally Howes, Malcom Litten, Lorraine Lee, Anna Barnett and Rebecca Thompson.
Caroline is one of the founders of Communicate-ed. She is a specialist teacher who has practical experience in all areas of the access arrangements process and trains for local authorities, universities and SEND services. Caroline has contributed to a range of publications, including academic journals. She has worked with a number of publishers to develop tests, and has been involved in various DfE and Ofqual training and policy projects. She was a member of the working party that established the Access Arrangements Online system. In 2024 Caroline was presented with a University of Roehampton Chancellor’s Alumni Award, for Innovation and Inspiration in her industry.
Lia has been teaching and supporting learners of all ages for over 30 years and in varying educational settings. She is a specialist teacher assessor who is highly experienced in all aspects of access arrangements, has held a current Assessment Practising Certificate since 2008 and regularly assesses in schools and colleges. An accomplished educational trainer, Lia is the co-creator of a postgraduate access arrangements assessor course and is the author of the Patoss/JCQ book, ‘Assessing the Need for Access Arrangements’. She works as an independent educational consultant through her company ‘Castiglione Consulting Ltd’.
Ally is a Specialist Teacher who has assessed pupils across various age ranges and settings, as well as working as a SENCo in a large mixed comprehensive school. Ally has led on both literacy and numeracy interventions working with pupils with a range of special educational needs. She has been part of a team of experts working with NFER to develop the National Reference Tests.
Malcolm is a Consultant in dyslexia and assistive technology. He worked for more than 40 years as an English teacher, the majority in a specialist secondary school for children severely affected by dyslexia. He developed uses for text-to-speech software in the development of reading and writing skills and was an early user of speech recognition software with students. Malcom currently undertakes research into the use of assistive technology in schools, trains teachers and individuals in its use and campaigns for its wider adoption. He is a member of the British Dyslexia Association’s New Technologies Committee.
Lorraine runs her own training company (lorrainelee.org) offering dynamic and inspirational training for parents, teachers, pupils and early years practitioners. This training is delivered through a range of services: Parent workshops, one to one sessions, Teacher training, INSET day training, PSHE lessons, year group assemblies and small pupil groups. Lorraine has 3 children and a background in Child Psychology, Positive Parenting Training and Child Development. She is passionate about giving children and young people the best chances possible.
Anna Barnett is a Professor in Psychology at the Centre for Psychological Research, Oxford Brookes University. Much of Anna’s research is in the area of motor development and disorders, particularly Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD). She has published widely on the assessment, diagnosis and understanding of DCD. Anna also has a particular interest in writing and handwriting. She is the principal author of the DASH, DASH1 7+ and Handwriting Legibility Scale and has conducted research to better understand the writing and handwriting difficulties of individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders, including those with DCD and Dyslexia.
Rebecca is a Specialist Teacher with more than 19 years’ assessment experience. She has a current Assessment Practising Certificate, regularly carrying out diagnostic assessment for dyslexia and dyscalculia, as well as carrying out access arrangement assessments. She is a senior assessor for the PAPAA course, supporting students with the course demands. She is a member of the APC accreditation team for the BDA and is a SpLD Assessment Standards Committee (SASC) approved CPD provider, offering a SASC approved mentoring course for diagnostic report writing and a Feifer Assessment of Maths course.
These courses are available online for you to access at a time and place of your choice. Delegates will have 10 consecutive days from their selected start date to watch all of the courses they book.
When you select your courses and book below, you will select a start date. You will get 10 consecutive days access to the courses from this start date, and you can watch them as many times as you like until the end of the 10 days.
These courses are not assessed.
Early Bird rate applies to bookings for Face to Face courses received 21 days before the course date.
You can book online using the form below. Courses costing £40 or less must be paid for online with a debit or credit card.
