Inclusive Literacy in Action
with Nick Sheffield, Carol Allen, Matt Laurie, Chris Barson and Dr Sarah Moseley.
Including an online learning course by Richard Hirstwood.
This conference offers a practical, thought-provoking day focused on creating inclusive, accessible literacy for learners with severe, complex, or neurodiverse needs.
Across seven sessions, we’ll explore what it really means to teach literacy in a way that works for every learner – not just those who follow conventional paths to reading and writing. Each presenter will share evidence-informed ideas, everyday strategies, and creative tools that you can use straight away in your classroom. Whether you’re thinking about how phonics fits (or doesn’t), building a bank of symbol or sensory stories, or using AI to personalise content, bringing rapport-based engagement into everyday literacy routines, this day is about expanding your literacy toolkit to reflect the learners in your classroom.
Joined-Up Literacy: progressing and sequencing learning with Nick Sheffield
In this session, Nick Sheffield will explore how to build and embed sequential, practical and inclusive literacy strategies over an entire half term for learners with complex or neurodiverse needs. Expect many practical examples and ideas as Nick demonstrates the evolution of learning and how to scaffold and build progress through a single base lesson, as learners move from passive to active learning..
Is Phonics Inclusive? with Dr Sarah Moseley
Sarah explores the role of phonics through an inclusion lens, with particular attention to learners with SEND. While phonics can be an effective tool for some learners, it can also present significant cognitive, sensory, and emotional challenges for others. She will reflect on when phonics supports access to reading, when it limits participation, and how it can be integrated within an inclusive literacy strategy that honours multiple ways of learning, communicating, and making meaning. Sarah encourages a balanced, evidence-informed thinking and practical reflection, rather than a one-size-fits-all approach.
Creating Symbol Stories with Carol Allen
Many learners use symbols as an aid to Literacy. This session will look at the skills and guidelines for writing your own symbol stories, so you can personalise them for individual learners or link them to topics. Carol will also consider where to curate ‘ready-made’ symbol stories to support your resource bank.
Comic Strip Conversations and Social Stories with Chris Barson
Chris will look at Comic Strip Conversations™ and how these stories help learners understand different social situations and feelings. He will share practical strategies for moving from theory to practice, along with resources that support classroom conversations and beyond. He’ll share examples of how technology can help to create Comic Strip Conversations™, but he won’t forget good old low-tech, either! Chris’s session will continue with a discussion of social stories and how you can use them to help your neurodivergent learners navigate social situations confidently. He’ll share practical strategies for understanding the why behind social stories, explore the different types of stories, and show you how to create personalised stories for individual learners.
Using AI to support Literacy with Carol Allen
This session will cover a variety of easy-to-replicate ideas for utilising the power of AI to create access to literacy skills and activities. Suitable for those at the beginning of their use of AI as an educational resource, the session will offer teaching ideas for all participants to take away and try in their classes.
The Roots of Literacy with Matt Laurie
In this session, Matt explores how speech and early literacy grow out of warm, responsive interaction and the secure relationships children build with the adults around them. Rather than starting with words and symbols, this session focuses on the foundations that make literacy possible for learners with additional and complex needs: rapport, emotional safety, and an autonomy-supportive interaction style that invites engagement instead of relying on demand. With short video examples and practical interactive tasks, delegates explore what rapport looks like, how to find it, and how to bring more of it into everyday literacy routines. Matt finishes with a simple, memorable framework (the 3C’s) and discusses how to apply it directly to shared reading, story time, symbols, mark-making, and early communication activities.
Creating engaging sensory stories with Richard Hirstwood (an online/on-demand course)
Sensory stories can support loads of outcomes – from relaxation and engagement to specific learning targets, interaction, shared attention, and communication – but they’re much more than simply reading a book from front to back. To work well, they need the right level of multisensory input to match your learners and keep the experience meaningful rather than overwhelming. Richard explores how sensory stories support learning, how to choose and use “bite-size” stories, why repetition is a real strength, how digital/mobile technology can boost interactivity, and how to select effective multisensory stimuli to bring a story to life.
9 am Admissions and a virtual tea or coffee to start the day!
9.05 am Welcome, introductions and a warm-up activity.
9.15 am Session 1: Joined-Up Literacy: Sequencing Learning in Inclusive Classrooms with Nick Sheffield
10.15 am Session 2: Creating Symbol Stories with Carol Allen
10.45 am Coffee
11.00 am Session 3: The Roots of Literacy with Matt Laurie
11.45 pm Session 4: Is Phonics Inclusive? with Dr Sarah Moseley
12.30 pm Lunch
1.30 pm Session 4: Comic Strip Conversations and Social Stories with Chris Barson
2.15 pm Session 5: Using AI to support Literacy with Carol Allen
2.50 pm Q & A
3 pm Thank you and close of the day
Click on the names below to read more about our conference presenters!
This conference will be appropriate for classroom practitioners from special schools and colleges, mainstream settings with specialist SEN provision and early years settings, working with pupils with autism and neurodiverse learning needs or both, who wish to create an inclusive literacy environment in their classroom.
The recording of this event will be in your account at online.hirstwood.com. You will access this using the email address on the booking form and your password (instructions for creating your password are in the joining information).
Here you will find:
a digital recording of the event
a transcript of the Zoom chat
These will be available for 10 days after the event.
Early Bird Tickets cost £275 plus VAT per delegate until 13 February 2026.
Standard Tickets cost £295 plus VAT per delegate after 13 February 2026
You can select multiple places on the booking form.
You can pay by credit card for this booking or request an invoice on the booking form.
