The Pluto Collective · Change in SEND
A community for everyone working on, thinking about, and advocating for change in SEND. Practitioners, commissioners, researchers, school leaders, parent carers, advocates, and people from neighbouring fields.
The founding question
The Schools White Paper sets out three fundamental shifts: from narrow to broad, from sidelined to included, from withdrawn to engaging. They are the right ambitions. But ambitions do not produce change. Conditions do.
Our opening question to this community
"What is the one condition that most needs to change in your system for SEND reform to actually hold?"
Who we are
Pluto Collective is not a network for sharing policy updates. We are a space for the people doing the hardest work in the SEND system — and the people thinking hardest about it — to come together around the questions that matter.
We are starting in Greater Manchester. We are building for the long term.
Practitioners and school leaders
SENCOs, educational psychologists, virtual school heads, early years leads, and the practitioners navigating the system daily.
Commissioners and policymakers
Directors of Children's Services, SEND leads, ICB officers, and LA officers responsible for the system response.
Researchers and academics
People studying what works, what does not, and what the evidence says about change in SEND systems.
Families and advocates
Parent carers, young people, and the advocates whose lived experience is the most important design material the system has.
Neighbouring fields
People from housing, mental health, early years, youth work, and community development who work with the same children and families.
Our founding belief
Not every challenge in SEND requires transformation. Some things need to be done better. Some differently. A few need to be dismantled and rebuilt. Knowing which is which is not obvious — and the conditions that make transformation real have to be built deliberately, by people who understand what they are doing.
Pluto Collective exists for those people. Wherever you sit in the system.
Join the Collective
We are just getting started. If you care about how the SEND system changes — and why it so often does not — you belong here. Leave your details and we will be in touch when the first session is ready.
Follow Pluto Collective on LinkedIn