I have been thinking about butterflies this week.

Not single butterflies and not one particular type.

Not Red Admirals, Cabbage Whites or Painted Ladies.

Not the large examples of rare butterflies in the National History Museum, gathered by long forgotten Victorian Explorers, which were housed in rows of glass cases.

Not the 1970s sitcom written by Carla Lane and starring Wendy Craig and Nicholas Lyndhurst before he became ‘Rodney’.

But kaleidoscopes of butterflies, armies of caterpillars and the six most beautiful butterflies in the World – Blue Morpho, Ulysses, Zebra Swallowtail, Peacock, Goliath Birdwing and the curiously named Question mark.

And mostly butterflies which create change, not the widely held metaphor that butterflies are used to illustrate chaos theory by the single flap of a wing, but conversely the action of a butterfly as a catalyst for large scale change.

The thoughts started on Tuesday, in the Mercer’s Hall, in the City of London, with canapes and a conversation.

A networking session, where many people mingled and spoke about who they were and how far they had travelled.

It was the celebration of a longstanding school to school support system, developed by The London Leadership Strategy (LLS) to improve SEND leadership in schools and in doing so improve outcomes for pupils with Special Educational Needs & Disability (SEND).

Attendees had brought their SEND experience, compassion, advocacy and support; they came from schools; they came from charities and support groups; they were parents, teachers, headteachers, consultants and teacher-researchers, they were Dames, Sirs, OBEs, MBEs, CEOs, representatives from the DFE and CEOs from a range of SEND organisations.

All kinds of beautiful Butterflies, all waiting, for one butterfly to flap its wings.  To drive a change in the school system. To demonstrate how School to School support and system leadership can and has worked.

The first speaker of the evening was David Wood, Chair of LLS, followed shortly by the LLS SEND Lead & Director, David Bartram, and other influentual Educationalists such as Vijita Patel, Anita Kerwin Nye and Dr Tim Coulson, but It was David’s speech that referenced and reinforced the beauty and power of butterflies.

David expanded and elaborated on the theory that a group of butterflies in the Amazon, could create a climate change that could cause a tornado in the USA. Butterflies therefore can signify small actions.The small change, the butterfly effect, to which David referred, was an action a few years ago. In a Secondary School in West London, in which he worked, not small for the School, but at the time inconsequential to every other School in England.

The SEND Leaders programme began with the idea of sharing good SEND practice from within the school system, and championing good practice from that Secondary School in West London. This small step led to the now widely promoted – SEND review guide – A School led approach to improving provision for all. It does not stop with the publication of a guide though, it will continue to grow to a national SEND Leaders programme to benefit all through the Whole School SEND Consortium.

There will be more butterflies who will be able to become part of the Consortium, who will be able to share their experiences within their schools, clusters and MATs and who will be able to lead on the school to school model, who will be able to become coaches or be coaches.

It really does only take one butterfly.

Meanwhile on another wet and windy day, in Walsall at The University of Wolverhampton, this time a Saturday. Another group of butterflies are assembling, lead by Professor Dame Alison Peacock (who just so happens to share a name with one of the six most beautiful butterflies in the world!). The learning beyond levels ‘movement’ started with one tweet and although a tornado has not yet happened, it is likely that this movement is going to revolutionise how assessment is undertaken in the future.

Golden tickets holders went away  with some great messages frome the day, some of which reinforced and were repititious of the the principles behind the SEND Leaders programme, namely

• We are part of a school led system
• There is expertise within the School System
• We can find ways to share expertise, experience and knowledge

As the sessions throughout the day were about learning without limits, there were other elements which are key if we are going to grow as a profession and develop our own solutions

• We need to really understand what asssesment is and how to do it properly
• We do not need colour coded spreadsheets to record the progress of pupils
• We do not need to set target grades and if we make something a target, it puts a ceiling on it
• We need to stop trying to recreate levels

It really does only take one butterfly.

Both the Whole School SEND Consortium and the Learning First model are moving away from a top down approach, where we are told and accept as a profession what to do.

Both groups recognise that there is not one way to do something, or one strategy in one school may not work in another and one leadership style may work in one school and not another.

Jointly maybe without realising it, they are both promoting the same message; a well informed profession which is based on effective practice, informs the successful strategies we should be using and both throughout their work are signposting, informing and guiding us to make the right choices for our schools.

It really does only take one butterfly, but there are room for more.

So if you are a beautiful butterfly with good practice to share…

Don’t keep it to yourself- Share it