Julie Wharton

• Senior Lecturer, Institute of Education, University of Winchester

Dr Julie Wharton is an experienced SEND practitioner and researcher committed to creating welcoming, inclusive school environments for all learners. Having worked as a SENCo, Advanced Skills Teacher for SEND and a Local Authority SEND Inspector, she now leads SENCo leadership programmes and supports educators to develop confident, compassionate practice. Her research explores how teachers build inclusive relationships.
Julie led on the publication of the DfE's SENCO Induction Pack, written with Geraldene Codina, Rosanne Esposito and Tristan Middleton. A follow up publication Understanding Inclusion was published by nasen in 2020. More recently, Julie has worked with Geraldene Codina and Mhairi C Beaton to publish Leading on inclusion: the role of the SENCo published by Routledge. Her chapter, All Teachers are Teachers of Children with SEN: The Mainstream Class Teacher as a SEN Practitioner, will be published in June as part of the forthcoming edited collection The SEN Practitioner: Status, Skills and Support, edited by Tristan Middleton (Routledge).

Julie is the co-lead of the SEN Policy Research Forum.

• 2014–present Senior Lecturer, University of Winchester
• 2007–2014 SEND Inspector, Southampton City Council
• 2000–2007 SENCo, Harrison Primary School

• 2023 University of Winchester, PhD

• 2025 From deindividualisation to belonging: the role of welcoming teachers through the lens of Buber's I and Thou, The International Journal of Inclusive Education

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