Mainstream Inclusion Strategies: finding the priorities that matter

 

I have been thinking a lot about the DfE Mainstream Inclusion Strategy guidance, which is not a sentence I imagine will make anyone immediately abandon their cup of tea in excitement. But, it does create an opportunity for schools to do something useful: to look carefully at who is finding school hardest to access, what barriers are predictable in their context, what is already working, and what needs to become sharper. The alternative is less appealing: another carefully written document that says the right things and then sits on a school website, detached from the decisions being made in classrooms, leadership meetings and pupil progress conversations.

That would be a shame, because the work could be powerful. Schools are being asked to set out how they are identifying and meeting the needs of their pupils, how funding is being used, and how inclusive practice is being strengthened. This includes the Inclusive Mainstream Fund, but it is not just about that fund. It sits within a much bigger picture of core funding, notional SEN funding, staffing, training, curriculum, leadership, provision and school improvement.

The risk is that the inclusion strategy becomes a separate 'inclusion thing'. If it sits politely (or slightly plonked) next to the SEND Information Report while the School Development Plan carries on somewhere else, then inclusion has already been treated as a side project rather than part of the core work of the school. I recognise I pretty much said the same thing about the Ofsted inclusion judgement, but apparently this is the educational hill I am currently choosing to stand on.

Most of us have had what could fairly be described as an 'Acaster' moment. A deadline appears, someone remembers that something needs publishing, and suddenly a perfectly reasonable piece of work turns into a frantic cut-and-paste situation with far too many tabs open and at least one person saying, 'I'm sure we've got something on this already?' Usually schools do have something on it. In fact, they usually have a lot on it. The question is whether it is joined up enough to be useful.

Starting from what schools are already doing

Across our Trust, schools are already working incredibly hard on inclusion. Leaders are trying to understand pupils properly, teachers are adapting practice, SENCos are holding together a huge amount of complexity, support staff are building independence and confidence, family-facing staff are doing quiet but vital work that never fits neatly into a spreadsheet, and headteachers are making difficult decisions with care and integrity. Some of that work is clearly linked to SEND, but much of it is wider: attendance, disadvantage, speech and language, behaviour, emotional wellbeing, family context, transition, gaps in learning and the everyday barriers that can stop pupils fully participating in school life.

The hard work and dedication sits in schools. My role, which I feel very lucky to have, is strategic oversight: helping schools bring that work to the surface, look at it more critically, and identify priorities more robustly and precisely. That is very different from pretending that inclusion is somehow 'done' by the Trust centre. It isn't.

What can happen, though, particularly when schools are doing a lot, is that the work becomes scattered. Some of the inclusion story sits in the SEND Information Report. Some of it sits in the School Development Plan. Some of it sits in the Pupil Premium Strategy, Behaviour Policy, Attendance Policy, Accessibility Plan, provision maps, intervention trackers, transition processes, CPD plans and curriculum reviews. None of those things are wrong. They all hold part of the picture. The issue is whether they tell the same story when you put them together.

From provision lists to impact

The inclusion strategy needs to help schools answer three connected questions: who are our pupils, and what barriers are commonly occurring and predictable in our context; how strong is our universal offer; and where universal provision is not enough, what targeted support do we provide, and how do we know it works?

They are simple questions to ask, but not always simple to answer well. They ask schools to go beyond listing what is available and to think carefully about whether the offer is coherent, balanced and having the intended impact. A school can have a lot of provision and still not have a strong inclusion strategy.

A school might have interventions, nurture groups, sensory resources, visual timetables, transition support, family meetings, emotional regulation work, additional adult support and bespoke spaces. On paper, that can look really strong, and it may well reflect an enormous amount of care, skill and commitment. But leaders still need to ask what all of that provision is actually doing. If some pupils are still struggling to retain and apply learning independently, if progress remains slow, if attendance or participation remains fragile, or if pupils are spending increasing amounts of time away from the classroom, then the provision offer needs to be examined without that feeling like a criticism of anyone’s intentions.

That is not me saying wellbeing, nurture or regulation are optional. They are essential. Children do not learn well if they feel unsafe, misunderstood or permanently overwhelmed. But provision can be caring and still not be enough. An intervention can be well-run and still not transfer into the classroom. A bespoke space can help a child feel safe and still need careful review so it does not accidentally become a separate pathway with lower ambition. A teaching assistant can be excellent and still be part of a deployment model that needs rethinking.

That is where the inclusion strategy could become genuinely useful: as a reason to pause, gather the right people and ask whether the provision offer really matches the needs and barriers in front of us.

Inclusion is bigger than SEND

It is worth saying this clearly before getting into the examples: this is not intended to become a SEND strategy with a different title. SEND is an important part of the story, but it is not the whole story.

The DfE guidance talks about commonly occurring and predictable barriers, and schools know those barriers extend beyond pupils on the SEND register. Attendance, disadvantage, speech and language, behaviour, emotional wellbeing, mobility, pupils learning English as an additional language, young carers, pupils experiencing trauma, pupils with inconsistent attendance and pupils with gaps in prior learning do not sit neatly inside one category.

That is why the work has been approached as an inclusion strategy rather than a SEND strategy. The process should help schools ask: who is finding it hardest to fully participate in school, what barriers are predictable in our context, what are we already doing well, and where are the gaps?

Some of the examples in this blog focus on SEND because they illustrate the principles clearly, but the thinking is deliberately wider. The same process applies when considering disadvantage, attendance, behaviour, language development, wider vulnerability and any barrier that prevents pupils fully participating in school life. 

Using the seven lenses to look at the whole school

The seven lenses are useful because they stop inclusion being reduced to SEND interventions, individual pupils, or the work of the SENCo. They give schools a way of looking across leadership, early support, teaching, curriculum, provision beyond the classroom, culture, family partnership, wider services and the physical environment, so that the strategy reflects the whole school rather than one part of it.

That breadth is important as inclusion rarely sits neatly in one place. It shows up in the curriculum, the classroom, the playground, attendance practice, behaviour systems, family relationships, safeguarding conversations, staff development, transition planning, pupil voice and governance. The purpose, though, is not to write about all seven lenses in full or to create an enormous document that tries to prove everything. The lenses are there to help schools look carefully at what is already happening, notice where the story is strong, and identify gaps, inconsistencies or assumptions that need testing. The examples from Lens 3 and Lens 4 are snapshots. They are not the whole strategy, and they are not intended as a model for every school to copy or think we have everything wrapped up and finalised. They simply show how exemplification can help schools move from 'we do lots of things' to 'we understand why we do this, who it helps, what it changes, and what needs strengthening next.'

 

A Trust framework, but school-led priorities

The strategy has been designed to sit within the school improvement cycle, not outside it. That means starting with a Trust-level framework and some shared principles, but not pretending that every school has the same context, the same cohort, the same strengths or the same priorities. A small rural primary, a coastal school with higher levels of deprivation, an infant school, a junior school, a school with a resource provision, and a school with a very different intake profile cannot all have the same inclusion strategy in any meaningful sense.

There can be shared expectations and a common language, but the priorities need to come from the school’s own analysis. That is why the most important part of this process is not the writing. It is the thinking before the writing. What do we know about our pupils? What patterns are emerging? Which needs are commonly occurring and predictable? What barriers are showing up in attendance, behaviour, attainment, progress, participation and pupil voice? Where is provision strong? Where is it busy but unclear? Where do we have impact, and where do we mainly have activity?

That distinction between activity and impact is one schools have to keep coming back to, because education is very good at creating activity. We can generate meetings, plans, interventions, trackers, forms, referrals and reviews at quite astonishing speed. The harder thing is working out what has changed because of them.

Lens 3: high-quality teaching and curriculum

Lens 3 is a useful place to start because it takes the inclusion conversation back into the ordinary classroom. It asks whether the universal offer is strong enough, whether common barriers are being anticipated, and whether adaptations are helping pupils access the same ambitious curriculum as their peers. That is relevant for pupils with SEND, but also for any pupil or group experiencing language, learning, participation or independence barriers.

The overview makes the responsibility clear without turning inclusion into something separate from teaching: inclusive practice begins in the ordinary classroom, not once a pupil has struggled for long enough to be given something additional. The ordinary classroom offer has to anticipate common barriers, keep curriculum ambition intact and make sure support staff are helping pupils move towards independence rather than becoming the only route into the work.

This is where inclusion becomes very ordinary, and that is a compliment. It is not always the huge, dramatic thing. Often it is the quality of the model, the clarity of the explanation, the worked example, the vocabulary that is actually taught rather than just displayed, the adult who knows when to step in and when to wait, and the teacher who checks that an adaptation has supported access without quietly lowering the ambition.

The subject-specific adaptive teaching guides are included here because they show how a priority can become more precise. 'Improve adaptive teaching' is a worthy aim, but it is too broad on its own. The real question is what adaptive teaching needs to look like in writing, PE, history, geography, art or mathematics, because each subject places different demands on pupils.

The exemplification is not the point in itself. The point is the process behind it: identifying a recurring barrier, considering where it appears across the curriculum, and making the response visible enough that teachers, support staff and leaders can talk about it consistently. It is a way of surfacing practice that may already exist in pockets, noticing where it is strong, and deciding what needs to be more consistent.

The writing example shows how existing practice can be brought to the surface and examined more deliberately. A shared visual language may already be visible in classrooms, working walls, planning frames and pupil books, but the strategy process asks leaders to look again at what that practice is doing. Is it reducing cognitive load? Is it helping pupils organise ideas before writing? Is it supporting oral rehearsal? Is it being used consistently enough to make a difference? Is it gradually moving pupils towards more independent sentence construction? These are the kinds of questions that turn an existing approach from 'something we use' into something that can be evaluated and refined.

The 'different routes into the same learning' example helps sharpen the distinction between adaptation and reduction. Adaptations should reduce specific barriers while keeping pupils connected to the shared curriculum. They should increase participation, regulation and independence, not quietly move pupils onto something smaller. That distinction is important for pupils with SEND, but also for pupils whose barriers come from gaps in knowledge, language development, confidence, attendance or previous experience of learning.

This is why the universal offer has to do the heavy lifting. Targeted support has its place, of course it does, but it should not become the place where inclusion mainly happens. If the classroom offer is not strong enough, schools end up building more and more around the edges, and pupils can become supported without being fully included.

The Acorn Centre example shows how specialist expertise can strengthen mainstream teaching when the knowledge does not stay in a separate specialist space. For schools with specialist provision, enhanced provision or staff with particular expertise, the strategy process can help leaders ask how that knowledge is moving across the wider school and whether the universal offer is becoming stronger as a result.

Lens 4: provision beyond the classroom

Lens 4 helps schools look at the parts of inclusion that can be easy to value but harder to evaluate. Many schools have thoughtful spaces, nurture offers, pastoral approaches, clubs, enrichment, transition support, social communication groups, emotional regulation work and wider participation opportunities. These are often built with care, and they can make a significant difference to pupils’ sense of safety, belonging and confidence.

The strategy process asks schools to go a step further. Are pupils accessing more over time? Are they becoming more confident? Are they developing independence? Are they transferring what they practise in a smaller group back into the classroom, playground, lunch hall or wider school community? Does the provision still match the need, or has it become part of the furniture?

This is not about removing support. It is about making sure support remains purposeful, reviewed and connected to the wider life of the school. A provision that was absolutely right in September may need adapting by February. A child who needed a high level of adult support at one point may need a careful plan to fade that support. A pupil who needed time in a smaller space may need deliberate opportunities to reconnect with peers, curriculum and whole-school life.

Forest School, clubs, leadership opportunities and wider enrichment can all support belonging, regulation and confidence, but the key question is whether pupils are meaningfully participating. It is easy to count attendance at an activity and assume that is inclusion. It is harder, and more useful, to ask whether pupils are contributing, connecting with peers, building confidence and accessing something they would otherwise miss.

Trust-wide opportunities can give pupils access to experiences that smaller schools may find harder to provide on their own. The point is not simply to gather more pupils in a bigger venue; it is to create opportunities for children to perform, lead, communicate, collaborate and feel part of something wider than their own classroom or school.

The stories schools tell about inclusion also need some care. A photograph of a pupil taking part in a themed day, a club, a trip or a practical activity can be lovely, but the point is not 'look, they were included, how nice of us'. Participation alongside peers should be ordinary. It should be designed for. It should not rely on luck, goodwill or one member of staff who knows how to make it work.

The inclusion strategy should help schools think about the systems behind those moments. How do we plan trips, clubs, performances, sports days, themed days and enrichment so that pupils with additional needs are not an afterthought? How do we make sure reasonable adjustments are anticipated rather than improvised? How do we avoid pupils being present but not really participating? That kind of thinking is not glamorous, but it is often where families and pupils feel belonging most strongly.

Transition, because it is never just July

Transition is another area schools often do well but do not always capture strategically. It is not just the move from one school to another. It is also the move from home to school, from playground to classroom, from one adult to another, from one year group to the next, from intervention back to class, from a bespoke pathway towards greater independence, or from absence back into full participation. For some pupils, those transitions are where the wheels come off. For others, they are where good planning makes all the difference.

If the inclusion strategy is doing its job, it should help schools name where transition is a predictable barrier and what they are doing about it. Not as a one-off activity in July, but as part of a planned, reviewed approach that understands where pupils are most likely to need support.

Where does the inclusion story already live?

One of the most useful questions in the whole process is: where does the school's inclusion story already live? It is likely to be spread across policies, plans, curriculum documents, CPD records, attendance work, behaviour reviews, safeguarding conversations, provision mapping, intervention tracking, parent meetings, pupil voice, governor minutes and school development priorities. The task is not to drag all of that into one enormous document. The task is to check whether it tells a coherent story.

If the strategy says high-quality teaching is the priority, that should be visible in the CPD plan. If attendance for particular pupil groups is a concern, it should be visible in attendance analysis and planned action. If pupils need to develop greater independence, that should be visible in teaching practice, TA deployment and provision reviews. If interventions are carefully targeted, leaders should be able to explain how entry and exit points are assessed and how learning transfers back into class.

This is where the inclusion strategy becomes useful: not because it contains everything, but because it helps leaders connect what already exists, notice what is missing, and decide what needs to be sharpened. It should bring strengths to the surface as well as gaps, because schools often have strong practice that is happening quietly but has not yet been named, shared or evaluated as part of the wider strategy.

How schools identify their inclusion priorities

In OCMAT, schools will identify a small number of inclusion priorities through structured evaluation, professional discussion and evidence gathering. The process is deliberately multi-faceted because inclusion itself is multi-faceted. If schools only look through one lens, they are likely to miss something. The process draws on the OCMAT Guiding Principles, the seven lenses of inclusive practice, each school’s knowledge of its pupils, families and local community, and Evaluate My School as a tool to support reflection and evidence gathering.

Each element brings something different. The Trust principles create shared expectations and language. The seven lenses prevent the work becoming too narrow. School knowledge keeps the process grounded in the actual pupils, families and community being served. Evaluate My School supports evidence gathering and helps avoid the vague version of self-evaluation where everything is 'developing well' until somebody asks what that really means.

The strategy should grow out of this process, not be written first and justified afterwards. Priorities need to be few in number and precise enough to shape action. If everything becomes a priority, nothing really is. The aim is to identify where sharper work will make the biggest difference, and then make sure those priorities sit within existing school improvement planning.

Who needs to sit around the table?

If the process is multi-faceted, the conversation cannot sit with one person. The SENCo will hold an essential part of the picture, but so will the headteacher, curriculum leaders, pastoral and attendance staff, family-facing colleagues, safeguarding leads, governors and trustees. Each will see something different. Each will know something different. If the inclusion strategy is going to be accurate, those pieces need bringing together.

SENCos are generally heroic, and also frequently expected to absorb anything that does not fit neatly anywhere else. If it has the word inclusion, SEND, vulnerable, behaviour, family, transition, intervention, adaptation or 'could you just...' attached to it, there is a fair chance it lands with the SENCo. But this strategy cannot be another SENCo job.

The SENCo absolutely needs to be central, because they hold essential knowledge about need, provision, statutory processes and the graduated approach. But senior leaders need to be involved because this is about priorities, accountability and resources. Curriculum and teaching leaders need to be involved because inclusion lives in classrooms. Pastoral, behaviour, attendance and safeguarding colleagues need to be involved because they often hold the lived experience of pupils and families. Governors and trustees need to be involved because this needs scrutiny, not just approval.

If one part of the school thinks inclusion means adaptive teaching, another thinks it means intervention, another thinks it means behaviour support, another thinks it means attendance, and another thinks it means family work, the problem is not that anyone is necessarily wrong. The problem is that the school may not yet have a shared story. The strategy should help build that shared story, and that shared story should feed straight into school development planning.

If the inclusion strategy identifies a priority around classroom scaffolding, that belongs in teaching and learning. If it identifies a priority around attendance for a particular group of pupils, that belongs in attendance strategy. If it identifies a priority around pupils spending too much time away from class, that belongs in leadership, curriculum and provision review. If it identifies a priority around evaluating interventions, that belongs in assessment and pupil progress systems. Otherwise, inclusion becomes an add-on, and inclusion as an add-on is usually where things start to wobble.

So what needs to become sharper?

The strongest inclusion strategies are unlikely to be the longest. They are more likely to be the ones that help schools name what needs to become sharper: what needs protecting because it is working, what needs tightening because it is inconsistent, what needs stopping because it has become familiar but is not having enough impact, and what needs moving from 'we do this' to 'we know this works because...'.

Those are not always comfortable questions, but they should not be asked with blame attached. Most provision develops because someone was trying to solve a problem. But schools change, cohorts change, pupils change, staff change, and provision needs to be allowed to change too. I would much rather see a short, honest, precise inclusion strategy than a long one that reads beautifully and does very little.

The strongest work across our Trust is not flashy. It is thoughtful and often quite quiet. It is leaders knowing their pupils well. It is schools being honest about what the data is telling them without reducing children to data. It is teachers holding responsibility for pupils even when additional support is in place. It is support staff being trained and deployed carefully. It is SENCos asking whether provision is actually changing outcomes. It is family-facing staff building trust in ways that are hard to measure but impossible to ignore. It is schools being willing to say, 'This helped at one point, but is it still the right thing now?'

The hope is that the Mainstream Inclusion Strategy does not become another compliance exercise. Schools can use it as a reason to gather the right people, pull the threads together, look honestly at what is already happening, and decide the next priorities with precision. Not because the DfE has asked for a document, or because Ofsted might read it, or because the website needs another PDF, but because, done properly, it could help schools make inclusion more coherent, more visible and more connected to the everyday life of the school.

Most schools are already doing an enormous amount. The point is not to invent more work for people who are already stretched. The point is to surface the work that is already making a difference, including work that may not previously have been labelled as inclusion, evaluate it properly, join it to school improvement, and make sure the strategy helps leaders make better decisions for the children in front of them.

If it does that, then it is worth doing. If it sits off to one side, looking earnest and saying all the right things while the real work happens somewhere else, then we should probably admit that we have created exactly the thing we all said we did not want to create. Schools have enough paperwork already.