SEND training for schools: supporting every child to achieve and thrive - facilitator guidance
Table of contents Aims 3 Facilitator instructions 4 Potential adaptations 6 Facilitator checklist 9 Content knowledge 10 Glossary 16 References 18 Aims to support staff to understand the context for why the SEND reforms have been introduced and what challenges they are seeking to address to introduce what is meant by inclusion and the different levels that it operates at to ensure that staff understand that inclusion within schools is not solely about helping pupils to access the curriculum; it is also about helping them to develop as individuals to build staff buy-in around how creating a system of inclusion can support all pupils to have a positive experience of school to get staff excited about future professional development related to the SEND reforms Feel free to add into the box below any additional aims that you would like to achieve from this session: Facilitator instructions Potential adaptations Facilitator checklist This checklist catalogues steps that you may wish to work through in order to prepare for the delivery of this session, and future sessions.
Content knowledge Supporting every child to achieve and thrive Introduction Schools in England are already making a positive difference to children and young people’s lives every day: There are only a handful of countries that are both better performing and more equal than England (Ifs, 2024).
Over the last 10 to 15 years, literacy and numeracy skills in England have improved significantly relative to other high-income countries (Ifs, 2024).
The majority of children enjoy going to school ‘most days’ or ‘every day’ (DfE, 2026).
However, not every pupil has a positive experience of school.
Reflection: What are some of the best experiences that your pupils are having at school?
What are some of the most difficult experiences that your pupils are having at school?
As the facilitator, what parts of this section might be the most challenging to deliver, and how will you approach this?
Context for the SEND reforms The SEND reform consultation and white paper (Department for Education, 2026a & b) set out the government’s vision to create a fairer, more inclusive education system for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). The current system is described as too often inconsistent, bureaucratic, and often adversarial, with too many families having to fight for support. Despite increased funding, outcomes for children with SEND have not improved as expected.
Vision and principles The reforms aim to build a system that supports every child to achieve and thrive, regardless of background or need. The reforms were guided by five principles: early support, local provision, fairness, effectiveness, and shared responsibility. The intention is to create a system that focuses more on what children and young people can do, not what they cannot, shaped by the voices of those children and young people, families, and professionals.
Some key proposals National Inclusion Standards: clear standards setting out what ordinarily available provision should be in every setting across the 0 to 25 system, as well as the evidence-based tools, strategies and approaches for educators to draw on to identify and support children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).
Individual Support Plans (ISPs): every child or young person receiving Targeted or Specialist support will have a digital Isp, co-designed with families, to record needs and provision and ensure continuity through transitions.
Experts at Hand: investment will bring education and health professionals, such as speech and language therapists, directly into mainstream settings to provide timely support and build staff expertise.
Specialist Provision Packages and EHCPs: for children and young people with the most complex needs, new nationally defined Specialist Provision Packages will underpin improved Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs), ensuring consistent, evidence- based support.
Funding reform: more funding will flow directly to mainstream settings to support early intervention and inclusion, with pooled funding models to encourage collaboration.
Accountability: clear roles and responsibilities for public services, and corresponding updates to Ofsted and Care Quality Commission (CQC) Area SEND inspection frameworks.
Specifically relevant to the topic of inclusive teaching are reforms related to Areas of Development, and layers of support.
Areas of Development: Replacing the ‘Areas of Need’, these are focused on promoting the development of children and young people and consider their strengths as well as things they find difficult. The five ‘Areas of Development’ are currently proposed as
(Department for Education (2026b), Fig. 5): Executive function: skills for organising, planning, remembering and managing tasks.
Speech, language and communication: understanding and using language to interact and learn.
Social and emotional: building relationships, managing feelings and social interaction.
Sensory: processing and responding to sensory information (such as sight, sound, touch).
Motor and physical: movement, coordination and physical health needs.
Note: The final Areas of Development are subject to change. DfE is considering feedback from SEND reform consultation and recommendations from the Expert Panel.
Layers of support: this approach includes the universal offer as a foundation, with three additional layers of support available:
Universal offer: all education settings will provide a baseline of high-quality, inclusive teaching and early help. This marks a shift towards making inclusive teaching and early intervention part of everyday practice, rather than something separate or additional. Teachers and staff play a central role in identifying needs early, adapting their teaching, and creating a culture where all pupils feel included.
Three layers of support: beyond the universal offer, children and young people can access Targeted, Targeted Plus, or Specialist support, depending on their needs. Support is designed to be flexible, so children can move between layers as their needs
change. Staff are expected to notice when pupils may need extra help, make reasonable adaptations, and work in partnership with families and specialists to help pupils access the right support at the right time.
Reflection: What strengths does your setting have when it comes to supporting children and young people with SEND?
What challenges does your setting have when it comes to supporting children and young people with SEND?
As the facilitator, what parts of this section might be the most challenging to deliver, and how will you approach this?
What is inclusion?
There is no single definition of inclusion (Nilholm & Göransson, 2017), and each school will likely have their own.
One definition we can use is: Inclusion is all staff supporting the learning, wellbeing and safety needs of all children, so that they belong, achieve and thrive.
Principles of inclusion As with definitions, principles of inclusion vary. Schools will likely have developed their own principles of inclusion, which connect with their own definition.
The Department for Education has proposed the following seven principles:
ambitious leadership and governance that embeds inclusion
evidence-based support prioritising early intervention
high-quality inclusive teaching with curriculum designed for all learners
enriching provision beyond the classroom that all children can access
a safe and respectful culture fostering belonging, attendance, and participation in learning
strong partnerships with families and wider services inclusive environments with continuous improvements to accessibility Broader aims of inclusion The aims of our work in inclusion are that every child can achieve and thrive. It can be helpful to break that aim down into the kinds of experiences and developmental outcomes we want for every pupil. For example, in this professional development we can think about: Educational outcomes: we want all pupils to make the best progress possible across subjects. Across the system, strong progress has been made in embedding into schools the best evidence on how to support pupils to learn and make progress academically, drawing on insights from cognitive science. In terms of system level progress, perhaps a little less attention has been given to the next two areas over the last few years.
Personal development: we want all pupils to develop their sense of self – their identity, their self- esteem and understanding of how to support and motivate themselves.
Wellbeing and belonging: we want pupils to feel that they are a valuable member of their community. We want them to have a voice, to be able to make judgements and to play an active role in social groups. We want pupils to have a sense of belonging in their communities.
There is a lot of good work taking place across the sector to support personal development and belonging, but these areas haven’t been addressed so systematically for teachers as academic outcomes. The reality of course, is that pupils’ experiences have an impact across all of these areas and positive experiences in one area are likely to impact the others. If we want pupils to achieve and thrive, we need to consider how we support development across the three areas during pupils’ school experiences.
Reflection: Across which of these three areas do you think your school is strongest?
Where do you think your school could strengthen?
As the facilitator, what parts of this section might be the most challenging to deliver, and how will you approach this?
Inclusion at different levels Inclusion is a very broad concept that can include topics such as equalities, inclusion bases, inspection frameworks and wider school systems. The in-house materials are intended to fulfil a need within a highly specific component of this wider challenge – supporting professional development focused on the classroom rather than wider system and policy debates.
The purpose of the in-house materials is to strengthen and sustain high-quality teaching in mainstream schools. Whilst this supports the wider goals of inclusive practice and policy, these materials will not cover much broader aspects of inclusion, such as Edi (equality, diversity and inclusion), inclusion bases or specialist provision.
Glossary Some selected terms used within the slide deck and within the government’s reforms are included here for reference. Some staff will be familiar with these terms, but others may not. In the latter case, you might consider explicitly providing some of these definitions alongside the slide presentation.
Additional Needs: a general term used to describe where additional support, adjustments or provision is needed by children and young people to access education and training on an equal basis with others. This includes Special Educational Needs and Disabilities but can also refer to economic disadvantage, looked-after-children or children and young people who have low prior attainment and need extra support to succeed in education.
Areas of Development: replacing the ‘Areas of Need’, these are focused on promoting the development of children and young people and consider their strengths as well as things they find difficult. The five proposed ‘Areas of Development’ were (Department for Education (2026b), Fig. 5):
executive function: skills for organising, planning, remembering and managing tasks
speech, language and communication: understanding and using language to interact and learn
social and emotional: building relationships, managing feelings and social interaction
sensory: processing and responding to sensory information (such as sight, sound, touch)
motor and physical: movement, coordination and physical health needs
Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP): a legal document outlining the education, health and social care support that is to be provided to a child or young person who has special educational needs (SEN) or a disability.
Experts at Hand: a new offer of expert advice and services from education and health professionals into mainstream education settings.
Inclusion: the government’s approach to inclusion is guided by the definition set by the Un Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which focusses on breaking down barriers. Children’s needs are not fixed. They may change over time, and many will face barriers to learning at different stages of their lives – whether due to poverty, bereavement, caring responsibilities or other life circumstances. All staff in truly inclusive settings are able to recognise and respond to a wide range of additional needs, not as a response to specific diagnoses, but as a proactive approach towards creating environments where all children can access learning, feel valued and safe, and succeed.
Individual Support Plan (Isp): a record of a child or young person’s barriers to learning and of the
provision in place to overcome those barriers. These will be for all children and young people with SEN.
Layers of support: three layers of support, above the Universal offer. These are called:
Targeted: additional support for pupils who need more help, but not specialist provision.
Targeted Plus: more intensive support, possibly involving external specialists.
Specialist: specialist settings or provision for pupils with the most complex needs.
SEN: special educational needs.
SENCO: special educational needs co-ordinator – a professional responsible for overseeing SEND provision within a school or setting.
SEND: special educational needs and disabilities – a broader term than SEN.
Settings: the different types of educational environments where children and young people receive learning and support. This includes early years provision (including childminders, maintained nursery schools, school-based nurseries, and private, voluntary and independent (Pvi) nurseries), schools (mainstream and special), and colleges or other post-16 education providers.
Transitions: the process of moving between stages of education or settings, such as from early years to primary school, or from school to further education.
Universal offer: is the everyday support and inclusive teaching that all mainstream settings provide for all children and young people.
References Department for Education. (2026a). Parent, pupil and learner voice: March 2026.
Department for Education. (2026b). SEND Reform: putting children and young people first.
Department for Education. (2026c). Every child achieving and thriving.
Department for Education. (2026d) Academic year 2024/25: Special educational needs in England.
Department for Education. (2026e). Developing an inclusion strategy using the inclusive mainstream fund.
Farquharson, C., McKendrick, A., Ridpath, N. & Tahir, I. (2024). The state of education: what awaits the next government?. Institute for Fiscal Studies.
Nilholm, C. & Göransson, K. (2017). What is meant by inclusion? An analysis of European and North American journal articles with high impact. European Journal of Special Needs Education, 32(3), 437–451.
Developed in partnership with Timings | Section | Overview 5 mins | Aims of the session | Brief presentation of the aims of the session.
15 mins | Introduction | Provides some context on the positive impact that schools have on pupils. Provides an opportunity to reflect on the differing experiences of pupils attending school.
15 mins | Context: SEND reform | Provides a brief rationale for the government’s reform of the SEND system and the principles and aims of those reforms. Shares the Areas of Development: these areas are the subject of later slide decks introducing each in more detail. Shares the model of Universal Offer and Layers of Support: highlighting the important link between inclusive teaching and a strong universal offer.
15 mins | What is inclusion? | Briefly defines ‘inclusion’. Provides an opportunity to reflect on the different goals of inclusion. Shares the different levels of inclusion.
5 mins | Reflection | Suggested end of session reflection task.
Potential adaptations | Suggestions General | You may wish to add your name or the name of your school or college to the bottom of the first slide. Note On Language: Throughout this, and other resources, we have made choices about the names we use to refer to people, places and ideas (such as ‘teachers’ and ‘pupils’). You may be accustomed to using different terms within your own setting. Please feel free to change any of these terms where you feel that doing so would be appropriate and helpful. (A quick way to do so is to use Ctrl+F, ‘Replace All’.) Session timings | Timings of individual slides (e.g., 2 minutes) and a running timing in minutes (e.g., [4]) are provided based on a 60-minute session. However, the session is intended to be flexible enough to adapt this to slightly longer or shorter times as required (e.g., 75 mins or 50 mins).
For shorter sessions, you may need to limit optional slides and consider the use of time provided for reflection activities – for example, considering the length of discussion time and how many responses you elicit. For longer sessions, you might offer more of the optional slides and extend the time available for reflection and discussion – for example, taking more contributions from teachers and explicitly drawing out the suggested key points as they are raised by the teachers themselves. It might be that you would prefer to deliver this content over several, shorter sessions in which case you can adapt the deck accordingly. For example, you might cover a session via three 20-minute slots, rather than in a single one-hour slot.
Introductory pupil voice quotes | In the introduction, there are a choice of pupil quotes – one primary-age, and one secondary-age. They are intended to illustrate the impact of pupils’ positive experiences of school; particularly their perception of belonging and ability to achieve and thrive in school. You may wish to use quotes from your own pupils in place of these suggestions. Where you use your own quotes, it is important that they reflect the following: They present positive development on the part of the pupil, not merely talking about difficulties and challenges.
Context: SEND reform Slide options | In the section: Context: SEND reforms, there are optional slides related to the national picture in the context of SEND and background. It is suggested that you select one or two of these slides, picking the ones you think will be most relevant to your settings’ priorities or your
audience’s phase/context. The last of these slides invites you to consider sharing data from your own context. For example, this might be data related to pupil/learner outcomes illustrating whether there is a similar gap compared to national outcomes. Where you include local data, we would recommend restraint given the session timings. For example, sharing a single slide of data you feel would help illustrate the local context of the SEND reforms. This might involve: a bar graph illustrating the difference in outcomes between pupils/learners with SEND or with disadvantaged backgrounds compared to their peers simply presenting percentages of pupils/learners achieving a ‘good’ outcome, comparing those with SEND or with disadvantaged backgrounds and their peers
Reflection question options | Throughout the session there are options for different reflection activities. You could use one of these or edit/ replace the questions to reflect the priorities, strengths and challenges in your own context.
At the end of the section on SEND reforms the options suggested are: reflecting on the role of the teacher/staff member, the universal offer and layers of support reflecting on the reforms and which feel most important within your context
In the reflections section the options suggested are: takeaways from the session on the SEND reform broader reflections on systems and challenges regarding inclusion broader reflections on the school’s strengths and areas of development regarding inclusion
Task | Status (Tick for complete) Prior to delivery… | Prior to delivery… I have read the aims of this session I have read the instructions on how to deliver the session I have read the section of the guidance on the content knowledge of the session and completed the reflection questions I have established the context within which I will be delivering this session (such as the allotted time, and how this session will relate to other PD) I have considered the prior knowledge and range of experiences of those I will be delivering to I have considered the range of roles of those I will be delivering to, and how I can ensure that all staff feel motivated and able to contribute I have considered the best route to take through the session I have adapted resources, such as using different examples of practice or pupil voice, where appropriate I have considered how to group or pair-up staff where they will be discussing and reflecting with one another I have identified what I think will be the trickiest parts of the session to deliver, and I have either scripted these or practised delivering the existing scripts I have planned how I might get feedback on the session once it has been delivered Where staff are required to have read a pre-read or attended another session prior to this one, I have ensured that the pre-read has been shared and/or the session has been delivered Having delivered the session… | Having delivered the session… I have reflected on what went well I have reflected on what I might do differently for future sessions I have recorded these insights so that I can use them to support my planning of future sessions