SEND Reform 2026 & Inclusion in Mainstream Fund
On 23 February 2026, the government published its Schools White Paper, Every Child Achieving and Thriving, alongside a consultation on SEND reform, Putting Children and Young People First. Together they set out the biggest shift in SEND policy in a decade: building a mainstream system that is inclusive by design.
Much of the reform will take years and still depends on legislation. But one change is already here. Every mainstream school now receives an inclusive mainstream fund allocation and must publish an inclusion strategy by 31 December 2026.
What the White Paper sets out
The White Paper describes a system in which every child benefits from high-quality, inclusive teaching, with early identification of needs and evidence-based support as standard. Key commitments include:
- an inclusive mainstream fund of £1.6 billion over three years for early years settings, schools and colleges
- Experts at Hand, £1.8 billion over three years to bring specialists such as speech and language therapists and specialist teachers into mainstream settings
- targeted support in mainstream schools, so children can get help without waiting for a diagnosis or a statutory process
- National Inclusion Standards and an updated SEND Code of Practice, setting out evidence-informed practice for every mainstream setting
How the inclusive mainstream fund works
Of the fund’s annual total, £400 million a year goes to mainstream schools. For 2026 to 2027, each school’s allocation is made up of:
- a lump sum of £3,000 per school
- £16 for every primary pupil, including Reception (£14 for secondary pupils)
- £79 for every primary pupil with low prior attainment (£88 for secondary)
An area cost adjustment is then applied. As an illustration, a 210-pupil primary school with 30 pupils recorded as having low prior attainment would receive around £8,700 before the area cost adjustment. The DfE has published a calculator so schools can check their own estimate.
The fund is not a personal budget for individual pupils. It sits alongside your core budget, including your notional SEN budget, and the DfE is clear it should not be the only source of funding for inclusion.
The seven principles of inclusion
Any activity you fund, in part or in full, using your inclusive mainstream fund allocation must fall under one of the seven principles of inclusion. These are:
- ambitious leadership and governance that embeds inclusion
- evidence-based support prioritising early intervention
- high-quality adaptive teaching with a 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
You may also see these described as seven “themes of activity” in the DfE’s funding methodology, which recommends that schools allocate their funding across them. The areas are the same. The principles are the standard your funded activity must meet. The themes are a way to plan how you spread your spending across them.
Your inclusion strategy
Every school must publish an inclusion strategy on its website by 31 December 2026. The DfE has provided a template. If you choose not to use it, your strategy must still cover:
- the barriers to learning and participation identified across your cohort
- the activities you are investing in to reduce them, with budgeted costs
- your intended outcomes
- a review of the previous academic year
The DfE recommends a five-step cycle, similar to pupil premium planning: identify common barriers, use evidence, develop the strategy, deliver and monitor it, then evaluate and sustain it. For this first year, it advises most schools to focus on a small number of well-chosen activities that strengthen the universal offer, rather than spreading funding thinly.
Your strategy matters beyond compliance. Ofsted’s inclusion evaluation area now asks whether leaders and governors have published a strategy setting out how their funding will meet the needs of their cohort, and it will be available to inspectors when they evaluate inclusion.
Why wellbeing belongs in your strategy
The DfE asks schools to look beyond diagnoses to the commonly occurring barriers in their cohort. For many schools, difficulty managing emotions is one of the most common barriers of all. Children with SEN are 4.5 times more likely to have a probable mental disorder than their peers, according to NHS England data, and emotional dysregulation affects attendance, behaviour and readiness to learn.
A whole-school wellbeing curriculum tackles that barrier in exactly the way the fund intends: universally, early, and without the need for diagnosis. Every child learns the same language for feelings and the same strategies, so support is already in place when a child begins to struggle.
The evidence supports this. Independent analysis of Bury local authority data found that persistent absence fell 7.4 times faster in myHappymind schools with high proportions of pupils with SEN than in comparison schools. As with any real-world comparison, this shows a consistent association rather than proof of cause, but the pattern was strongest where need was greatest. The Centre for Mental Health’s 2026 evaluation also found the programme effective across a wide range of needs, including trauma, SEN and complex backgrounds.
As one SENCO at St John’s CofE Primary School put it: “What is good practice for SEND is good for all after all.”
Where myHappymind fits
myHappymind Primary is a universal, whole-school programme designed so that every child can access the same content together, without withdrawal or heavily differentiated delivery. Symbol cards, visual timetables and an adapted curriculum for specialist settings support access for all. Targeted support (courses and toolkits) adds help for children who need more, without waiting for a statutory process.
myHappymind Belong builds on that foundation. It is aligned to the DfE’s inclusion principles and includes:
- an inclusion strategy generator that walks you through your outcomes and produces your published strategy, with a measurable criterion for each
- an individual support plan generator that turns a flagged concern into a written plan for one child
- more than 15 ready-to-use inclusion resources, including the Spot the Signs toolkit and resources for governors and families
How you use your inclusive mainstream fund is your decision, based on the needs of your cohort. If you are planning your strategy now, we can show you how other schools are building myHappymind into theirs.
