It may seem obvious, but when it comes to driving meaningful change in schools, particularly when it comes to SEND, leadership style can be make or break. In this blog, which is the second of seven in our SEND blog series, we’re taking a closer look at transformational leadership – what it means and the impact it can have.
The new Ofsted framework, published in September 2025, states that when it comes to supporting students with SEND, leaders’ actions need to have a transformational impact on how well pupils with SEND achieve and thrive across all areas of school life. In short, all leaders have a call to action to ensure that every pupil feels that they belong within the school community.
Transactional vs transformational leadership
At its core, transactional leadership of SEND is about managing existing processes: setting targets, following procedures, making sure EHCP review paperwork is filed, data is tracked and deadlines are met. In the context of SEND provision, this is still vital, as without it, systems fail and statutory requirements can slip through the net.
But this leadership style on its own doesn’t necessarily build the kind of environment where every learner feels cared for, seen and as though they belong.
Transformational leadership, on the other hand, can help. It means motivating and influencing across all levels of your school or trust – for example, embodying the values you want everyone to work towards and bringing to life the clear vision of what you want inclusion to look like.
It means paying more attention to what’s going on on the ground, noticing individuals – both colleagues and pupils – and investing in their development and wellbeing.
It’s about being innovative and encouraging your team to be innovative too.
As Vaughan Cruickshank puts it in his journal, The Influence of School Leadership on Student Outcomes, “transformational leadership focuses on establishing school culture and vision to enhance the quality of school teaching and learning, develop people and improve the organisation (Shatzer et al., 2014). Transformation[al] school principals identify and share school vision, lead and inspire others by example, create a culture of learning, and encourage staff members to undertake professional development.”
What transformational leadership means for SEND provision
What does this look like on the ground, particularly when it comes to SEND provision? A transformational leader will still ensure EHCPs are completed (transactional), but they also ask questions such as, “What if our vision is not merely compliance but full participation? What if our staff are empowered to ask what inclusion looks, feels and sounds like when it is fully embedded?”
This all sounds great and an obvious approach to strive towards. But the elephant in the room is the fact that many leaders feel they don’t have the capacity for the more transformational parts of their job. That’s according to a report by the National Education Union.
The report, which surveyed 387 leaders, found that 87% of them cannot find time for the strategic elements of their job. Instead, their weeks are filled with supporting staff wellbeing and mental health, handling safeguarding and child protection and working with families and external agencies around pupil welfare. Over 80% reported increased workload in these areas.
Sustaining vision under pressure
For SEND provision, getting the balance right is especially difficult. Compliance work is constant. A transformational leader integrates compliance into a wider purpose, turning necessary structures into tools that serve the vision rather than define it.
That might look like:
- Framing SEND data reviews as learning conversations and a forum for senior teams and SEND leaders to use the numbers to suggest new ideas
- Using an audit tool as a focus for a termly line management conversation to reflect, to incite new ideas and inspire action
- Protecting time for SENCos to think creatively about inclusion solutions, not just report on provision
- Using times where resources are stretched to ask, “What creative solutions can we devise?”
For example, when I was a senior leader and SENCo at Wren Academy, budget constraints meant I couldn’t simply recruit more TAs to support pupils with SEND. All teachers had a fortnightly CPD session, which was built into their timetable, so I asked staff which areas of SEND they were most interested in developing and created focused half-termly workshops for them to pursue that learning. I then used the gained CPD time to complement this formal learning with practical application by arranging for each member of staff to support a pupil with SEND in their area of interest. This helped meet the additional support needs without increasing headcount.
Feedback from teachers for this initiative was overwhelmingly positive; they reported feeling more confident in their chosen area of SEND learning and, as an additional benefit, reported that they had gained a much clearer understanding of the TA role, which meant they were more intentional about TA deployment in their own lessons.
Echoing Cruikshank’s sentiment, transformational leadership isn’t merely about being constantly optimistic. It’s about being emotionally in tune and solution-focused. It’s about letting teams and colleagues know that what they’re doing really matters and encouraging them to believe this too – even if the numbers (for now) tell a different story.
The transformative leader insists on daily proof that inclusion is real for every pupil with SEND and a tangible value that can be felt across all aspects of school life. A leader who prioritises a child’s sense of belonging does more than make sure they’re able to learn. They create environments where every pupil, parent, teacher and support worker feels they have a meaningful role in the collective story.
In the end, transformational leadership in SEND provision isn’t about being a hero. It’s about keeping the vision alive when pressures grow and helping others see themselves within it. When leaders lead this way, inclusion moves from a policy to a lived experience.
Our next blog explores one of the most powerful outcomes of that shift: belonging – what it looks like, how to build it, and why it changes everything for pupils and staff alike.