Last updated: 15th June 2026
When the Inclusive Mainstream Fund (IMF) reaches schools this summer, it could be easy to see it as just another funding stream – welcome, of course, but familiar. The reality is it marks the start of something much bigger.
It is not simply increased investment in inclusion. It marks a shift in expectation – one that asks schools not only to strengthen what they do, but to show clearly and confidently that it is working. For many schools and trusts, this is where the real challenge and opportunity lie.
Where does the Inclusive Mainstream Fund sit in the reform arc?
The Inclusive Mainstream Fund is the first concrete step in a longer programme of SEND reform. The February 2026 white paper set out the direction: a move toward National Inclusion Standards, new layers of provision, and the development of inclusion bases to support pupils with more complex needs within mainstream settings.
The Inclusive Mainstream Fund translates that vision into practice. It responds to well-documented delays in the system – long waits for assessment, inconsistent provision and over-reliance on specialist assessment and diagnosis to unlock support, by shifting resources and responsibility toward whole-school inclusive design.
That shift brings both opportunity and tension. It empowers schools to act earlier and more flexibly, but it also transfers greater responsibility onto them to make complex judgements with limited external validation. Acknowledging that trade-off is important: this policy asks a lot of schools, and the sector’s capacity to deliver will depend on clarity, support and realistic timelines.
The 7 Principles of Inclusion in the Inclusive Mainstream Fund
The DfE recommends that schools spend across seven themes, and inclusion strategies must report against them. These are the scaffold against which provision will be judged:
- Ambitious leadership and governance that embeds inclusion- strategic oversight, clear accountability
,and a culture where inclusion is everyone’s responsibility. - Evidence-based support prioritising early intervention – identifying need early and responding before difficulties escalate, using approaches grounded in evidence.
- High-quality teaching with a curriculum designed for all learners – adaptive teaching, accessible materials
,and curriculum design that anticipates diversity rather than retrofitting for it. - Accessible and enriching provision beyond the classroom – ensuring extracurricular activities, trips, and wider opportunities are genuinely inclusive.
- A safe and respectful culture fostering belonging and attendance – relational approaches, behaviour support, and environments where pupils feel they belong.
- Strong partnerships with families and wider services, especially through transitions – collaboration with parents, health services, and other agencies, with particular attention to key transition points.
- Inclusive environments with improved accessibility – physical accessibility, sensory considerations, and environmental adjustments.
These seven areas provide the structure for both spending decisions, and the strategy schools must publish by the end of December.
How much will schools get through the Inclusive Mainstream Fund?
The Inclusive Mainstream Fund is worth over £500 million per year, of which approximately £400 million is allocated to schools. The fund runs over a three-year period.
The formula:
- £3,000 lump sum per school
- Basic per-pupil rate: £16 (primary) / £14 (secondary)
- Low-prior-attainment rate: £79 (primary) / £88 (secondary)
- Area cost adjustment applied based on location
In practice, this works out to approximately £14,000 per year for an average primary school and £48,000 for an average secondary.
Who’s in scope?
Eligibility covers the 5–16 age range:
- Primary, secondary, middle, and all-through maintained schools
- Academies and free schools
- City technology colleges
Separate funds exist for other phases: the Inclusive Early Years Fund for early years settings, and distinct arrangements for 16–19 providers.
Learn more about Inclusive Early Years Fund: A guide for Early Years Providers.
What must the Inclusion Strategy contain?
By 31 December 2026, every school must publish an Inclusion Strategy. The DfE sets out that it should include:
- The commonly occurring needs and barriers within the cohort
- How funding is and will be spent against the seven themes
- The activities undertaken to meet those needs
- Evidence that the strategy has been refined through scrutiny by governors and trustees
The strategy will need to be built from lived practice, with practice that is consistent, connected, and capable of being evidenced. This is where pressure will begin to show, not necessarily in the writing itself, but in the questions that schools must answer honestly:
- Do we really understand the needs across our entire cohort?
- Is our provision aligned, or does it vary depending on the classroom, teacher, or school?
- Can we demonstrate that what we are doing is making a measurable difference?
There is hope in the sector that the DfE will provide a template and further guidance before the deadline.
The deeper shift
The policy’s most significant change is away from diagnosis-led support toward whole-school inclusive design. Historically, access to specialist-led resource and intervention has often depended on formal identification – a referral process, a specialist assessment, an EHCP. IMF asks schools to work differently: to understand need at cohort level, to design provision that anticipates need, and to evidence impact without waiting for external validation.
This responds to real problems. Waits for assessment are long. Many pupils with significant needs never receive a diagnosis. And diagnosis alone doesn’t guarantee effective support.
But the shift also creates new pressures. Inclusion now sits firmly within Ofsted’s lens, but the infrastructure to support schools in meeting that accountability is still developing.
A balanced view would recognise both: this is an opportunity to strengthen the system, and it is a significant ask of schools at a time when capacity is already stretched.
What schools should be asking now?
Instead of asking, “What should we spend this funding on?”, the better question is: “What do we need our inclusion model to look like in two years, and how do we build toward it now?”
Schools and trusts that will be well-positioned by the start of 2027 will have:
- Understood their starting point – audited current provision against the seven themes, identified strengths and gaps
- Aligned their approach – ensured consistency across classrooms, year groups, and schools within a trust
- Embedded evidence-informed practice – moved beyond well-intentioned interventions to approaches with a clear rationale and measurable outcomes
- Built a reliable picture of impact over time – created systems for tracking progress that can be reported confidently
Moving from strategy to delivery
Across the sector, one of the persistent challenges in SEND and inclusion has been fragmentation – different tools, different interventions, different ways of measuring success. Each may be effective in isolation, but together they often don’t form a coherent whole. It’s difficult to know which initiative is having the greatest impact.
The opportunity presented by the IMF is to move beyond that – to build something more connected.
At Supporting Education Group, this thinking has shaped the SEND & Inclusion Hub, which brings together complementary services into a single, aligned approach. Mapped against the seven themes:
Understanding your starting point (Theme 1: Leadership and Governance)
SEND Lens is an evaluation tool that helps schools and trusts audit current provision, benchmark against DfE principles and the Ofsted framework, and identify where to focus investment. Trusts complete a series of questions aligned to the SEND White Paper and Ofsted Education Inspection Framework, generating a leadership report covering strategy, governance, and operational effectiveness. Schools within the trust can then complete their own evaluations, producing a trust-wide view of provision – exactly the knowledge needed to allocate IMF effectively.
Find out more about SEND Lens →
Building relational, consistent practice (Theme 5: Culture, Belonging, and Attendance)
Thrive Approach supports schools in understanding behaviour in context and responding in ways that strengthen the connection between staff and pupils. It reinforces the universal and targeted layers that underpin effective inclusion, helping to create environments where pupils feel safe and known. They give:
- CPD and tools to strengthen SEMH practice across your workforce, improving pupil engagement
- Improved pupil engagement, behaviour and wellbeing
- Consistent practice across settings
Thrive Approach hosted a webinar called ‘Understanding the Inclusive Mainstream Fund‘, which is a helpful watch.
Identifying need early (Theme 2: Early Intervention)
Speech & Language Link allows schools to screen entire cohorts, bringing greater accuracy and confidence to the identification of speech, language, and communication needs – areas that are both highly prevalent and frequently under-recognised. Early identification is the foundation of early intervention. They offer:
- Whole-school identification and intervention for SLCN
- A standardised, scalable approach across your trust
- Support for universal and targeted provision
Supporting pupils with complex needs (Themes 3 and 4: Teaching, Curriculum, and Provision Beyond the Classroom)
TP Tutors provides flexible specialist education support that can be pooled across schools, directed to where need is greatest and evidenced through clear reporting.
Individually, each of these addresses a specific aspect of inclusion. Together, they form a connected model that supports schools not only to deliver provision, but to understand and evidence its impact – exactly what schools are being asked to demonstrate in their strategies.
December is closer than it feels
Six months will come around quickly. Schools and trusts beginning this work now are not just preparing for a deadline – they are creating the conditions for a more sustainable approach to provision: inclusion that is not only well-intentioned, but well-evidenced and deeply embedded.
The Inclusive Mainstream Fund offers a genuine opportunity to strengthen the system. The question is what schools choose to do with it.
Explore how Supporting Education Group can support your approach to getting the most out of the Inclusive Mainstream Fund: https://sendandinclusion.com/inclusive-mainstream-fund/