Inclusive mainstream fund: best practice for schools

The inclusive mainstream fund will help support mainstream schools in the transition towards a reformed education system that is inclusive by design.

The grant was announced in the schools white paper Every child achieving and thriving and the special educational needs and disability (SEND) reform consultation document Putting children and young people first which set out the government’s plan to place inclusion at the heart of mainstream by ensuring every child and young person receives high-quality, adaptive teaching and early help when they need it.

To ensure that the inclusive mainstream fund is focused on providing schools with more resources to meaningfully deliver inclusive practice, schools will be expected to use their funding to understand the needs of their cohort and strategically plan to implement whole-school approaches to inclusion that will remove commonly occurring and predictable barriers to learning for all pupils.

Schools will also be able to spend this funding on the development of targeted evidence-based support for pupils whose needs cannot be met through the universal offer alone.

Guidance

Developing an inclusion strategy using the inclusive mainstream fund

Introduction

This publication provides non-statutory guidance from the Department for Education (DfE).

It has been produced to help school leaders and those involved with managing the use of the inclusive mainstream fund (IMF) in schools and 16 to 19 academies, such as:

academy trust leaders

head teachers

trustees and governors.

It is to help you make the most effective use of the IMF and ensure you adhere to the conditions of grant, including:

investing your IMF allocation in line with the 7 principles of inclusion

publishing an inclusion strategy on your school website by 31 December 2026 - this must include detail of activity invested in to alleviate barriers to learning and participation and budgeted costs (we have provided a template you can use to help you develop your strategy)

If you opt to create a multi-year strategy, you must ensure that this is reviewed annually and note this on the cover page of the document.

This guidance may also be useful for parents and local authorities who want to:

know how schools can invest their IMF allocation alongside their core budget (including their notional special educational needs (SEN) budget) to support inclusive practice

understand the requirement to produce an inclusion strategy

Separate guidance has been published on the:

Inclusive early years fund: 2026 to 2027 for local authorities

Using the inclusive mainstream fund: guidance for leaders of 16 to 19 provision and fund managers including further education (FE) colleges, sixth form colleges and post-16 independent training providers