Updated on
September 9, 2026
School Inclusion Strategy: Template and December Deadline
What a school inclusion strategy must contain, the seven principles it maps to, and a builder that lays out the sections before the 31 December deadline.
Every state-funded mainstream school in England that receives the Inclusive Mainstream Fund must publish an inclusion strategy on its school website by 31 December 2026. It is a condition of the grant rather than a statutory duty, and it covers the academic year 2026 to 2027. This guide sets out what the strategy has to contain, what the seven principles of inclusion are, and where most first drafts fall short.
Is this a legal duty, or not?
Not yet, and the distinction matters when you are deciding how much time to give it.
The requirement to publish an inclusion strategy is a condition of grant attached to the Inclusive Mainstream Fund. If your school takes the money, you publish the strategy. Schools that do not receive the fund are not covered by the condition.
The Department for Education has separately proposed placing a legal duty on schools to produce an inclusion strategy, described as more comprehensive than the current requirement and setting out in greater detail how resources are used to benefit children and young people with SEND. That proposal is not law. So the honest reading is: this year it is a funding condition, and it is being trailed as a future duty. Writing something durable now is cheaper than writing something disposable twice.
The deadline, and what "publish" means
The strategy must be on your school website by 31 December 2026, for the academic year 2026 to 2027. Publishing on the website is the mechanism, which means three things follow:
- Parents can read it without asking for it.
- Inspectors can read it before they arrive.
- It is refreshed each academic year, so this is an annual job rather than a one-off.
Governors and trustees are expected to scrutinise it. That is worth planning backwards from: if it goes to a full governing board in early December, the draft needs to exist in November.
Mini app · Build It · SEND
A blank inclusion strategy, structured the way the grant conditions ask for it
The condition of grant says what an inclusion strategy has to cover but not what it should look like on the page. Choose your phase and how far along you are, and this lays out the sections in order, with the question each one has to answer and ruled space to draft in. Print it, fill it in with your team, then write the real thing.
Choose your phase, then build the outline.
What this is
A drafting aid, structured from the Department for Education's conditions of grant for the Inclusive Mainstream Fund 2026 to 2027 and its seven principles of inclusion. It does not check your strategy against the conditions and it does not submit anything. Read the conditions of grant and the DfE guidance for school leaders yourself, and have your governors or trustees scrutinise the finished strategy before it goes on the website.
The part that takes longest is turning the strategy into adapted lessons people actually teach. The Structural Learning app scaffolds those for your topic and year group. Try it on a free account, no card needed.
What the strategy has to cover
The conditions of grant ask for a small number of specific things. Read plainly, they are:
- The barriers to learning and participation that commonly occur in your cohort.
- The activity you are funding to alleviate them.
- Budgeted costs against that activity.
- Intended outcomes.
- A review of the previous academic year.
All of it aligned to the seven principles of inclusion. Notice how much of that is money and evidence rather than values. A page of commitments to inclusion, however sincerely written, does not meet this.
The seven principles of inclusion
The DfE names seven. Your strategy is expected to align to them, so it is worth mapping each activity against the ones it actually serves rather than claiming all seven for everything.
- Ambitious leadership and governance that embeds inclusion.
- Evidence-based support that prioritises 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 that fosters belonging, attendance and participation.
- Strong partnerships with families and wider services.
- Inclusive environments, with continuous improvements to accessibility.
Where first drafts usually fall short
The costs section is missing
This is the single most common gap. Schools describe the activity and stop. The conditions ask for budgeted costs against it, and a strategy without them cannot be reviewed next year, because there is no baseline to compare against.
The barriers are generic
"Some learners have SEND" is not a barrier in your cohort. Two or three specific, evidenced barriers, named from your own attendance, attainment and provision data, produce a strategy someone can act on. A long list produces one nobody reads.
There is no review, because it is the first year
The review section still has to say something. If this is the first year of the fund, say what you were doing before it, what it cost, and what you know about whether it worked. An honest "we cannot yet tell, and here is how we will next year" is a stronger answer than silence.
Outcomes are written so they can never be judged
"Improved outcomes for learners with SEND" cannot be checked. "Reading age gap in Year 7 narrows by six months by July, measured on the same assessment" can. Write outcomes you would be willing to report against in twelve months.
A sensible order of work
Working backwards from 31 December:
- September and October. Pull the data and agree the two or three barriers. This is the part that takes real time and it is the part that decides whether the rest is any good.
- October. Decide what you are funding and cost it. Involve whoever holds the budget from the start, not at the end.
- November. Draft, map to the seven principles, take it to governors.
- Early December. Amend, publish, and put next year’s review date in the diary while you remember why.
What this does not change
An inclusion strategy sits alongside your existing duties, it does not replace them. Your SEN information report, your accessibility plan and the graduated approach under the SEND Code of Practice all continue exactly as before. If your inclusion strategy contradicts your SEN information report, the contradiction is the finding, and it is worth reading both side by side before you publish.
Sources
- Department for Education, Developing an inclusion strategy using the inclusive mainstream fund. gov.uk
- Department for Education, Inclusive mainstream fund for schools: conditions of grant 2026 to 2027. gov.uk
Checked against the published guidance on 9 September 2026. Funding conditions change; read the current version on GOV.UK before you publish.
