How to Write Your School Inclusion Strategy: A Guide to the 31 December 2026 Deadline

Every mainstream school in England receiving the new Inclusive Mainstream Fund (IMF) must publish an inclusion strategy by 31 December 2026. It is the first time schools have had to set out publicly, with costs, how they are removing barriers to learning, and the DfE, governors and Ofsted will all be looking at it.

This guide explains what the strategy must include, what you can and cannot spend the fund on, and a practical way to get it written and published in time.

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What is the Inclusive Mainstream Fund?

The IMF is new, ring-fenced funding for inclusion, announced alongside the Every Child Achieving and Thriving white paper. The government has committed £1.6 billion over three years from 2026/27.

• Who gets it: mainstream state-funded schools for pupils aged 5 to 16, including reception. That covers maintained schools, academies and free schools.
• How it is calculated: a lump sum for every school plus per-pupil amounts, including an amount linked to pupils with low prior attainment, adjusted for area costs. It is allocated to the school, not to individual pupils.
• When it is paid: once a year. Maintained schools receive it via their local authority (paid to authorities at the end of June); academies are paid directly in early July.

You can estimate your school's allocation in about 30 seconds with our funding calculator.

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What must the inclusion strategy include?

Publishing an inclusion strategy is a condition of receiving the fund. The government has also proposed making it a legal duty in future. Under the 2026 to 2027 conditions of grant, your strategy must:

• Be published by 31 December 2026
• Set out the activities you are investing in to alleviate barriers to learning and participation
• Include the budgeted costs of those activities
• Show how spending aligns with the DfE's seven principles of inclusion
• Be updated and republished every year

In a multi-academy trust, each academy needs its own statement. The DfE has published a template you can use, although it is not mandatory.

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The seven principles of inclusion

Every activity funded by the IMF must align with at least one of these principles. You do not need to cover all seven; the DfE is clear that a few well-chosen, high-impact activities are better than spreading the money thinly.

1. Ambitious leadership and governance that embeds inclusion
2. Evidence-based support prioritising early intervention
3. High-quality adaptive teaching with curriculum designed for all learners
4. Enriching provision beyond the classroom that all children can access
5. A safe and respectful culture fostering belonging and attendance
6. Strong partnerships with families and wider services
7. Inclusive environments with continuous improvements to accessibility

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What can you spend it on?

The DfE's best-practice guidance gives examples under each principle. They include:

• Strengthening systems for data collection and analysis to understand pupils' needs
• Small-group and one-to-one interventions, evaluated for impact
• Training and cover for adaptive teaching, and using technology to support pupils with SEND
• Parent workshops, information sessions and support for learning at home
• Quiet spaces, structured activities and attendance interventions that take account of SEND
• Visual supports, sensory adjustments to classrooms, and carefully selected technology to support a range of needs

What you cannot spend it on

• General school running costs or operational expenditure
• Subsidising activity you were already paying for
• Staff time for activities unrelated to inclusion
• Capital works
• Anything that does not align with at least one of the seven principles

Unspent funding can be carried forward, but must be used by 31 March 2028.

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Who will look at your strategy?

• The DfE will review a sample of published strategies.
• Governors and trustees are expected to scrutinise the strategy and its outcomes.
• Ofsted inspectors will consider it when evaluating inclusion.

Schools must keep clear records of how the funding was spent, and the DfE can recover funding if the conditions are not met.

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How to write your inclusion strategy: seven steps

1. Start with your cohort. Use your SEN register, attainment, attendance and behaviour data to understand who is facing barriers and what those barriers are. The DfE expects strategies to be based on the needs of your pupils, not a generic list.

How PAGS helps: PAGS assessments and curriculum data can be filtered by SEN status, year group or cohort, so you can see your most common barriers at a glance instead of pulling numbers from several systems.

2. Name the barriers. Pick the common, predictable barriers that affect the most learners: for example language and communication, attendance, or access to the curriculum for pupils working below age-related expectations.

3. Choose a small number of evidence-informed activities. For each barrier, decide what you will do, and map it to one or more of the seven principles. The EEF teaching and learning toolkit is a good starting point for the evidence.

4. Cost each activity. Include staff time, training, cover, resources and any technology. Make sure each item is new or expanded activity, not something you were already funding.

How PAGS helps: every provision in PAGS already carries staff time and cost. Your budgeted costs come straight from the plans you are running, and you can separate new IMF-funded activity from existing provision.

5. Decide how you will measure impact. For each activity, write down what success looks like and what data will show it. You will need this for next year's update.

How PAGS helps: progress against targets is recorded at every review, so by next autumn you will have impact data for each funded activity rather than starting from scratch.

6. Get governor sign-off. Take the draft to governors or trustees before December so there is time for challenge and changes.

7. Publish by 31 December 2026. Use the DfE template if it helps, publish it on your school website, and set a date to review it before the next update.

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Common mistakes to avoid

• Listing everything you already do. The strategy should show what the fund adds, not repackage existing provision.
• No costs, or costs that do not add up. Budgeted costs are a required part of the strategy.
• No way to show impact. If you cannot measure whether an activity is working, next year's strategy will be hard to write and harder to defend.
• Writing it as a one-off document. It must be updated annually, so build it on data you can refresh rather than a Word document that goes out of date.

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How PAGS helps you write, evidence and update your strategy

The hardest part of an inclusion strategy is not the writing. It is having reliable data on need, provision, cost and impact to base it on, and being able to refresh that data every year. That is what PAGS is built for.

• Leadership and governance (principle 1): live dashboards on need, provision, cost and outcomes give governors something real to scrutinise, and roll up across schools for trusts.
• Early intervention (principle 2): UCL-validated assessments identify barriers early, and interventions are tracked for impact from day one.
• Adaptive teaching (principle 3): class teachers see each learner's targets and the strategies that help them, ready for today's lesson.
• Partnerships with families (principle 6): the Parent Portal lets families contribute to plans and follow progress.
• Budgeted costs: staff time and costs sit on every provision, so the numbers in your strategy match what is actually happening.

The DfE has not approved a list of suppliers, and decisions about how to spend the fund sit with your school's leaders. Its best-practice guidance does include strengthening data collection and analysis systems and using technology to support pupils with SEND as examples of activity.

Schools already doing this: Stone Soup Academy has achieved three consecutive Ofsted Outstanding judgements using PAGS, with attendance among targeted learners rising from 1% to 70%. ALET Education Trust uses PAGS to standardise SEND provision across six schools.

PAGS is a flat annual fee, with no per-pupil or per-user charges. See how much of PAGS your Inclusive Mainstream Fund could cover, or book a demo and we will show you how PAGS data feeds straight into your inclusion strategy.

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Frequently asked questions

When does the inclusion strategy need to be published?

By 31 December 2026 for the 2026 to 2027 academic year, and then updated annually.

Is the inclusion strategy a legal requirement?

It is currently a condition of receiving the Inclusive Mainstream Fund. The government has proposed making it a legal duty, and either way it is good practice and something Ofsted will consider.

Do we have to cover all seven principles?

No. Every activity must align with at least one principle, but the DfE encourages schools to focus on a few high-impact activities.

Is there a template?

Yes. The DfE has published an inclusion strategy template alongside its guidance for school leaders. Using it is optional.

Can we spend the fund on technology?

The DfE's best-practice examples include strengthening data collection and analysis systems and using technology to support pupils with SEND, provided the spending aligns with the seven principles and is new activity rather than existing costs.

What happens if we do not spend it all this year?

Unspent funding can be carried forward, but it must be used by 31 March 2028 and shown in the strategy for the year it is spent.

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Further reading

Individual Support Plans (ISPs): What Schools Need to Know and Do Now

The Inclusion Readiness Assessment

SEND Reform Readiness Planning Guide

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This guide reflects the DfE's 2026 to 2027 conditions of grant and guidance as of October 2026 and is not financial or legal advice. Sources: DfE, Inclusive Mainstream Fund for schools: conditions of grant 2026 to 2027; DfE, Inclusive Mainstream Fund: best practice for schools; DfE, Developing an inclusion strategy using the Inclusive Mainstream Fund.