How to create an effective school inclusion plan: 7 practical tips for getting started
Developing an effective Inclusion Plan can feel daunting, but the second part of the challenge is putting it into practice. Perhaps you’re supporting pupils with different SEND needs, managing an inclusion base with several year groups learning in the same room, or trying to provide a suitable curriculum for young people who cannot access mainstream lessons.
With so many competing priorities, it can be difficult to know where to begin. The good news is that your school doesn’t need to start from scratch. Much of the expertise and good practice needed to develop an effective Inclusion Plan may already exist within your setting.
Here are seven practical steps to help you build on that foundation.
What is a school Inclusion Plan?
A school Inclusion Plan sets out how a school intends to identify and remove barriers to education, strengthen inclusive practice and ensure pupils receive appropriate support.
As SEND reform develops in England, Inclusion Plans are becoming an important part of discussions around how schools can meet a wider range of needs within mainstream settings.
7 practical tips for getting started
1. Start with the inclusion practices you already have
Before creating new processes or investing in additional provision, take stock of what’s already working. Your school may have established approaches to adaptive teaching, strong relationships with families, effective teaching assistant support or targeted interventions that help pupils remain engaged in learning.
Start by asking:
- Which approaches are helping pupils access education?
- Where are pupils continuing to experience barriers?
- Which interventions are placing the greatest demands on staff?
- Are there gaps in curriculum access or specialist expertise?
- What feedback are pupils and families giving us?
These conversations can help identify priorities without creating unnecessary additional work.
During Academy21’s recent webinar on Inclusion Plans, SEND and Inclusion Specialist Margaret Mulholland encouraged schools to stop treating the plan as an information-sharing document and start using it as a strategic tool for school improvement. That means involving senior leaders, teachers, SENCOs and support staff from the outset.
Top tip: Choose two or three areas where improvements could make the greatest difference. Give each priority a named owner, a practical action and a review date.
2. Be realistic about the challenges your school faces
Schools are being asked to meet increasingly diverse needs, often without a corresponding increase in staffing, space or specialist expertise.
A single inclusion base might support pupils experiencing emotionally based school non-attendance (EBSNA), autism, ADHD, behavioural difficulties or gaps in prior learning. Some pupils may need a quiet environment and predictable routines. Others may need regular movement breaks, individualised support, or a different learning pace.
Staff must balance these needs while maintaining safeguarding, managing behaviour and ensuring pupils continue to make academic progress.
Your Inclusion Plan should acknowledge these practical challenges, as recognising capacity constraints helps schools make informed decisions about which approaches are sustainable.
Top tip: Carry out a simple capacity audit. Consider staffing, available teaching spaces, subject expertise, timetabling and access to external support. Use the findings to identify which improvements your team can make internally and which require additional provision.
3. Plan for multiple age groups and abilities in one inclusion space
One of the biggest practical challenges for schools developing internal inclusion provision is accommodating pupils of different ages and academic abilities within the same room.
Imagine an inclusion base supporting a Year 7 pupil who needs help with literacy, a Year 9 pupil struggling with anxiety and a Year 11 student preparing for GCSE examinations.
All three pupils need access to suitable education, but their curriculum requirements, independence levels, and support needs differ considerably.
Expecting one member of staff to deliver three separate lessons simultaneously is unlikely to be sustainable. Schools therefore need to consider how their inclusion spaces will provide access to age-appropriate teaching without placing unrealistic demands on staff.
There are several approaches worth exploring:
- Create individual learning timetables. Map each pupil’s curriculum requirements against their mainstream timetable, identify which lessons they can attend, and note where additional support is needed.
- Establish clear routines. Predictable lesson structures, designated work areas and agreed expectations can help pupils with different needs work alongside one another.
- Use flexible teaching arrangements. Combine supervised independent learning, targeted face-to-face support and appropriate external teaching provision.
- Protect curriculum access. Ensure that time spent in an inclusion base does not mean pupils routinely miss essential subject content, particularly those working towards qualifications.
For some schools, live online alternative provision can help address the challenge of subject-specialist teaching. Instead of requiring one inclusion base member of staff to teach multiple subjects and year groups, pupils can access live, teacher-led lessons matched to their curriculum needs while staying in a supervised school environment. This gives inclusion staff more time to focus on pastoral support, emotional regulation, and individual interventions.
Top tip: Review the timetables of pupils currently using your inclusion space. Identify where year-group differences or competing lesson requirements create learning gaps, then consider how additional teaching capacity could address them.
4. Make inclusion a whole-school responsibility
An effective Inclusion Plan cannot sit solely with the SENCO or inclusion team. Pupils may move between mainstream classrooms, inclusion bases, specialist interventions and alternative provision throughout their education.
Without a coordinated approach, they risk experiencing inconsistent expectations, fragmented support or unnecessary disruption to learning. School leaders should therefore consider how inclusion connects to curriculum planning, attendance strategies, behaviour policies and staff development.
For example, if a pupil accesses an inclusion base for part of the week, their subject teachers should understand what learning takes place during that time and how it connects to classroom lessons.
Likewise, staff supporting reintegration need clear information about the adjustments and interventions that have helped the pupil.
Top tip: Include inclusion priorities in existing school improvement meetings and departmental reviews. This helps staff share responsibility without creating another layer of meetings and administration.
5. Listen to pupils and families before deciding on support
Schools can spend considerable time and resources on an intervention, only to discover it doesn’t address the barrier a pupil is experiencing. For example, a pupil struggling with attendance may find busy corridors overwhelming, struggle with peer relationships, or feel anxious about missed learning.
Each situation calls for a different response. Speak with the pupil, their family and the professionals involved to understand the challenges from different perspectives. This is particularly important for pupils with SEND and those experiencing EBSNA, as they may present differently at home than at school. Where possible, involve pupils in decisions about how they access learning, which adjustments help them, and what progress looks like for them. Schools can then use the Assess, Plan, Do, Review cycle to introduce support, evaluate its impact and make adjustments.
Top tip: Before implementing a new intervention, write down the specific barrier it aims to address. Agree how you will know whether the support is working.
6. Build flexibility into your provision
Pupils’ needs can change throughout the school year, so Inclusion Plans need to accommodate different levels of support. This flexibility is particularly valuable when schools are supporting pupils with complex SEND needs, anxiety or medical conditions.
At Academy21, we work with schools to provide live, online alternative provision that can form part of a wider inclusion strategy. Our teacher-led lessons support pupils across Key Stages 2 to 5, helping schools maintain curriculum continuity while adapting provision to individual circumstances.
Students can access lessons from a supervised inclusion base or another appropriate setting, depending on their needs and agreed arrangements.
Where reintegration is appropriate, online provision can also form part of a phased approach, helping pupils maintain learning while rebuilding their confidence in the school environment.
Top tip: Map the different pathways pupils can follow through your provision. Consider how they can move between universal support, targeted interventions, inclusion base learning and external provision as their needs change.
7. Keep your Inclusion Plan manageable and review it regularly
An Inclusion Plan should help your school make decisions, allocate resources and improve outcomes for pupils. It doesn’t need to become another lengthy document that staff struggle to use. A manageable plan should identify:
- The main barriers to inclusion within your school.
- The actions you will take to address them.
- Who is responsible for each action.
- The resources and external support required.
- How and when you will evaluate progress.
Review your plan against outcomes that matter for pupils, including attendance, engagement, wellbeing, curriculum access and academic progress.
Top tip: Build Inclusion Plan reviews into your existing school improvement cycle. Start with a small number of measurable priorities and develop the plan as you learn what works.
Getting started: Your first steps towards a more inclusive school
Creating an effective Inclusion Plan takes time, collaboration and a realistic understanding of your school’s capacity.
You may already have strong inclusive practices in place but need to connect them into a more consistent approach. You might be establishing an inclusion base for the first time or looking for ways to improve curriculum access for pupils who cannot attend all mainstream lessons.
Whatever your starting point, focus on the barriers affecting pupils in your setting and the practical changes your school can make.
For further guidance, explore our expert panel’s advice on getting Inclusion Plans right or download our guide to setting up an effective inclusion base.
