Listen to this story Members can listen to an AI-generated audio version of this article. 1.0x Audio narration uses an AI-generated voice. 0:00 0:00 Become a member to listen to this article Subscribe Almost one in 10 primary schools are set to receive less than £6,000 in annual funding to support pupils with SEND, with heads warning it’ll do little more than balance the books. During the next three years, schools will receive their share of a £1.6 billion “inclusive mainstream fund” (IMF) that is aimed at making mainstream schools more inclusive for pupils with additional needs. The Department for Education has not published a full breakdown of school-level allocations, but has issued a spreadsheet calculator allowing leaders to see their setting’s 2026-27 provisional allocation. Schools Week entered the unique reference numbers of more than 19,800 schools into this calculator to compile a list of draft allocations covering ages 5 to 16 and worth a combined £384 million. Our analysis combined this data with DfE figures on school demographics and finances from 2024-25, the most recent figures available. The data shows… 1,399 small primary schools – 8 per cent of all primaries – stand to receive less than £6,000 this year 231 secondary schools will receive less than £19,000 each, which is less than the starting salary of a full-time teaching assistant just 15 schools are in line for a grant above £100,000 for the year, nine of which have more than 2,000 pupils primary schools will receive £13,485 on average, with secondary schools in line for an average £47,531 the average per-pupil funding is £60 for primary schools and £52 for secondaries Matt Keer, a SEND expert at Special Needs Jungle, said the “borderline homeopathic levels” of IMF funding would not be enough to prepare mainstream schools before other SEND reforms kicked in at the end of this decade. Matt Keer “Mainstream schools have never been so stretched financially. The SEND reforms will ask mainstream schools to do much, much more.” Crow Lane Primary and Foundation Stage School in Milnsbridge, West Yorkshire, is set to receive £11,200. It currently has 188 pupils, marginally lower than the 192 it had in 2024-25. Martin Vayro, its head, said extra funding was “always welcome” but “the harsh reality … is that the £11,000 last-minute injection … merely served to enable us to set a balanced budget by the tightest of margins”. Draft allocations Combining the IMF figures with school finance data gives context to the size of the provisional allocations. On average, the allocations amount to 1.6 per cent of primary schools’ spending on teaching staff in 2024-25. This falls to 1.2 per cent when other education staff, such as teaching assistants, are factored in. They were worth 0.7 per cent of primary schools’ total income on average in 2024-25, and 0.8 per cent of their total spending For secondary schools these figures sit at 1.1 per cent of spend on teaching staff budgets, and 0.9 per cent of spending on all education-related staff. Draft allocations on average equate to 0.6 per cent of both secondary schools’ total income and total spending. ‘It’s not enough’ Rugby Free Secondary School in Warwickshire is in line for £53,800 in IMF funding in the first year. This amounts to just 0.6 per cent of both the school’s total income and total spending in 2024-25, and 0.9 per cent of its spending on education-related staff that year. “It’s not enough … and I’m pretty sure you won’t get a school leader in the land that says that it is enough,” said Iain Green, the school’s head. Green wants to increase the school’s capacity to meet the needs of the rising numbers of children who join the school who are not educationally, emotionally, or socially fully ready for secondary school. “Some of the ways we want to [spend] that is around making sure that pupils have those strong foundations in years 7 and 8 in particular, and then we’re catching pupils up that may have had different experiences in primary schools.” He wants to hire teaching staff for English and maths and to offer pastoral interventions. But he laughs when asked how far the £53,800 will stretch. Tarnished silver bullet “Not very. It’s a nice start. And any money in education is welcome. I have a note of caution that this particular pot, which has been heavily politicised, is not the silver bullet that I think people are hoping that it will be.” The allocation could fund one extra teacher, plus a bit left over for other interventions. “It’s enough to put your front door on your house, in the short term, not necessarily build the rest around it and extend it.” The 1,000 pupil Tytherington School in Cheshire is set to receive £61,800. Manny Botwe, its head, said: “There will be some people who have heard the news, and they’ll be perhaps thinking, ‘oh, that means that in my school we’re going to have additional TAs or additional teachers, or we’re going to have smaller classrooms’. That sadly will not be the case. “One of our big challenges at the moment is getting youngsters with complex mental health and SEND needs through the door. So we will probably prioritise in that area. How do we get those youngsters to re-engage fully in school?” Schools will pool allocations The government’s SEND consultation said in the long run, schools will pool some of their IMF allocation to create a collaborative system to meet needs and share expertise and resources. Botwe believes this will happen, with schools in the same trust or area trying to be creative in terms of providing staff from their pooled resources. “Let’s say we’ve got a young person or group of young people who are not attending school, and they’re citing a special educational need or a mental health issue as the reason why they’re not accessing school. “Could we be working together with the school down the road if we’ve got a similar cohort of youngsters, in terms of a joint facility or a joint appointment?” How it’s calculated The IMF funding is calculated based on several factors. Each school receives a lump sum of £3,000. Primary schools then receive £16 per pupil and £79 for pupils with low prior attainment (LPA). Secondary schools will be given £14 per pupil up to age 16 and £88 per pupil with LPA. New ‘inclusion strategies’: What schools need to know Leon Dawson, the head of Temple Hill Primary Academy in Kent, said including LPA data “shows an understanding of the ongoing investment needed to help children who need the most support reach their potential”. With 825 pupils this year, Temple Hill’s provisional allocation is £50,900 – the sixth highest primary school allocation in Schools Week’s dataset. But Dawson says this is “a drop in the ocean compared to what is needed to develop training resources for an entire school and pay for the staff to deliver them”. The DfE recommends schools allocate IMF funding across seven different areas, including training of teaching and support staff, data collection and peer review, and provision beyond the classroom. “It is a bit laughable, isn’t it?” said Joanna Redfern, the executive head of two infant schools in Nottinghamshire villages – Selston CE Infant and Nursery School, and Huthwaite All Saints CE Infant and Nursery School. Selston currently has 55 pupils and is set to receive £5,300, while All Saints, which has 59 pupils, is in line for £6,000. ‘A little bit for the staffing pot’ “If we’re being entirely honest, it’s just a little bit more for the staffing pot,” she said. The two schools face a rise in both the number and level of need of SEND children, with All Saints expecting to have eight children with complex SEND needs next year. Redfern said the school needed a new building to properly cater for them, and experienced staff to provide one-to-one provision and potentially constant monitoring. “There’s not a long line of people waiting to work in Huthwaite or Selston.” Kathryn Woods, SENCO and acting head of Selston and All Saints, said providing one-to-one support in small schools could detract from teaching children who were more developmentally ready. “The support is being taken away from there, because you’ve got to provide the support for your children with complex needs to keep them safe.” Bury CE Primary School in West Sussex has a slightly larger provisional IMF allocation of £7,700. But Thomas Moore, its head, said it only amounted to about a day and a half of additional support staff. Filling this role in a rural school was “highly unlikely”, he said, with a previous full-time teaching assistant post receiving no applications. ‘Tokenistic figure’ “Throwing a tokenistic figure at schools will not solve the SEND crisis,” he said. “A significant portion of this funding will simply allow us to continue with the level of support we currently offer as any wage increases, unless fully funded, will wipe out this increase immediately.” He said West Sussex was in one of the worst positions when it came to SEND funding, echoing comments by council leaders last year that they were underfunded compared to London councils. “Quite how the government feel this £7,700 is going to resolve these issues, I do not know. My fear is the broken system at a local authority level is simply being moved to schools to deal with. “A huge amount of accountability and responsibility is going to sit with the head and SENCO, but with of a fraction of the funding that is currently not meeting the needs of children at the local authority level.” Schools will be required to publish an inclusion strategy each year, showing how they intend to use their funding to support inclusion. ‘Maybe cutting bureaucracy should be first step’ Moore says some of the school’s IMF money will provide its SENCO with additional release time to provide the documentation required by the DfE. “Maybe cutting this bureaucracy should be the first step so that we can actually get on with using the money to support children.” In addition to the IMF, the government will invest £3.7 billion of capital spending by 2030 to increase special school capacity and inclusion bases, £1.8 billion over three years to develop the experts at hand service, and £200 million over three years on a national SEND training programme. The white paper also set out how ministers want to “re-balance funding” by directing more high needs cash into core school budgets. The DfE was approached for comment.