Inclusion Is Now Everyone’s Ofsted Grade — Is Your Whole Staff Ready?

Since November 2025, Ofsted report cards have included a standalone inclusion grade, so schools are graded specifically on how well they support pupils with SEND. With Ofsted’s updates taking effect this September, the reality of what that means is landing in staffrooms.
 

What’s Actually Changed

The headline shift is simple to state and significant in practice: inclusion is no longer folded into a general judgement where strong results elsewhere could soften a weaker picture on SEND. It now stands on its own, graded on a five-point scale, with inspectors looking specifically at barriers to learning and wellbeing for pupils with SEND, those who are disadvantaged, and those known to children’s social care.
 

The Workload Question Ofsted Has Already Had to Answer

Unsurprisingly, school leaders raised concerns that this new focus risked landing entirely on SENCOs, one more thing added to an already stretched role. Ofsted’s own response is worth sitting with. Its September 2026 updates introduce the term “leaders who have an inclusion role” into inspection materials, and inspectors are encouraged to look beyond the SENCO, for example to the designated teacher or the inclusion lead. Inclusion is the responsibility of all leaders and staff in a setting, not one individual’s job to evidence.

That’s a genuinely useful reframe for anyone feeling the pressure of this land on their desk specifically. If inclusion is being assessed as a whole-school capability, then whole-school capability, not a beautifully organised SEND file, is what actually needs to exist.
 

What Inspectors Are Actually Looking For

Based on the updated toolkit, inspection activity in this area typically includes:

• High expectations for pupils with SEND embedded in everyday teaching, not just specialist provision
• Evidence of early and accurate identification, and a functioning assess-plan-do-review cycle
• Discussion with staff beyond the SENCO: inspectors are encouraged to talk to other leaders and classroom staff about inclusion, not treat it as a one-person interview
• How well adaptations to teaching, environment, and the wider school offer are actually working in practice, not just documented

In other words: if a class teacher or TA can’t speak confidently about how they support a pupil with SEND in their classroom, that’s now a visible gap in a way it wasn’t before.
 

What This Means Practically, Now

• Don’t treat this as a SENCO audit. If your inclusion preparation this term is entirely about tidying the SEND file, you’re preparing for the old framework, not the new one. Spend some of that energy on staff confidence instead.
• Have an honest conversation about who can currently speak to inclusion. If an inspector stopped a random member of staff in a corridor and asked how they support a pupil with SEND in their class, would the answer be confident and specific, or vague?
• Use the framework change as leverage, not just pressure. It’s a genuinely useful argument for a whole-staff training budget that didn’t exist as clearly before the new framework. Inclusion capability is no longer just good practice, it’s now directly what’s being graded.
   

Building the Capability the Framework Assumes

Ofsted’s own framing, that inclusion belongs to everyone and not just the SENCO, is close to the argument for whole-school SEND training generally. A framework that expects every member of staff to speak confidently about inclusion needs every member of staff to actually have that confidence, not just the SENCO holding it on their behalf.
 

That’s exactly what STEPS is designed to build: shared understanding and practical classroom strategies across your whole staff team, with leadership oversight to evidence exactly the kind of whole-school capability the new framework is looking for.

Find out more about STEPS for Schools