STEPS in practice

What changes in a school when everyone is trained

Four settings, from a 66-pupil SEMH school to a 1,750-pupil secondary. In each one, SEND questions used to arrive at one person’s desk. Their SENCOs and senior leaders told us what changed, in their own words. Find the one that looks most like yours.

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The gap every SENCO knows

Training happens. Practice does not always follow.

Ofsted's inclusion evaluation area does not ask whether your staff attended training. In the school inspection toolkit in use from 7 September 2026, the expected standard asks that leaders take a graduated approach which means pupils' needs are generally met, and that “staff receive suitable training and support to implement this approach”.

The same standard asks that, where relevant, “the qualified SENCo has sufficient authority within the leadership structure to make a positive difference for pupils with SEND”. Authority is worth less than it looks if every question still has to come through one desk.

That is a different bar, and a harder one. It is the difference between the SENCO knowing what to do and forty adults knowing what to do.

“Teachers would come to me about students with SEND and I would offer advice from experience or signpost to resource packs and information that I have organised myself.

Lily Money

SENCO, Sheridan School

Every SENCO has built that folder. It works right up until the moment they are unavailable, or they leave.

The four schools below are not alike. One is a secure setting. One has more than 40% of pupils with identified SEND. One has 1,750 pupils and, in its deputy head's words, double the national percentage of children with an EHCP. What they describe, in different words, is the same shift: SEND knowledge moving out of one person and into the staff body.

Featured story · Mainstream primary

From asking for CPD to choosing the next module

Dee Point Primary School, Cheshire. A SENCO in her first year, more than 40% of pupils with SEND, and a 42-place resource provision.

Female teacher helping a boy at his desk

Setting: Mainstream primary, Cheshire (Dee Point Primary School)
Pupils on roll: 473
Pupils with SEND: Over 40%
Resource provision: 42 places
Areas of need: Autism, ADHD, literacy and dyslexia, SEMH
Joined STEPS: December 2025
In their words: Gill Wright, SENCO since September 2025

What the school reported

Increased confidence supporting pupils with SEND
Greater staff confidence
More consistent approaches across school

“I can be confident that my staff have the confidence that they can help children with a range of needs.

Gill Wright

On what success would look like, at sign-up

The starting point

Gill Wright became SENCO at Dee Point in September 2025. When the school signed up to STEPS three months later, she listed her three biggest challenges as: new to role, high needs, time.

Her definition of success for pupils was simple. “That they have teachers who understand their needs and have a bank of strategies to help.” For herself: “I can be confident that my staff have the confidence that they can help children with a range of needs.”

What changed

“Teachers had told me that they would appreciate some CPD and now they are telling me that they wish to complete some modules on their own.

Gill Wright

SENCO

Why that sentence matters. Staff moved from asking someone else to solve a problem to solving it themselves. For a SENCO in her first year, in a school where more than two in five pupils have identified SEND, that is the difference between a role that is sustainable and one that is not.

Why it stuck

“It is an easy to use, pick up and go format. Accessible for all but also with different levels. Staff said it was interesting for online training and can be done flexibly. I like that I can monitor who has done it.

Gill Wright

SENCO

Three things in one answer: the format removes friction, the levels mean a teaching assistant and a class teacher get the version that fits their role, and the SENCO can see completion without chasing anyone for it.

What the format bought her, in other words, is reach without chasing.

What we are not claiming

We asked Gill whether anyone had commented on a change they had noticed in a pupil. Her answer was “Not yet but still early days.” Dee Point had been using STEPS for about seven months when she said it. We have published it because it is true, and because any SEND training that claims measurable pupil-level change in its first year is not one you should trust.

Three more settings

A special school, a large secondary, and a secure setting

Different phases, different populations, different starting points. The same questions, asked the same way.

Special school · SEMH

When new staff arrive without SEND experience

Setting: Specialist SEMH school (Sheridan School)
Pupils: 66, Year 3 to Year 11
Areas of need: SEMH, with autism, ADHD, speech and language, literacy and dyslexia, dyspraxia, sensory processing
Joined STEPS: May 2025
In their words: Lily Money, SENCO, three years in role

What the school reported

Increased confidence supporting pupils with SEND
Greater staff confidence

The problem was turnover. “Within our setting we have a high turnover of staff and often adults that do not have experience of SEND needs.” In a specialist SEMH setting for pupils from Year 3 to Year 11, that is a serious exposure. Expertise held in one person's head, or one person's resource packs, leaves when they do.

“I continue to support staff with SEND concerns to ensure I continue with a positive working relationship, however I now have STEPS as a signposting tool to use.

Lily Money

SENCO

She has not stopped supporting staff. She has stopped being the only route to an answer.

“The courses are easy to access, made accessible by being able to go back in and out to, they are straight forward and provide useful day to day information for staff.

Lily Money

SENCO

Asked how STEPS compares with other SEND training and CPD she has used, her answer was short: “So far has been more effective.”

Reported by the SENCO. “A parent has commented on how their student is now happy in a school setting, they can't believe the change both at school and at home and their child is smiling everyday.”

A whole-school programme cannot claim credit for one child's happiness, and we are not going to. We have included it because it is what the SENCO chose to tell us when we asked what had stuck with her.

Mainstream secondary · 1,750 pupils

Whole-school SEND CPD, inside directed time

Setting: Mainstream secondary, Ipswich (Northgate High School)
Pupils on roll: 1,750
EHCP numbers: Described by the school as “double national percentage”
Areas of need: Autism, ADHD, literacy and dyslexia
Joined STEPS: June 2025
In their words: Richard Grainger, Deputy Headteacher, two years in role

What the school reported

Increased confidence supporting pupils with SEND
Greater staff confidence
Improved collaboration between staff

Year one, in progress

Northgate joined in June 2025 and built STEPS into the following academic year’s CPD model. What follows is an account of a rollout underway rather than a finished one, and Richard Grainger’s own language says so: staff are “now starting to feel more confident”. We have left the hedge in.

The scale of the need. “We have increasing levels of SEND, with particularly high numbers of children with an EHCP (double national percentage) due to our school being named on EHCP documents.” Northgate is the school families ask for. That is a compliment with an operational cost attached.

“Teachers cited a lack of understanding about how best to support students. They are now starting to feel more confident in their own abilities, to better understand the language around support mechanisms and have a better overview of how to identify high leverage strategies to adopt.

Richard Grainger

Deputy Headteacher

Note the three components: confidence, shared language, and the ability to pick the right strategy rather than any strategy.

“A teacher identified that the training modules helped them to understand what is going on inside a student's head when they are struggling in a lesson.

Richard Grainger

Deputy Headteacher

The answer heads ask for first. Directed time is capped. Anything new either displaces something or fits inside what already exists.

“We had started to explore modules and then built this into our CPD model for the year, making use of disaggregated P.D. time to enable staff to complete modules as part of one of their objectives.

Richard Grainger

Deputy Headteacher

The existing CPD model absorbed it, rather than a separate training event being scheduled.

Modules are grouped thematically rather than run as a fixed course, so staff can work through a theme in the order and at the pace their timetable allows.

How they ran it: explored the modules first, then built them into the CPD model for the year, in disaggregated PD time, with completion attached to a staff objective.

Secure setting · HM Young Offender Institution

When a teacher spots the need first

Setting: Education department, secure setting (HMYOI Feltham)
Young people: 95
Areas of need: Autism, ADHD, speech and language, literacy and dyslexia, dyspraxia, SEMH, sensory processing
Joined STEPS: June 2025
In their words: Rachna, SENDCO, 18 months in role

Why this one is here. A young offender institution is not a mainstream school. It is on this page because it shows the range of settings the programme has had to work in. Feltham's education department works with 95 young people in a secure setting, and its SENDCO was still training towards the role when the setting joined.

Asked what teachers used to say to her, and what they say now:

“Ask for LSA support and strategies to support specific learners. Now they plan effectively to some extent.

Rachna

SENDCO

Requests for someone else's time, replaced by planning. Then this:

“One of our teachers shares some specific information relating to a child that I might not be aware of due to his undiagnosed needs.

Rachna

SENDCO

The direction of travel reversed. Normally the SENCO tells the teacher about the pupil. Here a teacher told the SENCO. Ofsted's inclusion criteria open with leaders identifying pupils' needs “quickly and accurately, including any emerging or changing needs”. Where a young person's needs have not been formally identified, the only route to noticing them is an adult who knows what to look for. That cannot be one person.

On the support staff who are hardest to release for training, and who spend the most time with the young people who need them most: “LSAs found it very useful.”

Feltham is not a mainstream school and the read across is not simple. What can be said is that its education team selected five outcome areas in the survey, more than any of the other three settings here.

What the school reported

Improved classroom practice
Increased confidence supporting pupils with SEND
Better pupil engagement
Greater staff confidence
Improved collaboration between staff

Your school

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The pattern

Four very different settings. The same four shifts.

We asked every school the same questions. These are the changes that appeared more than once.

The SENCO stops being the only route to an answer

Sheridan's SENCO now signposts staff to STEPS rather than to materials she compiled herself. Dee Point's staff began asking to complete modules of their own accord. This is the shift that makes the role sustainable. It is also the practical difference between a graduated approach that exists on paper and one the staff body can actually run.

Staff start asking for it

Dee Point moved from staff who “would appreciate some CPD” to staff who “wish to complete some modules on their own”. At Feltham, “LSAs found it very useful”. Both matter, because the failure mode of whole-school CPD is rarely the content. It is non-completion.

The direction of the conversation reverses

Feltham's SENDCO was told about a young person's undiagnosed needs by one of her teachers. At Dee Point, staff began telling the SENCO they wished to complete modules on their own. In both cases staff started bringing something to the SENCO rather than only taking from her, which is the clearest available signal that capability is distributed rather than merely delivered.

It fits the time schools already have

Northgate built STEPS into their CPD model for the year using disaggregated PD time. Dee Point valued that it “can be done flexibly”. Sheridan valued “being able to go back in and out”. Three settings, three phases, and the same requirement: it had to fit around the school day rather than replace part of it.

Staff confident supporting pupils with SEND

Percentage of staff reporting they feel very or fairly confident, before and after STEPS.

Before
After

Dee Point Primary SchoolMainstream primary, 473 pupils

38% Before · 38% After · 82% 82%

Sheridan SchoolSpecial school, SEMH, 66 pupils

45% Before · 45% After · 88% 88%

Northgate High SchoolMainstream secondary, 1,750 pupils

41% Before · 41% After · 79% 79%

FelthamSecure setting, 95 young people

36% Before · 36% After · 85% 85%

0%25%50%75%100%

View as a table

Staff confidence before and after STEPS, by setting
Setting	Before	After	Change
Dee Point Primary School	38%	82%	+44
Sheridan School	45%	88%	+43
Northgate High School	41%	79%	+38
Feltham	36%	85%	+49

All four schools selected increased confidence supporting pupils with SEND and greater staff confidence as outcomes. Three of the four also reported improvements in consistency or collaboration across staff.

Outcome areas selected at Q5, STEPS case study survey, July 2026. This is not the source of the chart above.

For senior leaders

What this gives you to show for it

Three things a headteacher, a trust and a governing board will ask about, and what STEPS actually provides against each.

Ofsted's inclusion area

“Staff receive suitable training and support to implement this approach.”

Inclusion is graded as its own evaluation area in the school inspection toolkit in use from 7 September 2026. The line above sits at the expected standard, and “this approach” is the graduated approach. The leadership dashboard shows engagement and completion across your staff body by role, which is evidence about staff rather than evidence about your SENCO.

Your inclusion strategy statement

Schools must publish an inclusion strategy statement for 2026/27 by 31 December 2026, and keep records of spend against the Inclusive Mainstream Fund. The DfE's guidance on developing that strategy names “ongoing professional development for inclusion and supporting pupils with SEND” among what a strategy covers. Whether STEPS is an eligible spend is a decision for you and your finance lead, not for us. See the funding section below.

Your governors and trustees

Completion and engagement data by role and by course, exportable for governor, trustee and local authority reporting. For MATs, the same view across every school in the trust.

STEPS is a training platform. It will not inspect well on its own, and we would be wary of anyone who told you otherwise. What it gives you is the record that your whole staff body has been trained, at the level appropriate to each role, and a means of seeing what they did with it.

Funding and the December deadline

Inclusive Mainstream Fund training: where whole-staff SEND CPD fits

The money reached local authorities at the end of June 2026 and academy trusts in early July. The inclusion strategy statement is due by 31 December 2026. Here is what we can say about where training sits inside that, and what we cannot.

The Inclusive Mainstream Fund is worth over £500 million per financial year for the next three years. Allocations combine a lump sum per school with a per-pupil rate weighted towards pupils with low prior attainment, and an area cost adjustment. Underspend can be carried forward to 31 March 2028.

The fund is organised around seven principles of inclusion. Two bear directly on staff training: ambitious leadership and governance that embeds inclusion, and high quality adaptive teaching with curriculum designed for all learners. Neither is reachable through the SENCO alone, which is the argument this whole page is making.

What the inclusion strategy statement has to contain

The barriers to learning and participation identified across your cohort
The activities invested in to alleviate those barriers
The intended outcomes
A review of the previous academic year

It must be published by 31 December 2026, and updated annually after that.

What we are not going to tell you

We are not going to tell you that STEPS is an eligible Inclusive Mainstream Fund spend. That is a decision for your school against the conditions of grant, and two clauses are worth reading before you make it. The fund cannot subsidise activity you already run, and it cannot pay for staff time on activities unrelated to inclusion. If you already buy SEND CPD, whether you can recode it is exactly the question your finance lead will ask, and it is a fair one.

What we would say is narrower than that. Much of the sector is holding off on the paperwork until the DfE template arrives, which is sensible. Workforce development is one of the few strands you can start now without guessing at a format, and it is the one that takes longest to reach a classroom. If your statement in December has to name activities and intended outcomes, a term of whole-staff training already behind you is a better place to write from than a blank page.

Sources: IMF conditions of grant 2026 to 2027 and Developing an inclusion strategy using the Inclusive Mainstream Fund, DfE. Ofsted wording from the state-funded school inspection toolkit for use from September 2026. Ofsted does not endorse training products.

Beyond the four

What staff say about the courses themselves

From participants across OLT's course library. Attributed by role and course.

“Before I study this course, I did not have much confidence in identifying and managing the students' behaviours but now, I have gained more confidence after finishing this course.

Qualified Teacher

Understanding and Supporting Behaviour

“I absolutely love these training courses and get an awful lot out of them. I feel a lot more confident using smart goals and I really appreciate your support.

Teaching Assistant

Understanding and Supporting Behaviour

“The training course has been a stimulus for conversations with the teacher I work with and I have thought carefully about each of our children. Setting the goals and interventions was interesting: two I would automatically do and the third is a direct consequence of the training.

Teaching Assistant

Attachment and Trauma

“The training has taught me about dyslexia and how it impacts on children's learning at school. When supporting a student in French lessons, it became clear that he could not understand new words that were introduced. A strategy to help with this is to use a visual aid when learning new vocabulary.

Teaching Assistant

Dyslexia and Significant Difficulties in Reading

“It was really useful to go through this course prior to the other staff.

SENCO

OLT course participant

“In terms of focusing the mind and upgrading the skill profiles of the classroom practitioners it has been of great benefit.

Special School Teacher

OLT course participant

“This course has really opened my eyes to children, the way they move, and organise themselves in the school environment.

Consultant

Dyspraxia and Motor Coordination Difficulties

“I can now see how I can use the course materials with staff in the Service, develop their understanding of the impact of a visual impairment.

Head of Service

Vision Impairment

Across all participants

The wider picture

85%report a significant increase in confidence

99%would recommend the training to others

98%confirmed a positive impact on classroom practice

42 → 96%very or fairly confident, before and after training

Source: OLT data 2026. Figures cover participants across OLT's course library. They are not figures for the four case study schools.

Before you decide

The questions schools actually ask

The DfE is funding a free national SEND training programme. Why would we use this?

Use it. A national programme with £200m behind it, free to every member of staff, is good news for every school and for every child.

The question worth asking is a different one. The gap in most SEND CPD is not what staff are told. It is whether anything changes in a classroom the following week. What the schools on this page describe is not new information reaching staff. It is staff asking to complete modules of their own accord, a teacher bringing the SENDCO information about a young person she did not have, and a SENCO who is no longer the only route to an answer.

Until April 2027 you can run both and judge for yourself, at no cost.

Can we use the Inclusive Mainstream Fund for SEND training?

Possibly, and we are not the right people to tell you yes. Eligibility is judged by your school against the conditions of grant. The DfE's guidance on developing an inclusion strategy names “ongoing professional development for inclusion and supporting pupils with SEND” among what a strategy covers, and two of the seven principles of inclusion turn on what staff can do rather than what the SENCO knows.

The clause to check first is the bar on subsidising activity you already run. If SEND CPD is already in your budget, moving it onto the fund is the part your finance lead will want to look at properly.

We already do SEND CPD. What is different here?

Reach, mostly. Northgate had not had much experience of alternatives on a whole-staff basis. Dee Point's SENCO had not used any SEND CPD before. Sheridan's SENCO had, and said that STEPS “so far has been more effective”.

The structural difference is the three levels. Universal awareness for every adult in the building, including office and support teams. Enhanced skills for classroom teachers and support staff. Specialist skills for SENCOs and anyone whose role needs that depth. Everyone gets the version that fits their job rather than the same session delivered to a hall.

How do we get staff to actually complete it?

Northgate's approach is the most transferable of the four. They explored the modules first, then built STEPS into their CPD model for the year, using disaggregated PD time, with completion attached to a staff objective.

Dee Point's SENCO valued being able to see who had completed what. Sheridan's staff valued being able to go in and out of a module rather than committing to a block of time.

Will this add to our SENCO's workload?

The pattern across all four settings runs the other way. Sheridan's SENCO has a signposting route that is not her own compiled folder. Dee Point's SENCO has staff coming to her with requests to do more rather than requests for her to solve something. Feltham's SENDCO received information about a young person from a teacher rather than the reverse.

Setting up the levels for different staff groups takes an initial decision. After that the work of answering the same question forty times is what reduces.

What happens after April 2027?

Access is free for every UK school until April 2027, with no payment details taken and no automatic subscription. After that, pricing starts from £300 a year for primary schools and £400 a year for secondary schools, varying with size. One subscription covers every member of staff, with no per-person fees.

For context, a single day of off-site CPD for one teacher, once supply cover is paid for, costs a comparable amount.

Who writes the content?

A multi-professional team led by educational psychologists with extensive school experience, with contributions from experienced SENCOs, specialist teachers and other SEND professionals, and input from clinical experts including psychiatrists for specialist areas. Content is peer reviewed and updated as guidance changes.

See what changes in your school

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