New Guide: From Lone SENCO to Whole-School SEND - 10th Jun 2026
Recent policy changes in 2026 are forcing UK schools to rethink their SEND leadership structure.
Ofsted's revised inspection toolkit now grades inclusion as a standalone area, while the Inclusive Mainstream Fund requires every school to publish an Inclusion Strategy by 31 December 2026.
Both require whole-school SEND capability - not one person holding all the expertise.
The Lone SENCO pattern
In most UK schools, two-thirds of SEND conversations get routed to a single person. But a smaller group of schools have redesigned their structure so expertise is distributed across the team. The difference isn't the individual SENCO - it's structural.
Distributed SEND expertise works across three layers: universal awareness across all staff, enhanced skills in a smaller group, and specialist depth held by the SENCO. Each layer needs the others to work effectively.
Why most attempts fail
Schools often stumble at the same points: one-off INSET sessions that leave staff aware but not competent, specialist training for one person rather than whole-school capability, and the time problem - genuine behaviour change requires structure and revisiting, not one 40-minute session.
What schools can do this term
Our new guide shows practical steps: run an audit to map where gaps exist, pick two priorities, and plan staged progression for each. This is the work of a year, sometimes two - but the schools that have built distributed SEND expertise started with these three steps.
UK schools have free access to STEPS - our whole-school SEND CPD platform. One subscription covers your whole school, with free full access until January 2027.
Register for free STEPS access