The Rule
When funding feels tight, clarity matters more than cash.
The Headteacher's Story
Last week, we onboarded three Executive Heads of different MATs, each with a similar story.
Across of of their schools, in one, with 20 schools, a picture emerged:
- SEN pressure increasing in every school
- Two to Three pupils in each school requiring complex SEND support
- Up to two additional TAs employed per school that's 30 extra TAs across the trust
- An extra room in every school repurposed for these three students
The reality isn't "we had the money." The reality is far more brutal.
They don't have the money. They're scrambling.
The costs are exploding in every direction, staffing, premises, transport, legal. And because no one tracked it as a single line, it’s happened too fast, no one saw the full picture until it was too late.
Put a number on the chokehold:
- 30 additional TAs: approx £400,000 - £600,000 per year
- 10 repurposed rooms: lost teaching space, lost income, lost flexibility
- 30 students placed outside mainstream: easily £80,000 -£120,000 per child in some cases
The Executive Head's actual words were closer to this:
"We're firefighting.
Every school is making it up as they go along.
We don't know the full cost because we've never been able to stop and look."
That's not a budget problem.
That's a visibility problem.
And without visibility, you can't even begin to solve it.
The White Paper: "Every Child Achieving and Thriving
The government has been clear: the SEND system is broken. Families have been forced to fight for support. Outcomes haven't improved despite billions spent. And no single part of the system can fix it alone.
The RAISE 2026 white paper is built on five principles: Early, Local, Fair, Effective, and Shared support. It explicitly acknowledges that the current system is "too adversarial" and that families have had to "fight for support." The solution requires everyone to step up.
Direct quote from the white paper:
"We will move away from a system where families must fight for support, to one where early, targeted help is the default. This means funding following the child into mainstream schools, not out of them."
The government also confirmed that "every council" working with integrated care boards will be required to commission local professionals educational psychologists, speech and language therapists, occupational therapists so that support is "routinely available in every area, whether or not children have an EHCP (an analysis of this to follow)."
Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson added: "Children with SEND deserve a system that lifts them up. That means brilliant teachers and experts providing support where children need it, when they need it in their local school, without families having to fight."
The Funding Reality and the Gap
Beyond core budget, schools already hold:
"We're firefighting.
- DSG notional SEND budget: every school has one; most SLTs cannot name the figure without asking the school business manager
- Pupil Premium: £1,480 per eligible pupil (2024/25); must be evidenced against impact, not just spent
- Sports Premium: £17,000–£23,000 per school; often spent reactively
- SEND top‑ups: local authority allocated, frequently underclaimed
- PTA funds: often sitting unused because there's no clear priority
- Local inclusion grants: vary by LA, often unknown to school leadership
But for the MAT above, none of these streams were sized for the problem they're facing. The gap between available funding and actual cost is swallowing them whole. We are helping then with visibility as we find various levels of support, no usually broadly available from more local, highly plugged in knowledgeable, providers.
The Shared Responsibility
The government is clear: this isn't just a school problem or a council problem. It's a whole-system problem.
Local authorities and integrated care boards are now required to work together to commission "local professionals" so that every area has access to educational psychology, occupational therapy, and speech and language support. Schools are expected to draw on these services, not fight for them.
Ofsted will now inspect all settings on their SEND inclusion and support quality as a standalone judgement. Schools will be required to publish an Inclusion Strategy, open to scrutiny by parents. Councils and health partners face intervention where standards are not met.
In Hampshire, the local area partnership including the county council, NHS, and parent network has already welcomed the reforms, saying:
>We have been working to train and upskill school staff, build expertise, and make sure that schools always start from a place of inclusion. This is because we believe that what works for children with special needs, works for all children.The Executive
The OBC Framework
One Big Change defined: the single priority that, if properly funded and resourced, changes everything else downstream. Not ten priorities. One.
In every OBC session we run, the first question is not: "What can we afford?"
It is: "If we could stop firefighting and get visibility across the trust what's the one thing that would unlock everything else?"
That question always surfaces the real priority. Then we reverse‑engineer the funding and the partnerships.
Not the other way around.
When the One Big Change is clear:
- Pupil Premium has a home - it's targeted, not spread thin
- PTA funds have a purpose - no more raffles for a vague "school fund"
- SEND top‑ups are claimed, not left on the table
- Reform funding is relevant - because the priority is already defined
- External partnerships align - vendors, councils, and health services come to you with solutions, not the other way round
Your One Thing This Tuesday:
At your next SLT meeting, ask one question:
"What is the real cost across the trust of not having clarity on our SEND provision?"
Then ask:
"Which funding streams and which local partners could help us move from firefighting to strategy?"
List them on a whiteboard:
- DSG notional SEND budget?
- Pupil Premium?
- Sports Premium?
- PTA funds?
- Local inclusion grants?
- Experts at Hand services?
- Family Hub outreach?
Don't add initiatives.
Align resources.
And start the conversation with the partners who are now required to show up.
/The Room You Don't Want to Miss
There is a £1.8 billion funding shortfall in schools. You are not imagining it. You are managing it every single day.
Every priority your leadership team names runs into the same wall. The need is real. The evidence is there. The will is there. The budget is not.
Grants take months. Applications are competitive. And even when they land, the money is ringfenced, time-limited, and gone before the impact compounds.
This is not a capacity problem. It is a structural one. And grants are not the answer to a structural problem.
This spring, we are gathering a small group of schools and vendors to design something different. In the room: vendor and school pairs working on real deployment.
An eCommerce partner bringing checkout infrastructure. A banking perspective on round-up funding. A procurement lens on tenders and social value. Hosted at one of the world's leading global tech companies in Central London.
Not a panel. Not a pitch event. A working session.
Instead of waiting for funding, funding flows through commerce: checkout round-up, bank round-up, local commerce, corporate social value. Multiple flows. One school. Traceable impact.
We are selecting 8 to 10 school and vendor pairs. If you have a vendor in mind, bring them. If you do not, we will match you. You come in with your One Big Change named. We sit down and map how it gets funded.
Applications close in 2 weeks.
Yvonne
LocaeRise
Change, handled well.
P.S. You wrote the sentence. That is further than most schools get. Do not let it sit in a notebook. Bring it to the room where it becomes a plan.