(England) $8,000 budget for each student with special needs to further inclusion in mainstream schools

July 9, 2026, The i Paper: £6,000 budget for each SEND child in mainstream schools set to be increased

Mainstream schools will receive extra council money upfront next year to ensure they can cope with teaching more SEND children under the Government’s sweeping reforms.

The plans will reduce the need for schools to go through a lengthy process to secure additional funding for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), which can leave families waiting months for support.

The changes are intended to give parents confidence that schools will have the resources needed to help their children and encourage more schools to accept them.

The Government wants to include more children with SEND in mainstream schools to bring down the soaring costs of supporting them via education, health and care plans (EHCPs) and private special school places, but parents fear that provisions will be inadequate.

Under the current system, schools are expected to spend up to £6,000 upfront on additional provision for each SEND pupil – and then they or parents can apply for top-up funding when children need more support.

But an upcoming consultation is set to give councils the power to raise the £6,000 threshold, The i Paper understands.

This means that schools will have more money built into their budget for SEND, according to sources familiar with the discussions.

The £6,000 [$8,000] figure – which applies to all pupils with SEND – has not changed since 2013 and has fallen by more than 50 per cent in real terms due to inflation.

This has forced growing numbers of schools to rely on EHCPs – legal documents that set out what support children are entitled to – to fund the needs of pupils with SEND, fuelling a backlog of cases that have locked some children out of mainstream schools.

It can take as long as 20 weeks for parents to get funding via an EHCP.

What do the changes mean for EHCPs?

The changes could reduce the need for EHCPs to fund moderate needs among pupils, such as additional learning support and speech and language help.

Although councils are technically allowed to give top-up funding for pupils without an EHCP, financial constraints mean that, in practice, they typically only grant it for pupils who have one, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

The plans outlined in the consultation will not alter the amount of overall funding provided but are intended to remove red tape that makes it difficult to access.

In consultation with schools, councils will be able to apply to the Department for Education to set their own threshold – which would be higher than the £6,000 figure – with supporting evidence to justify the level chosen.

Anna Bird, chair of the Disabled Children’s Partnership, a coalition of groups supporting disabled children, said they “welcome efforts to give schools more funding, helping them plan ahead and provide support earlier”.

“For this to succeed, funding must be matched with the right expertise, specialist support and collaboration between education, health and care services,” she said. “Any changes must protect children’s right to support.”

How will the funding be distributed?

Councils would allocate the funding to schools using a formula based on factors linked to SEND – such as deprivation, low prior attainment, English as an additional language and pupil mobility – rather than assessing each child individually.

The payments would be made to maintained schools starting next April, and to academies from September 2027.

The changes are part of reforms to the SEND system outlined in another consultation in February, which will reduce the number of children with EHCPs, which cost on average £17,500 [$23K], according to the County Councils Network.

Some pupils will move to “individual support plans” (ISPs) with the view of including more of them in mainstream state schools.

The planned changes to existing funding allocations come on top of a £1.6bn [$2B] pot to support SEND inclusion over the next three years.

There remain concerns about whether schools will have enough total funding to meet the needs of pupils.

Funding upfront may push schools towards cheaper group interventions rather than one-to-one support that some children with more complex needs require, putting those children at a disadvantage, according to sources close to the discussions.

This is because group interventions can cost the same to deliver regardless of how many children attend them.

Under the current system, once an EHCP is agreed, councils tally up the cost of the specific provision required – such as one-to-one teaching assistant time, weekly speech and language therapy, equipment and staff training – and pay that amount to the school.

The Department for Education declined to comment.