I’m a school business leader in a large special educational needs and disabilities school, responsible for provision that operates across multiple sites, including satellite centres inside mainstream secondary schools - what the policy lexicon is now calling “specialist inclusion bases”.

These dedicated spaces, fully resourced with the right technology, teaching materials and staff, provided by our SEND school, give students with education, health and care plans (EHCPs) a quieter, more focused environment that they can access when mainstream classes are “too much”. These centres are held together by a shared commitment from the staff of both schools to make them work.

A belief that this is what education should look like is what led me into my MBA research in 2025-26 to see how other schools operate inclusively, drawing on insights from local authority commissioners, trust leaders, headteachers, fellow school business leaders and time spent in schools.

And then, just after I finished my dissertation in January, the government’s SEND reforms landed, calling for inclusive education to be delivered in all schools.

It’s a move that could have huge benefits for many pupils. But it has to be thought through carefully because what my research showed is that inclusivity cannot be achieved by simply relabelling an empty classroom as an inclusion base.

Instead, what I’ve learned, through my research across the sector, is that inclusion at scale isn’t about intent. It’s about intentional system design. And doing that well comes down to four things: define the cohort, anchor the system, build the infrastructure and manage the friction.

SEND: Setting up inclusion bases in schools

1. Define the cohort

Centres, bases, units, hubs - whatever you call them - are envisaged that can flex to meet a broad range of need. In reality, they can’t.

If a pupil is placed in provision and their needs are more complex than the model is designed for, you feel it straight away. Full-time support, no meaningful access to mainstream - you’re delivering something very different to what was intended.

Of course, you respond to the need. You pull in staff, bring in resources, use agency to cover the gaps, but the impact doesn’t stay contained.

Unbudgeted costs escalate, staffing shifts, pressure spreads across the entire system. And the funding? It might catch up…eventually.

In my research, I found that the most successful inclusive provisions are designed for pupils who can access mainstream with the right support. If a pupil is fully centre-based, the model isn’t aligned.

So make sure, at every level, that all parties are clear on the intended cohort. You can’t predict every placement - it’s largely out of the school’s hands - but don’t assume that the system will stretch indefinitely. It won’t.

2. Anchor the system

Once you’ve got the cohort right, the next pressure point is how SEND and mainstream systems operate together.

You’re effectively running a little school inside a larger one, whether that’s a specialist-led model or a school-run base. Either way, you’ve got two sets of priorities, expectations and accountabilities sitting side by side.

Where I saw this go wrong, it wasn’t dramatic; it was messy: staff unsure of which system to follow, decisions sitting between teams rather than being owned.

From a school business leader’s point of view, that shows up fast: duplicate processes, confusion over who signs things off, time spent sorting things that should already be clear. But where it worked, it had all been agreed up front: headteachers were aligned, roles were clear and everyone knew how decisions would be made.

So do that early. Get leadership aligned and inform everyone who needs to know where the responsibility and accountability lie. Don’t wait until you’re open - because by then you’re unpicking it rather than setting it up, and you will face a lifetime of managing misalignment.

3. Build the infrastructure

Get those two things above right, and you start to feel the operational load.

As soon as you move beyond one site, complexity ramps up; safeguarding, staffing, data, communication. What works neatly in one school doesn’t necessarily carry across.

This is why you have to actively build the infrastructure - business and support services aren’t a luxury, and you need all the Sendcos, SLT and heads of department across both schools to have the capacity to support, engage and be on the same page.

This includes everything from the software you use - can it work across two different types of sites? - to the furniture that will be used, shared kitchen spaces, parking locations for different staff, photocopier access, etc. They all sound small, but they most definitely are not.

In my research, it was sites that got ahead of these things and were freer to focus on education delivery that performed far better.

4. Manage the friction

And then there’s the bit that really makes or breaks it.

It’s not the big strategic decisions - it’s the everyday. When something minor isn’t sorted, a few emails later it’s with SLT, and that’s the real cost. In schools, people’s time is your most expensive resource.

Add in the complications of spaces being shared between sites and different expectations, and it becomes about territory as much as practice.

Pupils pick up on that energy; they know if they’re being welcomed or just accommodated.

Some friction will always occur, but you can get ahead of a lot of it. Talk it through early, at the right levels, and when something you didn’t anticipate shows up (because it will, for sure), deal with it before it escalates.

In conclusion, implementing inclusive provision at scale isn’t about intent or pedagogy, it’s about intentional system design. That’s why it’s vital to define it, anchor it, build it, manage it.

Amanda Goldthorpe-Hall is school business leader at Philip Southcote School in Surrey. She will be speaking at the National Network of Special Schools (NNoSS) Conference 2026 in Liverpool on Thursday, 30 April 2026