How will you prove your Inclusive Mainstream Fund made a difference?

The money is arriving. The harder part is showing what it changed.

From this year, mainstream schools in England are receiving a share of £400 million a year, for three years, through the new Inclusive Mainstream Fund (IMF). After years of stretched budgets, that’s genuinely good news. For once there’s money for inclusion that doesn’t come with a battle attached as there’s no application process. The funding is allocated automatically, paid through local authorities for maintained schools and directly to trusts for academies.

But it does come with expectations.

What the fund actually asks of schools

The IMF is not a personal budget for individual pupils, and it isn’t a blank cheque. The DfE wants schools to use it to build an inclusive core offer: earlier support, fewer barriers, and better everyday practice for pupils with SEND, whether or not they have a diagnosis or an EHCP.

There are some clear conditions:

• Spending must be evidence-informed. Whatever you invest in, you need to be able to say why.
• It must fit the DfE’s seven principles of inclusion. These cover areas like inclusive teaching, accessible environments and early identification.
• Every school needs an Inclusion Strategy by December 2026. It must show how barriers are identified and removed, and how inclusive practice is embedded.
• Schools need to show impact. Not just what they bought, but what difference it made.

That last point is where many schools are going to struggle.

The evidence gap in mainstream schools

Mainstream assessment systems are built around age-related expectations. They’re good at telling you whether a pupil is on track for their year group. They’re much less good at telling you that a pupil who couldn’t cope with a full lesson in September can now manage twenty minutes with a visual timetable. Or that a child who wouldn’t speak in class is now answering questions in small groups.

For many of the pupils the IMF is designed to support, that’s exactly what progress looks like. It’s real, it matters, and it’s often invisible in the data.

So when governors, trust leaders or Ofsted ask what the fund achieved, a SENCO can end up with a list of purchases and a handful of anecdotes. That isn’t a fair reflection of the work, and it won’t make a strong case for the next two years of funding either.

What good evidence looks like

If you’re writing your inclusion strategy now, it’s worth thinking about evidence from the start rather than scrambling for it in July. Strong evidence of impact usually has a few things in common:

1. A clear starting point. Record where pupils are before an intervention begins, in terms that reflect their actual needs, not just their attainment.
2. Small steps that count. Track progress in communication, independence, emotional regulation and engagement, as well as academic learning.
3. Consistency across staff. Teachers, TAs and the SENCO should all record progress in the same way, so the picture holds together.
4. A link between spending and outcomes. If you’ve funded a new approach, you should be able to see the change in the pupils it was meant to help.
5. Reports people can actually use. Something you can share with governors, parents and leadership without spending a weekend building it.

None of this needs to be complicated. It just needs to be planned.

Where Earwig comes in

Earwig was built with specialist schools, where progress has never fitted neatly into age-related bands. Our assessment and reporting platform helps staff capture the small, meaningful steps that show a pupil is moving forward, and turn them into clear evidence that leaders, governors and families can understand.

That’s exactly what mainstream schools now need from the IMF. We’re not here to tell you what to spend your fund on. We’re here to help you show that whatever you chose worked.

Used alongside your inclusion strategy, Earwig can help you:

• set meaningful baselines for pupils receiving additional support
• record progress that standard trackers miss
• see the impact of specific interventions over time
• produce clear reports for governors, trust leaders and inspection

Start with the end in mind

The schools that get the most from the Inclusive Mainstream Fund won’t just be the ones that spend it well. They’ll be the ones that can show it made a difference. Thinking about evidence now, while your strategy is still taking shape, will make next summer a lot easier.

If you’d like to see how Earwig could support your inclusion strategy, we’d love to show you.

Book a Demo

Questions? Get in touch at info@earwigacademic.com.

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