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Build the inclusion strategy the DfE asks for, section by section, then download it ready to publish.
Answer a few guided questions. We suggest wording, pre-fill your myHappymind and Belong approaches, and give you prompts and options to pick from, so you are never staring at a blank page.
Your strategy fills in on the live preview beside you as you go, so you always see exactly what you are creating.
When you are done, download a Word file laid out exactly the way the DfE template asks for.
Add your budget figures and school logo, adjust any wording, then publish it on your school website by 31 December.
The Department for Education has set out a template that schools use for their inclusion strategy. This tool walks you through that exact template, section by section, with prompts drawn from the 7 principles guidance, so the Word document you publish is built to deliver against what the DfE asks for.
The DfE's five-step process: identify the barriers your pupils face; use evidence to understand them; develop your strategy; deliver and monitor it; then evaluate and sustain what works. This tool guides you through capturing the parts you publish.
Where the content comes from. The 7 principles of inclusion and the suggested activities are taken directly from the DfE's best practice for schools guidance.
How your school's data is used. This tool is for myHappymind Belong schools. When you download your strategy, we record a summary of your choices: your school, URN and local authority, the barriers you selected, and the approaches and outcomes you chose. We use this to report themes back to your local authority and to improve the tool. We do not record anyone's name, anything you type in a free text box, your budget figures, or any information about individual children.
This is the first section of the DfE template. These details form your strategy overview and appear at the top of your published document. You can change any of them later in Word.
This optional lookup can fill the school name, URN and local authority for you. If your school is not in the list, complete the fields manually below.
Your URN and local authority do not appear in your published strategy, because the DfE template does not include them. They simply identify your school.
One or two sentences in your voice. We use this to open your statement of intent so it reads as yours, not a template.
Not sure what to write? Tick any that apply and we will weave them into your statement of intent. You can edit the wording later in Word.
Name who leads it and how often you will check progress. This is added to the end of your statement of intent, so watch it appear in the preview.
Covers this academic year. You will write a fresh strategy next year.
Covers more than one year. The DfE asks you to review it annually and note this on the cover page.
The DfE's process begins by identifying barriers. Tick the barriers that commonly occur across your cohort, not just for children on SEN support or with an EHC plan, and add your own at the bottom.
Optional. Put each barrier on its own line. Each line is added as a separate barrier in your strategy, so keep them short rather than writing a paragraph.
How did you identify these barriers? Tick the evidence sources you drew on.
These appear in your statement of intent, in the sentence beginning “To understand the barriers our pupils face, we drew on…”. Switch the preview to “Full document” to see it.
Open each of the 7 principles of inclusion and tick the activities you are also investing in. The DfE recommends doing fewer things well, so focus on what makes the biggest difference for your cohort.
Two kinds of activity appear below. Your myHappymind and Belong approaches are written and mapped for you, so there is nothing to do to those. For any activity you have added yourself, you tell us who it is for and which barriers it addresses. Universal means for everyone; targeted means for specific pupils.
Tick the outcomes you intend your strategy to achieve. We have pre-filled each one with suggested success criteria, but don’t worry, you can edit them once you have downloaded the Word document. The DfE asks for clear, realistic and measurable outcomes.
Add any outcomes specific to your school. Give each one its success criteria so it is clear how you will measure it. Each pair becomes a row in your intended outcomes table.
The DfE template asks for a short review of the previous academic year. Answer any of the prompts that apply, in full sentences, and they become the prose of this section. If this is your first inclusion strategy, tick the box below and we will add a suitable note instead.
All optional. Each answer will pull into this section of your document, so write in full sentences. Skip any prompt that does not apply.
Here is your finished strategy, set out the way the DfE template asks for. Download it as a Word document to edit, add your school logo and budget information, and publish on your website.
Opens in Microsoft Word, Google Docs or Pages. You can keep editing it.
Your Word file should be in your downloads. Here is what to do next.