The government’s new guidance on inclusion bases is an important moment for mainstream education.
For years, schools have developed different forms of internal provision under a variety of names; SEN units, nurture spaces, pupil support centres and resourced provision.
Some have offered thoughtful, genuinely inclusive support. Others have unintentionally become places where children are separated from school life in the name of inclusion.
The new guidance is an attempt to bring greater consistency and clarity to that landscape, and deserves a warm welcome.
Part of the mainstream
Inclusion bases are described as part of the mainstream school, not institutions in their own right.
Access should never be used as a sanction. Provision should be teacher-led, offer an ambitious curriculum and, crucially, maximise pupils’ time in mainstream classrooms.
A base should be a bridge back into participation, not a destination for quiet exclusion.
That principle matters more than anything else in the document.
The greatest risk is not that inclusion bases exist, but that they become disconnected from everyday school life
I was part of the advisory process that informed the guidance on behalf of TCES Great Minds Therapy & Training.
One theme remained constant throughout the discussions. The purpose of an inclusion base is not simply to create another room in a school. It is to strengthen inclusion across the whole school.
The guidance rightly places inclusion bases along a continuum of provision, recognising that schools will need different models.
Yet it continually returns to one fundamental question: does it help children remain active members of the school community?
Practical design
The greatest risk is not that inclusion bases exist, but that they become disconnected from everyday school life.
Children develop a sense of who they are through the groups to which they belong. They notice who learns together, who leaves lessons, who is visible in the corridors and playground, and who spends their day elsewhere.
If an inclusion base becomes a separate world within the school, pupils may remain physically present but become socially absent.
Separation, however well intentioned, can reinforce feelings of difference rather than belonging.
That is why the guidance places such emphasis on participation, peer relationships and maintaining meaningful access to mainstream education.
The practical design of a base therefore matters enormously.
The physical environment is important, but only as part of a wider model. Staffing matters, but only when underpinned by skilled teaching, strong leadership and multidisciplinary working.
An ambitious curriculum
The curriculum must remain ambitious rather than becoming a diluted alternative.
Transitions in and out of the base require careful planning because pupils experience schools not through policy categories but through the quality of the relationships and routines that surround them.
The strongest inclusion bases will never be defined simply by the room itself. They will be defined by how effectively they connect children back into the wider life of the school.
The guidance is at its strongest when it makes clear that inclusion bases cannot compensate for weaknesses elsewhere.
If classroom teaching is not adaptive, if behaviour continues to be viewed purely through a disciplinary lens, or if attendance conversations overlook anxiety, dysregulation and belonging, then the base risks becoming responsible for solving problems created elsewhere in the system.
An inclusion base will succeed only if leaders ask difficult questions
School leaders should therefore read this guidance not as permission to establish a specialist room, but as a challenge to strengthen inclusion across the whole school.
The emphasis on partnership is equally important. Families must be involved in decision-making.
Health professionals should be integral rather than peripheral. Local authorities need to think strategically about how different forms of provision fit together across an area.
Where specialist expertise exists, it should extend beyond the walls of the base to build confidence across the wider school.
The obvious question is whether schools have the capacity to deliver this well.
Leadership matters
The answer depends less on funding than on leadership.
An inclusion base will not succeed because it has been built, named or financed. It will succeed only if leaders continue asking difficult questions.
How much time are pupils spending in mainstream classrooms, and why? Are they accessing an ambitious curriculum? Are friendships being sustained?
Is staff expertise spreading across the school, or becoming concentrated within the base? Are barriers being removed, or merely relocated?
Those questions will determine whether inclusion bases fulfil their promise.
The guidance provides schools with a stronger framework than many have had previously. Its emphasis on teacher-led practice, curriculum integrity, partnership and belonging reflects what effective inclusion should look like.
Ultimately, though, success will depend less on the space itself than on whether the child using it continues to feel, unmistakably, that they belong.
That is the difference between support and separation.
And it is the difference between an inclusion base that strengthens inclusion and one that quietly undermines it.
