How do we write a SEND policy for our school?

Start with the two documents, not one

Write your SEND policy against the SEND Regulations 2014, the Children and Families Act 2014 and the Equality Act 2010, then publish a separate SEN information report with the 13 required items and update it annually. The single mistake most schools make is treating these as one document. The SEND policy is your school’s internal statement of approach. The SEN information report is the parent-facing document the law actually prescribes and enforces: it must sit on your website, be written in plain language, and be refreshed every year.

Build it in this order

1. Pull the 13 items the SEND Regulations 2014, Schedule 1 require your report to cover — the kinds of SEN you provide for, how you identify and assess need, your SEN support arrangements, the SENCO’s name and contact details, staff expertise and training, equipment and facilities, how you consult parents and young people, how you handle complaints, joint working with health and social care, and where your council publishes its Local Offer.
2. Write it against the law that governs SEND: the Children and Families Act 2014 Part 3, the Equality Act 2010, and the SEND Code of Practice 2015. The Code (paragraphs 6.79 to 6.84) is the statutory guidance that ties the policy to those two Acts.
3. Use your local authority’s free model SEND policy as your base rather than starting from a blank page. Map your existing provision against each Schedule 1 item and edit the model to describe what your school actually does — not an idealised version.
4. Get the full governing body, or the academy proprietor, to approve it. The duty to prepare and publish sits with them, not with the SENCO alone, so sign-off has to be recorded.
5. Review and re-publish at least once a year. Many schools do this each September; if anything changes in-year, the Code expects you to publish the update as soon as you can.

Why the report is the part that gets enforced

There is no freestanding statutory ‘SEND policy’ template in law. What the legislation mandates is the published SEN information report. Section 69 of the Children and Families Act 2014 places the duty on the governing body of every maintained school and the proprietor of every academy to prepare it; Regulation 52 of the SEND Regulations 2014 is the duty to publish it on the school’s website, and Regulation 51 confirms the Schedule 1 items must be in it. The duty attaches to need, not to a label: your report has to cover every pupil with SEN, whether or not they hold an EHCP or a formal diagnosis. The same duties to disabled pupils under the Equality Act 2010 — not to discriminate, and to make reasonable adjustments — must be visible in the policy too.

Reform-watch: write to current law

The Schools White Paper published in February 2026, with change proposed through the Education for All Bill, sets out a statutory Individual Support Plan duty for children with SEND. If it passes, the SEN support structures your policy describes are a known change zone. These are proposals, not law. Write your policy to the rules in force today, set a clear review date, and keep an eye on the live consultation.

This page is general information, not clinical or legal advice.