How much non-contact time should a SENCO have?

What the law actually says

There is no statutory minimum. The SEND Code of Practice (2015) only requires schools to give the SENCO ‘sufficient time’ away from teaching; the governing body or trust decides the amount, with no legal hours figure. The Code’s words are that the school “should ensure that the SENCO has sufficient time and resources”, including administrative support and time away from teaching, so they can do the role in the same way as other strategic leaders SEND Code of Practice 2015, para 6.91. The duty to appoint a qualified-teacher SENCO sits with the governing body or academy proprietor (para 6.84), and it comes from the Children and Families Act 2014 and the SEND Regulations 2014, neither of which sets a quantity of release time.

The numbers people quote are guidance, not law

Because the Code gives no figure, the sector has filled the gap with rules of thumb. Local-offer guidance, such as North Lincolnshire’s, commonly cites a benchmark of around 1.5 days a week as a minimum for a smaller school, rising to a full non-contact timetable in a large secondary, depending on the school’s circumstances North Lincolnshire SEND Local Offer, 2024. These are illustrations of how the ‘sufficient time’ test gets applied locally, not a national rule. The honest picture is wide variation: the National SENCO Workforce Survey found only about half of SENCOs sit on the senior leadership team, and time allocation has crept up so slowly that, on recent trends, primary SENCOs would take well over a century to reach full-time Schools Week, 2021.

Who decides, and what this means for your school

Because there is no enforceable number, the only legal test is whether the time is sufficient for your school’s actual SEND profile, and that is a judgement the governing body or trust makes with the headteacher. The right way to use the benchmark figures is to pressure-test your own allocation against the number of pupils on SEN Support and with an EHCP, the complexity of need, and what the role is actually being asked to deliver. The Code is clear the SENCO works best as part of leadership, so release time and a seat at the table are part of the same point. Worth knowing too: the NPQ SENCO has been the mandatory qualification for new SENCOs since September 2024 (gained within three years of appointment); do not treat the older National Award (NASENCO) as the current requirement. Campaigns and recent reform proposals are pushing toward protected SENCO time, but as of 2026 no statutory minimum exists.

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