INCLUSIVE MAINSTREAM FUND SERIES · PART 2 OF 4

The Inclusive Mainstream Fund is an unusual kind of money. It arrives without a bid, and it is sized by your most disadvantaged learners. When funding lands that easily, the natural instinct is to put it toward more of what you already do. That is the one instinct I would resist.

Four articles on the fund, from allocation to evidence:

  1. The Inclusive Mainstream Fund explained — what the fund is, how your allocation is worked out, and what it means for 16 to 19 providers.
  2. How to spend the Inclusive Mainstream Fund well — the universal offer, seven areas of inclusion, and the one mistake to avoid. (You are here.)
  3. From allocation to accountability — the 31 July statement deadline, Ofsted from September 2026, and what you have to show.
  4. A smart use of your IMF allocation — how Cognassist maps to what the fund asks for: identify, support and evidence inclusion.

The guidance is steering providers somewhere more useful, and the colleges that read it closely will get far more from their allocation. If you have not read the overview yet, start with what the fund is and how your allocation is worked out.

What the fund is actually asking for

The DfE is clear that the fund should build a stronger universal offer: whole-setting inclusive practice that benefits every learner, not a bolt-on for a few. Its best-practice guidance frames this around seven areas of inclusion:

  • ambitious leadership and governance that embed inclusion in planning
  • evidence-based support that prioritises early intervention
  • high-quality, adaptive teaching
  • accessible and enriching provision
  • a safe and nurturing culture
  • working in partnership with families
  • inclusive environments

Alongside that universal offer, the fund can pay for targeted, evidence-based support for the needs it cannot meet on its own.

The mistake to avoid

Among the named options for spend is recruiting more staff into learning support teams. It is an understandable first move, and for some providers a little extra capacity is the right call. But as a strategy for a three-year fund, adding specialist headcount has two problems: it does not scale to every learner, and it is hard to sustain once the money tapers.

We see this pattern often. When one college group weighed a whole-provider approach against the alternative, the alternative was to grow its specialist resource fivefold. That is not a realistic way to reach a whole cohort. Bedford College Group faced exactly that choice and took a different path. The providers who get the most from this fund will not buy more of the old model. They will use the money to change how inclusion works across the entire setting.

Spend that changes practice and evidences itself

Here is the test I would apply to any IMF spend: does it improve practice and produce the evidence you will need to account for it? The guidance more or less describes a cycle, and the strongest plans follow it:

  1. Understand your whole cohort. The guidance names “strengthening systems for data collection and analysis to better understand the needs of students across your cohort.” This is the foundation, and it is where your allocation comes from in the first place: learners with low prior attainment, the group most likely to have needs no one has identified yet.
  2. Turn insight into support. Plan proportionate, recorded support, and explore models that reach learners without waiting for a specialist referral.
  3. Equip every teacher. Fund inclusive teaching approaches and a SEND toolkit staff will actually use, so adaptive practice becomes normal rather than exceptional.
  4. Evidence the impact. Build the record as you go, so improving your universal offer and proving you improved it become the same task.

From September 2026 there is an inspection reason to get this right, not only an accountability one. Ofsted’s refreshed inspection toolkit asks whether providers receiving the fund have taken steps to strengthen inclusive practice to improve access, participation and outcomes (toolkit, page 12). Spend that visibly changes practice, and proves it, is the spend that holds up.

Where this leads

This is the cycle we built Cognassist around: assess, plan, do and review, applied across a whole provider rather than a single specialist team. It is also, not by coincidence, a close match for the fund’s named options for spend. The next article covers what the fund asks of you, and by when. For now the principle stands on its own: spend the fund on something that changes practice and leaves you with the evidence, and you will be in a far stronger position when the accountability moment arrives.

Part 2 of 4 in our Inclusive Mainstream Fund series. Previous: The Inclusive Mainstream Fund explained. Next: From allocation to accountability.

Sources

  • DfE, Inclusive mainstream fund: best practice for 16 to 19 settings (GOV.UK, 25 March 2026).
  • Bedford College Group case study (Cognassist).