The Inclusive Mainstream Fund (And What It Means for Businesses Selling to Schools)

What the Inclusive Mainstream Fund means for suppliers selling SEND, inclusion and education services to schools.

Author

Ben Lewis

Published: 25^th June 2026

Schools have another funding acronym to get their heads around in 2026, but this one comes with a bigger shift attached. The Inclusive Mainstream Fund links new inclusion funding to something much more public: every mainstream school in England will need to publish an inclusion strategy by 31st December 2026.

That gives those who sell to schools a very clear reason to pay attention. Schools will need to explain how they identify common needs, remove barriers to learning, strengthen inclusive practice, and use funding to improve their universal offer, which means inclusion is going to become a visible planning priority across areas including leadership, teaching, SEND, attendance, and parent/guardian engagement.

For businesses selling to schools, the opportunity sits in helping schools make good decisions before that strategy is published. A generic “funding is available” message won’t carry much weight, but a useful, well-timed campaign that helps schools understand need, plan activity, evidence impact, and involve the right staff could land at exactly the right moment.

What is the Inclusive Mainstream Fund?

The Inclusive Mainstream Fund, or IMF, is a new government grant for 2026, designed to help mainstream settings prepare and deliver inclusive practice. The fund applies to mainstream settings in England, including local authority maintained schools, academies, free schools, 16 to 19 academies, and city technical colleges.

For schools, the fund is meant to help mainstream education move towards practice that’s inclusive by design. That includes improving the universal offer, providing earlier support, investing in adaptive teaching, creating calmer and more accessible learning environments, and developing targeted evidence-based support for pupils whose needs can’t be met through universal provision alone.

The funding covers a wide range of SEND-related purchases, meaning there's a vast opportunity for a lot of education suppliers. The guidance reaches into leadership, classroom practice, data, CPD, attendance, behaviour, enrichment, transition, parent engagement, sensory needs, accessibility, targeted intervention, and the wider pupil experience, which means many suppliers may have a credible role in the conversation.

Why has the Inclusive Mainstream Fund been introduced?

The fund sits within the wider SEND reform agenda, where mainstream schools are being asked to meet more needs earlier and more consistently. The DfE’s best practice guidance says the fund should help mainstream schools understand the needs of their cohort, plan whole-school approaches to inclusion, remove commonly occurring barriers to learning, and develop targeted support where the universal offer doesn’t go far enough.

That has big implications for what suppliers should be saying in their school marketing emails. A SENCO may be central to many decisions, but this funding also touches the work of headteachers, governors, trust leaders, school business managers, teaching and learning leads, pastoral teams, attendance leads, curriculum staff, and family support teams.

A literacy provider can link its offer to early identification and targeted support. A CPD provider can focus on staff confidence, adaptive teaching, and consistency across classrooms; while a wellbeing, attendance, or enrichment supplier can show how its work supports belonging, access, participation, and a more inclusive school experience.

Schools will have to explain what they’re doing, which barriers they’re trying to remove, how funding is already being spent, and what further investment they’re planning. Suppliers that help schools answer those questions will have a much stronger story than those that simply attach “IMF funding” to a standard sales campaign.

How much funding is available?

The Inclusive Mainstream Fund is a £1.6 billion investment over three years, which works out at just over £500 million per year across schools, colleges, and early years settings.

For 2026 to 2027, the funding includes £400 million for schools, £83 million for mainstream 16 to 19 provision, and £47 million for early years settings. Together, that creates a major funding stream for suppliers whose products support SEND, inclusion, adaptive teaching, attendance, wellbeing, accessibility, early intervention, parent engagement, or wider participation.

The three-year window gives education suppliers more to work with than a single-year funding spike. Schools can plan inclusion improvements over a longer period, which means suppliers can think beyond one-off purchases and position their products as part of a wider programme of support. That could include staff training, intervention models, data systems, accessibility improvements, parent/guardian engagement tools, or inclusive enrichment that settings build into their plans over several terms, and potentially beyond the current funding period if inclusion stays high on the government’s agenda.

When is the Inclusive Mainstream Fund available?

The 2026 to 2027 financial year is the first year of the grant for mainstream schools, and the funding is being allocated through a national formula rather than through individual school applications. Final school-level allocations were confirmed in May, with payments made at the end of June for local authorities and in early July for academy trusts.

The funding formula follows a similar method to the national funding formula. For 2026 to 2027, the base rates include a £3,000 lump sum per school, £16 per primary pupil, £14 per secondary pupil, £79 for each eligible primary pupil recorded as having low prior attainment, and £88 for each eligible secondary pupil recorded as having low prior attainment, with an area cost adjustment applied to reflect local cost differences.

For suppliers, the practical timeline looks like this:

Late June and July 2026 are about getting your name in the door. Schools and academy trusts are due to receive payments around this point, so suppliers who start helpful conversations now will have a head start before inboxes get busier in September. Email schools with useful guidance, clear positioning, and a simple explanation of how your product supports inclusion, SEND, adaptive teaching, accessibility, attendance, family engagement, or wider participation.
Late August and September 2026 is your main campaign window. Schools will return for the autumn term, and leaders will be thinking more seriously about what needs to happen before the 31st December inclusion strategy deadline. Your message should be sharper here, built around the specific problem your product helps schools solve, and clear enough for busy decision-makers to grasp quickly.
October and November 2026 should focus on evidence and implementation. Schools will be moving closer to publication, so decisions need to feel practical. Show how your product removes barriers, supports staff, improves access, or gives leaders something useful to include in their inclusion strategy.

The key point for suppliers is that schools will need to connect spending decisions to real inclusion priorities. A strong campaign should help leaders see how a product removes barriers, supports staff, improves access, or gives them clear evidence to include in their inclusion strategy.

What can schools use the Inclusive Mainstream Fund for?

The DfE recommends that schools allocate funding across seven themes:

Leadership and governance.
Early evidence-based support.
High-quality teaching.
Accessible and enriching provision beyond the classroom.
Safe and respectful culture.
Strong partnerships with families and wider services.
Inclusive environments.

Schools are expected to choose activity based on their cohort, existing provision, and the barriers pupils face.

That gives suppliers a useful route into the conversation. The strongest angle won’t always be whether a product is “eligible”, because schools will still need to make their own funding decisions, but whether the product can be linked clearly to one of those inclusion themes and the strategy the school has to publish.

A data, assessment, or consultancy provider could help leaders understand pupil needs, review current provision, benchmark practice, or collect evidence. A CPD provider, teaching resource, curriculum tool, or classroom technology supplier could support high-quality teaching, especially where it helps staff adapt lessons, improve participation, and reduce barriers in the classroom.

A literacy, numeracy, speech and language, tutoring, or intervention provider could support pupils who need extra help, particularly where schools can track progress and show what’s changed. An enrichment, trips, sport, arts, careers, life skills, or outdoor learning provider could fit within provision beyond the classroom, especially where it helps more pupils take part in opportunities they might otherwise miss.

There are also strong links for suppliers working in attendance, belonging, behaviour, pupil voice, wellbeing, quiet spaces, sensory environments, assistive technology, visual supports, transition, and parent communication. You probably already talk about inclusion in some form in your marketing, but the IMF gives schools a clearer reason to pull those strands into a formal strategy.

What does this mean for businesses selling to schools?

The IMF gives suppliers a timely reason to talk about inclusion in a more practical way. Schools will be thinking about barriers, provision, staff confidence, access, evidence, and whole-school planning, so the strongest campaigns will connect products to those conversations clearly.

That might mean showing how CPD helps staff adapt lessons with more confidence, how attendance support helps pupils feel more connected to school, how intervention software helps leaders track progress, or how enrichment providers can make trips, clubs, sport, arts, and life skills more accessible.

Your campaign audience needs careful thought, too. Emailing SENCOs will be important, but the inclusion strategy will matter to leadership, governors, finance teams, and day-to-day teaching staff.

You’ll want to tailor your messaging to suit each audience, making sure you’re contacting not just the right decision-makers, but the right influencers, too.

Sprint Education's database holds data on 1,000,000+ educators and school decision-makers, with 600,000 monthly updates, which gives suppliers the ability to target by role, phase, location, establishment type, and trust structure.

That data precision and accuracy could make a real difference here. A primary school thinking about speech and language solutions may need a very different message from a secondary school looking at attendance, while a multi-academy trust may be thinking about scalable training, shared systems, and consistency across several schools.

How can suppliers shape their school marketing around the IMF?

Suppliers should start with mapping pain points and USPs against their product or service based on each school type and job role.

Schools will need to turn the funding into a clear inclusion plan, so suppliers should make it easy to see where their product fits, who it supports, and what impact it could help schools show. It’s not enough to just say ‘our solution is eligible for IMF funding’. Plenty of suppliers will say the same thing, and it won’t give the school a single reason to choose you over another provider.

The stronger message is specific. Show what your product helps schools improve, and back it up with numbers wherever possible: literacy progress over a set period, attendance improvement, reduction in behaviour incidents, staff confidence scores, parent/guardian engagement rates, pupil participation levels, time saved, or the number of pupils supported. If your programme has helped pupils improve by two reading ages, boosted attendance by 13%, trained 400 teachers, or helped 92% of schools report stronger staff confidence, that evidence should be at the centre of the campaign.

Schools will need to publish an inclusion strategy, so suppliers that can give them clear outcomes, proof points, and language they can use internally will have a much stronger case than those relying on “this may be eligible for funding” as the main hook.

Show schools where your offer fits within the seven IMF themes, by connecting your product or service to barriers, provision, staffing, accessibility, family engagement, or whole-school planning.
Help decision-makers understand one inclusion issue in more depth, by creating useful content around adaptive teaching, attendance, transition, sensory needs, parent confidence, literacy support, enrichment access, or targeted intervention.
Give schools a practical way to evidence progress, by explaining which measures, feedback, participation data, pupil outcomes, staff confidence checks, or engagement patterns could be reviewed before and after your support.
Adapt the message for different roles, by writing separately for SENCOs, headteachers, trust leaders, school business managers, pastoral teams, governors, and teaching and learning leads.
Time campaigns around the points when schools are most likely to listen, with light-touch awareness in late June and July, a stronger campaign push in late August and September, then evidence-led follow-ups in October and November as the inclusion strategy deadline gets closer.
Segment the audience properly, by shaping campaigns around phase, school type, role, location, trust structure, likely need, and the level of decision each contact is likely to influence.

This is where good school marketing becomes more than a send date and a subject line. Sprint Education’s school marketing campaigns see a 57% average increase in campaign engagement when we create and send their emails, while our education-dedicated email infrastructure generates a 9% higher inbox placement rate on average, so suppliers can pair a timely IMF message with delivery that’s built for school inboxes.

What should suppliers be aware of before marketing around the IMF?

Because the fund is new for 2026 to 2027, schools may still be working through what it means for their setting. Some trusts and larger schools may move quickly, especially where central teams are already reviewing their SEND and inclusion strategy, while others may wait for further internal discussion before deciding what belongs in their published plan.

Suppliers should avoid sounding too certain about how every school will spend the money. The DfE says schools should decide how to allocate their total school funding allocation after assessing the needs of their overall cohort, and the IMF for schools isn’t a personal budget for individual pupils.

There’s also a risk in treating the fund as a one-role conversation. A SENCO might be the most relevant contact for some offers, but a funding decision linked to school strategy can quickly pull in headteachers, governors, trust leaders, finance teams, pastoral leads, attendance staff, and classroom-facing leaders.

Timing needs care too. A December deadline can make suppliers think December is the moment to go hard, but by then many schools may already have chosen priorities, planned training, discussed provision, and mapped out what they’re going to publish.

What should businesses selling to schools do now?

Start by mapping your offer against the seven DfE themes, then strip the message back until it’s clear which school problem you’re helping with. A product that tries to sit under every inclusion theme may sound vague, while a product that clearly supports adaptive teaching, early intervention, attendance, family engagement, accessibility, or provision beyond the classroom will be easier for schools to place.

Then decide who needs to hear the message. A campaign to SENCOs may work well for some products, but a campaign to headteachers, trust leaders, school business managers, pastoral teams, or teaching and learning leads may be stronger for others, especially where the buying decision touches staff time, whole-school planning, or spend across more than one department.

Once the audience is clear, build the campaign around planning pressure rather than product noise. Schools will need examples, evidence, confidence, and practical ideas, so the suppliers who become useful early will have a better chance of being remembered when spending decisions move from discussion to action.

Sprint Education can support that process through accurate school data, planned strategies, and done-for-you marketing to schools, helping suppliers reach the staff most likely to shape inclusion plans, SEND provision, teaching priorities, attendance work, and whole-school improvement.

What’s the main takeaway for education suppliers?

The Inclusive Mainstream Fund gives schools extra resources for 2026 to 2027, but the bigger commercial signal is the published inclusion strategy. Schools are going to have to describe what inclusion looks like in their setting, which barriers they’re trying to remove, how funding is being used, and what activity will help pupils access school life more fully.

Suppliers that understand that planning pressure can build much stronger campaigns. The opportunity is to help schools make better decisions, explain those decisions clearly, and feel confident that the partners they choose can support the inclusive practice they’re now being asked to publish.

At Sprint Education, we help education suppliers reach the right school decision-makers with accurate data, expert campaign planning, and marketing to schools that’s built for the way school buying actually works. As schools prepare for the 31st December 2026 inclusion strategy deadline, early, relevant, well-targeted conversations will matter. Book an education strategy call with our team for more support with the new funding, and guidance on how to craft the perfect campaign to secure your share of those school sales.