Inclusive Mainstream Fund: what you can spend it on, with worked examples

Part 1 · The fund

The Inclusive Mainstream Fund in plain terms

We sell a classroom tool and we'll pitch it further down. First, the DfE's published guidance in brief, with links underneath so you can check any of it against the original.

What is it?

A new, ring-fenced grant from the Department for Education to help mainstream schools move "towards practices that are inclusive by design, providing early support directly to children without the need for diagnosis or statutory process". It was announced in the schools white paper Every child achieving and thriving. £400m a year goes to schools, with separate pots for 16-19 providers and early years.

Who gets it?

Every mainstream primary, secondary, middle and all-through school in England, for the 5 to 16 age range including reception: maintained schools, academies, free schools and city technology colleges. There are no pupil-level criteria and nothing to apply for.

How much?

It's formula-based: a £3,000 lump sum per school, plus £16 per primary pupil or £14 per secondary pupil, plus £79 (primary) or £88 (secondary) for each pupil with low prior attainment, uplifted by the area cost adjustment.

For example, a 210-pupil primary with 30 low-prior-attainment pupils would get about £8,700, and a 900-pupil secondary with 120 about £26,200, before the area cost adjustment. Your own figure is in your allocation statement.

What can it be spent on?

Activity that aligns with the DfE's seven principles of inclusion (below). It has to be additional: not general running costs, not subsidising something you already do, not capital works. The DfE's best-practice guidance includes "improving or adapting carefully selected technology to support a range of needs" and "evaluation and data collection on the impact of targeted interventions" among its examples. Worked examples below ↓

What do you have to do?

Publish an inclusion strategy on your school website by 31 December 2026, and update it annually. It's a condition of the grant. It has to set out the barriers to learning you've identified across your cohort, the activities you've invested in to alleviate them with their budgeted costs, the intended outcomes, and (from year two) a review of the previous year. The DfE has published an optional inclusion strategy template (Word).

Do you have to spend it this year?

No. Some or all of it can be carried into future financial years, but it must be used by 31 March 2028 and the carry-forward should be documented in the strategy.

Sources: GOV.UK, conditions of grant 2026 to 2027; methodology; developing an inclusion strategy; best practice for schools. Robyn is an independent supplier. We are not endorsed or approved by the DfE, and there is no approved-supplier list for this fund.

Part 2 · The strategy

The DfE's seven principles of inclusion

Your spend needs to align with one or more of these principles. There's a worked example for each one below.

Ambitious leadership and governance that embeds inclusion
Evidence-based support prioritising early intervention
High-quality adaptive teaching with curriculum designed for all learners
Enriching provision beyond the classroom that all children can access
A safe and respectful culture fostering belonging, attendance and participation in learning
Strong partnerships with families and wider services
Inclusive environments with continuous improvements to accessibility

The guidance is blunt about priority: "High quality teaching is the most important lever for improving outcomes for all pupils in mainstream schools, particularly those with SEND."

What the strategy has to cover

Whatever you spend it on, the strategy must cover these four areas. The DfE's template lays them out as tables; you don't have to use it, but you do have to cover all four.

1

Barrier

The barrier to learning or participation you've identified across your cohort.

2

Activity

What you're investing in to alleviate it, whether it's universal or targeted, and its budgeted cost.

3

Intended outcome

What you expect to change (attendance, progress, participation, engagement, wellbeing) and how you'll measure it.

4

Review

How you'll know. What evidence you'll have in twelve months to say whether it worked.

Part 3 · Worked examples

What you can spend it on: one worked example for each principle

Each one follows the DfE template: the barrier, the activity and whether it's universal or targeted, the intended outcome and how you'd measure it, and what the budgeted cost would cover. They're our illustrations, not DfE examples, and your own entries should start from the barriers you've found in your cohort. Copy and adapt anything useful.

Principle 1 · Leadership and governance

Put inclusion on the senior team's agenda

Barrier: Inclusion rests on the SENCO alone. Other leaders and governors can't say how well pupils with SEND are doing.
Activity: Release time for the SENCO to join the senior team, and training for the governor responsible for SEND.
Type: Universal
Intended outcome: Inclusion priorities in the school improvement plan with named owners; governors asking informed questions.
Measured by: Progress against the plan, governor minutes, outcomes for pupils with SEND compared with their peers.

Budgeted cost covers: cover for the SENCO's new leadership time; governor training.

Principle 2 · Early intervention

Screen every pupil at a fixed point, then act on it

Barrier: Language, reading and attention needs are picked up late, often only once a pupil has fallen well behind or behaviour has escalated.
Activity: A standardised screening check for a whole year group (the start of Year 3 or Year 7, say), with SENCO time set aside to act on the results.
Type: Universal screening, leading to targeted support
Intended outcome: Needs identified earlier, with support in place within half a term of screening.
Measured by: How many pupils were identified, how long support took to start, and the progress of that group.

Budgeted cost covers: assessment licences; staff time to run the checks and analyse them.

Principle 3 · Adaptive teaching

Coach teachers in scaffolding and checking for understanding

Barrier: Pupils with SEND and low prior attainment lose the thread of whole-class explanations, and teachers have had little training in adapting in the moment.
Activity: A term of instructional coaching on scaffolding, chunking and checking for understanding, for teachers in the year groups with the most need.
Type: Universal
Intended outcome: More pupils with SEND completing independent work in the lesson, and fewer taken out of class to catch up.
Measured by: Lesson visits against the coaching focus, work scrutiny, pupil voice.

Budgeted cost covers: coach or trainer fees; cover so teachers can be observed and coached.

Principles 2 and 3 · Teaching assistants

Retrain and redeploy TAs in line with the EEF guidance

Barrier: TAs spend most of their time beside the same few pupils, who then get the least time with their teacher: the "separation effect" the EEF describes.
Activity: Train TAs in the EEF's scaffolding approach and move them onto structured, time-limited interventions and roaming support.
Type: Universal and targeted
Intended outcome: Pupils with SEND spending more time with the teacher and more time working on their own.
Measured by: Observation of TA practice; entry and exit data from the interventions.

Budgeted cost covers: training; paid time for teachers and TAs to plan together.

Principle 4 · Beyond the classroom

Make clubs and trips work for pupils with SEND

Barrier: Pupils with SEND rarely come to clubs or trips, often because the adjustments they'd need aren't in place.
Activity: Extra staffing and planning so clubs and trips are adapted: another adult, a quieter option, a visual plan sent home beforehand.
Type: Universal
Intended outcome: Pupils with SEND taking part in clubs and trips at a rate closer to their peers.
Measured by: Club registers and trip lists broken down by group; pupil voice.

Budgeted cost covers: additional staff hours; transport or venue adjustments.

Principle 5 · Belonging and attendance

A key adult and a daily check-in for pupils at risk of missing school

Barrier: A group of pupils with SEMH needs miss lessons, arrive dysregulated, or avoid school altogether.
Activity: A named key adult and a short daily check-in for identified pupils, plus whole-staff training on regulation and de-escalation.
Type: Targeted, with whole-staff training
Intended outcome: Better attendance, and fewer removals from class, for that group.
Measured by: Attendance and behaviour records for the group; pupil and parent voice.

Budgeted cost covers: extra staff hours (not existing duties); training.

Principle 6 · Families and services

Structured conversations with families every term

Barrier: Parents of children on SEN support say they don't know what help their child gets, and trust is low.
Activity: Release time, on top of existing reviews, for class teachers or the SENCO to hold a structured conversation with each family every term.
Type: Targeted
Intended outcome: Parents involved in planning their child's support, and fewer disagreements escalating.
Measured by: Parent survey, meeting attendance, number of complaints.

Budgeted cost covers: cover for the additional meeting time.

Principle 7 · Accessible environments

Assistive technology that actually gets used

Barrier: Pupils with literacy difficulties can follow the content but can't get at it through the text, or can't write down what they know.
Activity: Text-to-speech, reading pens and speech-to-text, with staff training so they're part of normal lessons.
Type: Targeted
Intended outcome: Pupils working from the same text as their class and recording more independently.
Measured by: Usage, samples of work, pupil voice.

Budgeted cost covers: devices or licences; training.

Whichever you choose, it has to be additional. The conditions of grant rule out general running costs, paying for something you already do, and capital works. Where an example above uses staff time, it means extra hours or cover for new activity, not existing duties.

Principles 3 and 7 · Our product

An AI teaching assistant that follows the lesson

Barrier: One teacher can't re-explain for thirty starting points, and the pupils who most need help are often the least likely to ask for it.
Activity: Robyn follows the live lesson and gives any pupil a private, scaffolded re-explanation on the school's own devices.
Type: Universal
Intended outcome: Pupils who rarely ask starting to ask, more independent work, and TA time freed for targeted support.
Measured by: Robyn's record of every question asked, alongside the progress and attendance data you already keep.

Budgeted cost: £500 per teacher per year, excl. VAT. Our full case for it ↓

Part 4 · Our pitch

Robyn is an AI teaching assistant that follows along during the lesson.

Robyn watches the board and listens to the live lesson, and answers pupils' questions with scaffolded, Socratic support based on what the teacher has just taught. It can explain the topic in simpler terms to those who are struggling and provide extension tasks to those who need stretching all at the same time.

BarrierWhat gets in the way

One teacher can't re-explain thirty times over, and the pupils who need it most tend not to ask.

Adaptive teaching is hard to deliver single-handed. In a live lesson the teacher can only realistically deliver differentiated input to perhaps two groups ("Blue group, off you go to get started. Red group, stay on the carpet."). Everyone else in between might guess, wait, or quietly stop working. Pupils with SEMH or communication needs, and the ones who are anxious about attracting attention, are rarely the ones who put a hand up.

It's a workload barrier too: writing properly differentiated re-explanations and worked examples for every lesson is not sustainable for most teachers.

PrincipleWhere it sits in the seven

Principle 3: high-quality adaptive teaching.

Principle 7: inclusive environments.

Because Robyn follows along during the lesson, it can give a differentiated explanation, based on the teacher's own lesson, to anyone who needs it. The best-practice guidance lists "improving or adapting carefully selected technology to support a range of needs" under creating inclusive environments. Robyn makes the lesson easier to access: pupils can ask by voice or by showing a photo of their work instead of writing, and anxious pupils can get help without putting a hand up.

Robyn also keeps a record of the questions pupils ask and where they get stuck. That gives SENCOs an early signal about need, in line with the fund's aim of "providing early support directly to children without the need for diagnosis or statutory process".

ActivityWhat you'd actually do

Give a teacher an AI assistant that follows the lesson, so any pupil can get help privately without waiting.

The teacher logs in on the classroom computer and shares the screen and microphone. Robyn follows the board and the teacher's explanation.
Pupils join by scanning a QR code on whatever devices the school already has: laptops, tablets, phones. No new hardware is needed (although we can provide dedicated hardware if required).
A pupil asks by voice, by typing, or by showing a photo of their work. Robyn responds appropriately to the pupil's question: with a simpler explanation, a different example, a reminder about the first step to take, always based on the actual lesson the teacher just delivered. It never just hands over the answer.
It re-explains, breaks a task down, gives another worked example, or stretches a pupil who has finished. As many times as needed, without anyone being singled out.

EvidenceWhat you'll be able to show

Evidence from the Education Endowment Foundation

The nearest published evidence to what Robyn does in a lesson is the EEF's guidance on deploying teaching assistants. Its second recommendation is to scaffold learning and build pupils' independence, and the scaffolding framework alongside it starts with the least help and adds more only when needed: self-scaffolding first, then prompting, clueing and modelling, with correcting (giving the answer) as a last resort. That is how we have built Robyn to reply. The same guidance warns against spoon-feeding, closed questions, pushing pupils to finish the task rather than understand it, and leaving too little thinking time. It also warns about the "separation effect", where the pupils getting the most adult support end up with the least time with their teacher and their classmates. Robyn is open to everyone in the room, so no pupil is marked out by using it.

You will also have evidence from your own classrooms. Teachers and SENCOs can read every question pupils asked and every answer Robyn gave, showing where pupils get stuck, on what, how often, and whether that shifts over the year. That will inform the review step of your inclusion strategy.

Source: EEF, Deployment of Teaching Assistants guidance report, updated March 2025. The DfE also encourages every school to use the EEF's guide to inclusive teaching when writing its strategy.

ImplementationHow much work it is

A 30-minute call to set it up, then a free trial.

Setup is a video call with us. There's nothing to install and no devices to buy. We suggest starting with one or two teachers, running a trial for a few weeks, and deciding from there.

OutcomeWhat you'd write as intended

More pupils asking for help, and adult time going where it's needed most.

Outcomes you could reasonably write into a strategy: pupils who never ask in class starting to ask, less time spent stuck or waiting, more pupils working on their own, and TA hours freed up for targeted work. You can measure all of those against Robyn's logs alongside the attendance, progress and behaviour data you already keep.

See it in a 30-minute demo

What that actually looks like

Two exchanges from real lessons: one primary, one secondary.

Year 4 · Maths · RoundingPrimary

"I don't understand" three times over. Robyn rephrases, tries an analogy, then breaks it into one step at a time rather than moving on.

Pupil

I don't understand the question.

Robyn

Can you tell me what rounding means and what place value you need to look at when rounding to the nearest 10 or 100?

Pupil

I don't understand.

Robyn

Think of rounding as finding which 10 or 100 a number is closest to, like choosing the nearest bus stop; which digits should you look at to decide this?

Pupil

I don't know what you mean about the question.

Robyn

Okay, let's take it step by step. Look at the number 45: To round to the nearest 10, look at the digit in the ones place. What digit is that?

Pupil

The digit is 5

Robyn

Great! The ones digit is 5. Now, when the ones digit is 5 or more, do you think you should round the tens digit up or keep it the same? What do you think?

Pupil

Up.

Robyn

Exactly! So if you round 45 to the nearest 10 and the ones digit is 5, you round the tens digit up. What does 45 become when you do that?

Pupil

50

Robyn

Perfect! 45 rounded to the nearest 10 is 50.

KS3 · English · Describing Miss HavishamSecondary

A pupil who went "lapping" (wandering the corridors to avoid lessons), missed half the lesson, and is too anxious to say so in front of the class. Robyn settles them, then works back to the task the teacher set.

Pupil

I was lapping and I missed half of the lesson. I don't understand. I'm stressed out. Please help me.

Robyn

Let's take it one step at a time together. Can you tell me which part of talking about Miss Havisham's parlour you're finding tricky? Remember, the lesson was about looking closely at the picture and noticing details that make it look spooky or old... You're doing great, just breathe and take it step by step.

Pupil

I don't understand. What do I have to do?

Robyn

No problem! Let's think about it together... Your main task is to look carefully at that picture and spot things in the room. First, you label the mirror like the teacher did — using words like "ornate" or "broken glass" to describe it. After that, can you choose two other things you see in the room — maybe the wedding cake or the chairs?

Pupil

I'm going to do the candles, but I don't know what to say about them. Can you help me?

Robyn

Great choice with the candles! Let's think about how candles might look in a spooky, old room like Miss Havisham's parlour... Are they "dripping wax," "flickering," or maybe "almost burnt out"?

Pupil

I want to describe the candles using alliteration.

Robyn

That's a fantastic idea to use alliteration! Alliteration means using several words that start with the same sound or letter, like "creepy candles" or "cold, cracked candles". Can you think of another word beginning with "c" that you could use to describe the candles?

Both are real exchanges, trimmed for length but not reworded. Robyn answers using the method the teacher taught in that lesson, because it heard it being taught. More sample conversations →

Part 5 · The cost

£500per teacher, per year, excl. VAT

Works out to about 50p per lesson.
Unlimited pupils.
Nothing to install: works on any device with a web browser.
Setup and support included.
Free trial first, no obligation.

Schools without suitable pupil devices can use our Android version with dedicated teacher and pupil handsets instead. Details on the main site.

The questions a SENCO or head asks first

It doesn't replace your TAs

Robyn is universal, wave-one support. It sits alongside TAs and specialist provision rather than standing in for either. It takes the routine "I'm stuck" moments, so adult time can go to the pupils who need a person.

Safeguarding and data

Robyn will always direct a child to a trusted adult if they show any sign of distress, and flags concerns for staff. Pupils don't log in, and Robyn doesn't need their names or any other direct identifiers. GDPR compliance · Data Processing Agreement.

It knows your lesson

Robyn answers using what the teacher actually said and showed, so the help matches your methods and your vocabulary. It is not a general-purpose chatbot.

“Robyn in the classroom has been a game changer. Robyn has allowed pupils of all abilities to be able to work more independently.”

Tina Langridge

Oliver's Battery Primary School

Robyn was founded by Bruce Greig, an accredited Special Educational Needs mediator who has conducted over 700 SEN mediations, alongside 15 years as a school governor. Every demo is with someone who understands what a SENCO and a head are being asked to deliver, and on what budget.

Straight answers

Can we spend Inclusive Mainstream Fund money on Robyn?

We'd like you to, obviously. But it's your decision as the accountable body, and we'd rather you made it with the conditions of grant in front of you. The tests are: does the spend align with one of the seven principles, is it additional rather than replacing existing activity, and can you show it in your strategy with a barrier, an activity, an intended outcome and a review? We've set out above why we think Robyn meets those tests under principles 3 and 7, and you're free to disagree with us. We are not a DfE-approved supplier; no such list exists for this fund.

Is Robyn for primary or secondary?

Both. Robyn follows whatever is being taught, so it's used for Year 3 fractions and for GCSE English. The two exchanges above are from a Year 4 maths lesson and a secondary English lesson on Great Expectations.

Our pupils don't all have devices.

Pupils can share: one device per table is common. We can also supply dedicated hardware; ask us on the call.

Does this replace teaching assistants?

No. Robyn can perform some of the tasks of a teaching assistant, but not all of them. Robyn allows your TAs to spend their time with the pupils who genuinely need a person alongside them.

What happens after the free trial?

You decide whether to continue. If you do, let us know how many teachers you will be purchasing for (at £500 per teacher per year). If you don't, nothing is owed.

How does Robyn handle safeguarding?

If a pupil says anything that suggests distress or risk, Robyn tells them to speak to a trusted adult and flags the exchange for staff. Teachers can review every conversation.

What about GDPR?

Robyn is designed for UK GDPR: pupils don't log in and it doesn't need their names. Robots For Schools is ISO/IEC 27001 certified and holds Cyber Essentials. We will provide you with a formal data processing agreement. More on data and GDPR.

The Inclusive Mainstream Fund: what you can spend it on, and what to publish by 31 December

The Inclusive Mainstream Fund in plain terms

What is it?

Who gets it?

How much?

What can it be spent on?

What do you have to do?

Do you have to spend it this year?

The DfE's seven principles of inclusion

What the strategy has to cover

Barrier

Activity

Intended outcome

Review

What you can spend it on: one worked example for each principle

Put inclusion on the senior team's agenda

Screen every pupil at a fixed point, then act on it

Coach teachers in scaffolding and checking for understanding

Retrain and redeploy TAs in line with the EEF guidance

Make clubs and trips work for pupils with SEND

A key adult and a daily check-in for pupils at risk of missing school

Structured conversations with families every term

Assistive technology that actually gets used

An AI teaching assistant that follows the lesson

Robyn is an AI teaching assistant that follows along during the lesson.

One teacher can't re-explain thirty times over, and the pupils who need it most tend not to ask.

Principle 3: high-quality adaptive teaching.

Principle 7: inclusive environments.

Give a teacher an AI assistant that follows the lesson, so any pupil can get help privately without waiting.

Evidence from the Education Endowment Foundation

A 30-minute call to set it up, then a free trial.

More pupils asking for help, and adult time going where it's needed most.

What that actually looks like

The questions a SENCO or head asks first

It doesn't replace your TAs

Safeguarding and data

It knows your lesson

Straight answers

See it working, then decide

Book a demo

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