SEND Leadership and Support Resources

Are you stepping into the role of SENDCo but wondering where to start or which tasks to prioritise? Firstly, congratulations! And secondly, don't worry – this free Honeyguide checklist will support your thinking right from the start.

As a SENDCo, you have the important task of supporting students with special educational needs and disabilities, something which can feel challenging as you get used to the role. But don't worry, we're here to support you every step of the way with our comprehensive list designed specifically for new SENDCos. Whether you're a newly appointed SENDCo, taking over from a previous SENDCo, or moving from assistant SENDCo to lead SENDCo, we've outlined key tasks for your first few weeks, half-term and full term to help you feel organised and confident. 

🔒 Fully aligned to the final Ofsted School Inspection Toolkit 2025

New for 2025, this Inclusion Audit Pack helps SENDCos, DSLs, inclusion leads, designated teachers and SLT review inclusion, SEND and disadvantaged pupil provision across eight comprehensive areas. Aligned with Ofsted's 2025 School Inspection Toolkit, it supports self-evaluation, continuous improvement and strategic leadership for inclusive education.

☑️ Comprehensive 39-page inclusion audit document with structured prompts across eight key themes: inclusive vision and culture, identifying and meeting needs, supporting disadvantaged pupils, supporting pupils with SEND, supporting pupils known (or previously known) to children's social care, inclusive practice across curriculum and wider school life, partnerships with families and services, and evaluating impact

☑️ Complete audit toolkit includes action plan template, inclusion evidence checklist, staff, pupil, parent/carer and governor question bank, a one-page SLT/governor summary, Ofsted inclusion grade descriptor grids and guidance on conducting an effective audit

☑️ Supports comprehensive review of SEND provision, pupil premium strategies, looked-after and previously looked-after pupil provision, and wider inclusive practice with confidence and clarity 

☑️ Fully editable templates allow you to adapt all materials for your school's specific context and priorities

Ideal for SENCOs, inclusion leaders, pupil premium champions, designated teachers for looked-after children, and deputy or assistant heads with responsibility for  inclusion, whether preparing for inspection, reviewing provision or planning next steps for school improvement.

🔎 Want a closer look? Click here to preview the audit pack🔗 

👉 This audit pack is part of our Complete School Leadership Audit Set, which includes eleven audits in one purchase, saving you money whilst ensuring you can evaluate your entire school provision across all Ofsted evaluation areas plus three essential good practice audits.

Thinking about doing a spot check on your special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) provision or wondering what Ofsted will ask about SEND when they visit in 2025? This pack, perfect for school leaders and SENDCos, has been designed to give you the tools to gather snapshot viewpoints of SEND and inclusion practices in your setting. In turn, this allows you to gain insight into how others could view your SEND provision and the steps you may need to take to keep improving it.

This Subject Intervention and Provision Map Bundle is ideal for any subject leader who's looking to explore what additional support is given to pupils in their subject.

Aimed at primary subject leaders, this mini bundle contains two useful editable Word templates. The Subject Intervention and Provision Audit allows you to look in-depth at your subject and the provision, adaptations, differentiation and intervention on offer. This template is split into three handy sections that cover the following:

• Quality First Teaching
• Targeted Pupil Support
• Group Intervention

This allows you to explore the current offer for pupils who need additional support to attain well in your subject as well as changes that could be made to further improve outcomes for pupils. You can then use the Subject Provision Map to give an overview of the different types of provision and support available in different year groups as well as summarising the general strategies used by all staff to support learning. 

Understanding how pupils who need extra help, such as pupils with SEND or disadvantaged pupils, are supported in your subject is a key component of subject leadership, and is something you may wish to evidence in a subject leader file. For further support with creating, building and organising an effective subject leader folder, this template along with many more are also included in our Subject Leader Folder Pack.

🔒 Fully aligned to the Ofsted School Inspection Toolkit 2025

This SEND Self-Evaluation Form (SEF) template helps SENDCos and inclusion leaders evaluate their setting's SEND provision, strengths and development areas and is aligned with all  areas of the Ofsted School Inspection Toolkit.

You'll get:

☑️ SEND SEF template with structured criteria across all key areas of SEND leadership: leadership and governance, safeguarding, curriculum and teaching, attendance and behaviour, personal development and well-being, working with parents, assessment and identification, achievement, monitoring and evaluation, efficient use of resources, quality of SEND provision, and pupil perspectives

☑️ Reflective questions in each section to support critical, evidence-based evaluation of your SEND provision, plus guidance on where to find multiple sources of evidence to support your judgements

☑️ Ofsted Grade Descriptor Grids fully aligned to the 2025 toolkit, with particular focus on the Inclusion strand to inform your self-evaluation decisions

The template is fully editable so you can adapt it for your school's specific context and SEND cohort.

Who should use this template?

This is essential for SENCos, inclusion leaders and SEND coordinators responsible for evaluating provision for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities. It's particularly valuable for new SENDCos building their self-evaluation practice, or experienced leaders who need structured headspace to evaluate SEND strategically rather than getting lost in day-to-day operational demands. Headteachers and SLT with SEND oversight will also find it useful for monitoring inclusion provision.

Some pupils find reading and writing challenging, and this can be down to a multitude of reasons. If you're looking to investigate how to support struggling readers and writers, this bundle will support you - it contains audit-style questions for you to investigate the strengths and weaknesses of your current provision, allowing you to create an action plan to help pupils who need the most support.

Looking to recruit a new special educational needs and/or disabilities co-ordinator (SENDCo)? If you’re thinking about the interview process and what tasks and questions to ask at interview to recruit the right candidate for your school, this SENDCo Interview Pack will support your thinking and save you time in the recruitment process. 

🔄 Updated for 2026

Supporting your SEND link governor effectively takes structure, clarity and the right tools. This pack gives you this with four fully editable resources designed to strengthen SEND and inclusion governance in your school, whether your link governor is new to role or needs more support to be highly effective.

You'll get:

☑️ SEND Questions for Governors and Trustees – 12 pages of structured questions to support meaningful collaboration between the SEND link governor and key school staff such as the SENDCo, headteacher and others with responsibility for SEND and inclusion, plus a triangulating evidence section and an action plan template to document next steps

☑️ Equality and Accessibility Questions for Governors and Trustees – focused questions to help the SEND link governor and those responsible for accessibility and equality evaluate the school's inclusivity for all pupils and staff

☑️ SEND Report to Governors Template – a clear, structured template covering SEND data and commentary, giving the full governing board the insight they need

☑️ SEND Link Governor Roles and Responsibilities – an editable outline of the SEND and inclusion governor's key responsibilities, ideal for onboarding a new governor or bringing clarity to an existing role

All resources are fully editable so you can adapt them to reflect your school's context and needs.