Funding for pupils with SEN

Last reviewed on 27 January 2022
School types: All · School phases: All
Ref: 6685

Get to grips with how provision for pupils with special educational needs (SEN) is funded in your school.

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Contents

  1. Mainstream schools: you'll receive funding in 2 key ways
  2. Funding for pupils in SEN units and resourced provision
  3. Special schools and alternative provision (AP): how you'll receive funding
  4. Personal budgets for pupils with EHC plans 

Mainstream schools: you'll receive funding in 2 key ways

1. Your budget or core funding

As a mainstream maintained school, academy or free school, you'll receive resources to support pupils with special educational needs (SEN) through your main budget, or core funding - this is known as your 'notional SEN budget'. 

Your school’s budget is calculated through the national funding formula (NFF). But until the 'hard NFF' is introduced, your local authority (LA) will use its own local funding formula to determine the actual allocation for its schools. It'll use factors such as ‘deprivation’ and ‘low prior attainment’ to account for pupils with high needs in your school. 

Using the budget, you're expected to:

Where the cost of a pupil’s additional support is higher than £6,000, the excess will be met with top-up

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