How to Use the Inclusive Mainstream Fund: A Guide for Leaders

The Inclusive Mainstream Fund represents a significant opportunity for school leaders. Rather than absorbing this funding into generic compliance, you can use it to build a lasting, high-impact legacy of literacy support. By targeting these resources toward evidence-based structured literacy and practical classroom tools, you can systematically improve outcomes for your dyslexic and neurodivergent pupils.

To achieve this, school leaders should focus on two parallel tracks: upskilling classroom teachers in structured literacy and equipping them with accessible technology. This dual approach ensures that your funding translates directly into daily classroom support, reducing the pressure on your SENCO and specialist staff while raising achievement for struggling readers.

Understanding the Inclusive Mainstream Fund: What It Means for Your School

The Department for Education's guidance, Inclusive mainstream fund: support for school leaders, outlines how schools can use this targeted funding to strengthen inclusive practice. The core goal of the fund is to help mainstream schools build robust, sustainable inclusion strategies. This means moving away from reactive, one-off interventions and moving toward proactive, school-wide systems.

For school leaders, this guidance provides the mandate to invest in preventative measures. When we support neurodivergent pupils early and effectively within the mainstream classroom, we reduce the need for expensive, high-intensity interventions later.

This funding arrives at a critical time of wider legislative change. For context on how these national shifts impact your school community, you can read our summary of The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act: What the New Rules Mean for Your Dyslexic Child.

Strategic Allocation: Prioritising Evidence-Based Literacy Interventions

When deciding where to allocate your budget, evidence-based tools must take priority. For dyslexic learners, the gold standard of support is structured literacy. This approach is explicit, systematic, and multisensory. It benefits struggling readers while harming none.

Consider these three areas for strategic fund allocation:

• High-quality assistive technology: Provide tools that allow dyslexic pupils to access the curriculum independently. This keeps them engaged in mainstream lessons alongside their peers.
• Decodable reading libraries: Ensure your classrooms are stocked with age-appropriate, phonically controlled books that build reading confidence.
• Screening and progress-monitoring software: Invest in reliable tools that help teachers identify reading gaps early, without requiring a formal external diagnosis.

By focusing on these areas, you build a resilient tier-one classroom environment where fewer children slip through the cracks.

Upskilling Your Team: Training Teachers in Structured Literacy

Even the best tools cannot replace skilled teaching. However, many excellent educators did not receive deep training in phonics or structured literacy during their initial teacher training. You can address this gap directly by using your funding for targeted staff development.

To understand why this training gap exists and how to address it, see our guide on I Wasn't Taught How to Teach Reading: What to Do Next. Providing your staff with high-quality professional development in structured literacy is one of the most sustainable ways to spend your inclusion budget.

When planning staff development, consider these steps:

1. Train the whole team: Do not limit literacy training to your SENCO or teaching assistants. Every class teacher needs to understand the mechanics of reading.
2. Focus on practical application: Choose professional development that offers immediate, actionable strategies for Monday morning.
3. Provide ongoing mentoring: Peer observations and collaborative planning sessions help embed new teaching methods into daily practice.

When teachers feel confident in their literacy instruction, they can better support struggling readers without relying solely on external intervention. For more on this classroom dynamic, read about Why Even the Best Teachers Struggle to Help Struggling Readers Alone.

Measuring Impact: How to Track Progress and Inclusion Success

To justify your investment and ensure pupil progress, you must track the impact of your funding. The guidance from the Department for Education emphasises the importance of monitoring how these funds improve mainstream provision over time.

Effective tracking does not mean burying your staff in paperwork. Instead, focus on clear, manageable metrics:

• Reading fluency and accuracy rates: Use simple, regular assessments to track phonics acquisition and reading speed.
• Pupil independence and confidence: Monitor how often pupils use assistive tools independently during writing and reading tasks.
• Staff confidence surveys: Measure how confident your teachers feel in supporting neurodivergent learners before and after training.

As you build your strategy, you may want to explore how technology can support your goals. Our app, Lexy, is a multisensory, structured literacy tool designed to support phonics practice and reading fluency. It is Orton-Gillingham informed and built specifically for neurodivergent minds.

To see how this fits into a school environment, you can explore Lexy for schools, which offers classroom management features and is free for your first five students. It is not a replacement for specialist teaching or a formal diagnosis, but it serves as a highly effective classroom aid to reinforce daily reading instruction.

By aligning your Inclusive Mainstream Fund allocation with structured literacy training and evidence-based tools, you can build a truly inclusive environment where every child has the opportunity to become a confident reader.