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Whatever comes out of the long-awaited schools White Paper, it’s clear that the government wants mainstream and special schools to work more closely together on special educational needs and disabilities.

Schools minister Georgia Gould has visited two settings that exemplify this approach during a national “engagement” tour aimed at listening to the public and SEND experts about possible reforms.

At the final engagement event, held online, she said: “One of the things we are really looking at as part of our thinking is how we ensure that mainstream schools are learning from specialist schools, and that there is that partnership”.

But how can the government ensure that more special and mainstream schools are sharing expertise?

MATs with special and mainstream schools

One answer could be through these schools being part of the same multi-academy trust. This would also align with an expected push to move more schools into trusts in the White Paper.

Owen Jenkins, chief executive of Broad Horizons Education Trust, in Norfolk, says this approach can encourage a “symbiotic relationship”.

The trust has 18 academies, including two special schools for boys with social, emotional and mental health (SEMH) needs. Mr Jenkins says: “There is a real focus and expertise in these schools, and we have learned from some of the behavioural approaches used.”

He gives the example of an approach called the , which has helped staff to build relationships to improve behaviour.

In turn, he says special schools have benefited from the curriculum and subject leadership and CPD that mainstream staff can provide.

Lynsey Holzer, CEO of Active Learning Trust, which is comprised of 21 academies, including two special schools, echoes the idea that the benefit goes both ways.

Two areas she points to are behaviour and curriculum. She describes one of her trust’s special schools as having the “very best behaviour management systems I have ever seen”.

“In mainstream at the moment, we are facing more and more complex children, so if we don’t use special-school expertise - for example, for coping with complex behaviour - we are missing a massive trick, because they are experts in it,” she says.

Holzer, who is also a specialist SEND Ofsted inspector, says special schools can draw on the curriculum progression and sequencing expertise that exists in mainstream schools.

She warns, however, that funding can present challenges. “It is very expensive to have special schools in your trust. And I know several special schools finding it hard to find a home.”

Holzer says that her trust’s special schools are run at a deficit, but the benefit they bring outweighs this.

However, many smaller trusts would struggle with this arrangement, she says, suggesting that the Department for Education could provide additional funding for it.

This concern was also highlighted in the latest accounts of Meridian Trust, which warned that it could not take on more special schools because of the size of its financial deficits.

Trust numbers

The number of trusts containing both mainstream and special schools has increased by 42 per cent in the past four years, ����Vlog analysis of DfE data shows.

There were 118 mixed trusts in September 2025, up from 83 in September 2021.

The number of trusts that contain both mainstream and special schools only represents 9 per cent of all MATs - but this has increased from 6 per cent in 2021.

These trusts come in all sizes: of the 118 trusts, 18 have more than 25 schools, while, at the other end of the scale, seven contain four or fewer schools.

But 47 per cent of the 1,071 state special schools in England are local authority-maintained, meaning that a major push would be needed to bring mainstream and specialist expertise together in trusts.

����Vlog revealed last year that Ebor Academy Trust and Nexus Multi Academy Trust are to merge, creating the largest primary and special school trust in England, made up of 47 academies.

Nexus CEO Warren Carratt highlights how his trust already provides specialist input into mainstream schools through a formal resource base.

“There is definitely a place for integrated resources in mainstream, where children with additional needs get high-quality support and personalised provision within a mainstream setting,” he says.

“We have some really positive examples of where this type of partnership works really well between our special schools and mainstream schools.” However, he adds that this works best for a very small proportion of pupils.

In the same building

There are examples in the system of special and mainstream schools not only sharing a trust but also a building.

Gould visited one of these sites in Darlington earlier this month: at the Education Village Academy Trust an all-through special school is co-located with mainstream primary and secondary on the same site.

This means that primary-aged pupils at Beaumont Hill special school share a corridor with the primary school pupils from Springfield Academy.

Adrian Lynch, Beaumont Hill’s principal, says: “A lot of our children identify as coming to the Education Village site. It doesn’t matter whether they attend Beaumont Hill, Springfield or Haughton, they see themselves as being from one place.”

The school’s executive principal, Caroline Green, says: “One of the best examples we can give of this approach is that, where possible, students from our school will have lessons in mainstream. We had one student who sat GCSE maths and got a grade 9.”

In this case, the schools were set up this way by design in a purpose-built building.

But there is another way in which special and mainstream schools can be co-located.

Under-used primary space

Dysart School, a special school for young people with severe and complex learning difficulties in Kingston upon Thames, has recently launched a satellite site, co-located at Latchmere Academy, a nearby mainstream primary.

This was brought about because the special school needed to expand because of student numbers and space was available in the primary, amid falling rolls.

Dysart now has three classrooms, an outside play area, specialist movement and breakout spaces, offices and a staffroom co-located with a mainstream school.

Headteacher Leigh Edser says: “We have 25 pupils on site, and we’re meeting all their needs really well. We access the mainstream school provisions where appropriate. I think it is important to think about what inclusion is and isn’t.”

She tells ����Vlog this was not “just about us bolting on to the mainstream and doing our own thing over there”, and warns that “popping children with specialist needs into mainstream and calling that inclusion isn’t necessarily the answer”.

“There are times where it’s right for the children that we do access things in the mainstream provision, and we do come together, but it has to be done in collaboration and it has to be done with the children’s needs at the heart of decision making.”

Edser tells ����Vlog: “It’s also important to note that we are sharing expertise two ways. Our children deserve to have access to the best, so this is opening closed doors and moving away from working in silos.”

Siblings on the same site

And Eleanor Woods, head of centre at the Dysart Discovery base, highlights the fact that, in some cases, the co-location means keeping students closer to their community.

“Now we have a number of students whose siblings attend the mainstream and they attend the specialist setting,” she says.

Edser and Woods say the government should look to expand this approach but add that there needs to be buy-in from both sides and a set of shared values across the schools for it work.

Gould’s ministerial visits to schools this month also included a trip to Haslingden High School in Lancashire - a mainstream maintained school that teaches 25 students from nearby special school Tor View on a daily basis.

Hybrid curriculum

Haslingden High head Russ Clarke says: “They have a classroom base, and in the mornings they come and integrate into our key stage 4 curriculum with one-to-one or shared support, they learn with us and then sit the GCSEs in a range of subjects. It’s a fantastic model.”

Clarke believes this approach could be rolled out as part of the government’s plan to make mainstream schools more inclusive. But he suggests that the DfE should also look at giving schools more flexibility to create a hybrid qualification route at key stage 4 for those students who would benefit from input from both phases.

“There needs to be more flexibility for those students for whom we know that a wholly academic curriculum is not going to be right,” he says.

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