����Vlog

��While the special educational needs and disabilities system sits at the top of the government's reform agenda, some specialist school trust leaders feel their organisations lack the same status.

This is partly down to ministers making it clear that they see the answer to the current crisis as lying in a more inclusive mainstream education system for pupils with SEND.

However, those leading trusts with special schools feel strongly about the importance of their role, and the need for their organisations to grow.

So how big are these trusts currently and how are their roles changing? And are special schools best served in a family of similar settings – or alongside mainstream schools?

����Vlog digs into the data and speaks to leaders to find out.

What is the current status of specialist trusts?

Academisation has not been as rapid across special schools as it has been among mainstream secondaries.

However, over the past two years alone there has been a 15.2 per cent increase in the number of special-school academies.

And in 2025, for the first time, the number of special-school academies outnumbered the number of maintained special schools – 558 compared with 511.

These academies do not all sit in fully specialist trusts. There are 41 multi-academy trusts made up entirely of special schools, and 79 trusts in total where special schools make up at least half of the total.

But in 111 trusts, special schools make up less than half of the MAT's schools – including in 35 trusts where special schools represent less than 10 per cent.

The number of special schools in trusts with 50 per cent of more special schools has increased in the past year from 305 to 316. The proportion of special-school academies that are based in these trusts remains the same as last year, however, at 58.3 per cent.

What's impacting growth?

For trusts comprising only special schools, the average size is 3.3 schools.

And across the sector, "there is a confidence in what we are doing and a desire to grow", says one specialist school leader, who asked not to be named.

They add that the incentive for growth is driven partly by cost pressures – with their £10,000 per-place funding having been stagnant for 13 years, creating "an incentive to grow to become more secure”.

But Hermann Farrington, CEO of The Bridge Trust, which runs eight special schools, points to the risks of overly rapid growth. “I think it's about caution because if you overstretch yourself, then you start to dilute your offer," he says.

“I am not saying we wouldn’t like to grow, especially in today's financial challenges with complex needs, when everything's getting more expensive.

"There are financial benefits [to trust growth], but you don't want anyone feeling like they're not part of the organisation or part of the trust, or that they can't reach out and get a response or support immediately.”

The benefits of growth need to be carefully weighed up, agrees Tom Leverage, CEO of Reach South Academy Trust, which runs 20 schools in the South West, almost half of which are special.

He says: "There's too much in terms of academy growth that feels more akin to a Monopoly board of trying to see how many properties you can collect.

"At times, it feels like Game of Thrones, and that's really wrong because if you can't find the child in the room in a discussion within education, then you're wasting your time.”

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So what are the incentives for special schools to join trusts?

Warren Carratt, chief executive of Nexus Multi Academy Trust which runs 23 schools including 21 special schools in Yorkshire and the Midlands, says there can be a tendency for special schools to become “isolationist” – particularly if they are the only school of their type in a district.

This isolation means it can sometimes look like these schools “have appeared to fail quickly”, he warns.

“While the exemption from any national accountability systems is both necessary in terms of delivering personalisation and proportionate, it does mean the only time a special school is accountable to the general public is in an Ofsted inspection, and that can mean a school coasts or declines for a period of time without anyone knowing," he says.

Joining a trust can be a way of avoiding this isolation, but Carratt cautions that it is not a silver bullet for special schools. Nexus has taken four re-brokered special schools from MATs where, in his words, the trusts “did more damage than good”.

He adds: “However, in the right trust special schools are well supported, they are routinely quality-assured and they are in a sustainable framework of support and challenge.”

But developing a trust with special schools requires a greater recognition of different contexts and specialisms, leaders say.

Employing “unified or homogenised curriculum models” will often not work in special schools, says Carratt.

A responsible MAT, he says, needs to have “a more sophisticated model of quality assurance than just imposing a curriculum blueprint and monitoring compliance with centrally set plans".

This is echoed by Farrington, who previously led a trust with two special schools. He cautions against specialist trusts adopting what he describes as a “cookie cutter model” or expecting a standardised offer across special schools.

How are specialist trusts spread geographically?

The trusts with the largest number of special schools have a reach across the country, and this greater geographical distance between special schools can present a challenge when plotting trust growth.

However, specialist trusts tend to be located in one region or neighbouring regions.

Of the 21 trusts with six or more special schools, three run schools in London and the South East, three run schools in the North West and three run schools in the North West.

Two of the largest specialist school trusts in the country, Nexus and Wellspring multi academy trusts, both run schools in Yorkshire and the East Midlands.

The only region without one of the largest special-school trusts is the East of England.

The Ascent Academies' Trust has grown to run six schools across four local authority areas in North Yorkshire and the North East.

Trust CEO Rachel Hargreaves tells ����Vlog it has grown to neighbouring areas and that “none of our schools are more than half an hour away from another school”, which ensures they are able to collaborate.

Hargreaves believes being part of a trust of special schools brings huge benefits.

For instance, across her trust there are 12 different classes of young people with profound and multiple learning disabilities (PMLD), and Ms Hargreaves says the trust's schools are able to share planning, best practice and strategies.

What is the view on 'mixed' trusts?

Within the system, there are advocates for two different approaches: trusts with both mainstream and special schools and those solely run as a group of specialist schools.

Leverage says the link between mainstream and special is seen as “absolutely the golden thread” in his trust’s work.

Earlier this year, his trust, Reach South, merged with Transforming Futures Trust, which ran three special schools and an alternative provision.

Separately, Reach South is now set to take on four more special and AP schools.

Leverage says: “If you had to cut our trust I think you'd see inclusion like a stick of rock all the way through. But in order to get that right, you have to have a really deep understanding of the full spectrum of education."

Leverage highlights how Sendcos in mainstream schools can draw on special-school expertise on meeting the needs of autistic pupils or those with social, emotional or mental health needs, while special schools can draw on mainstream’s subject specialists.

He says that in the trust’s strategic growth plan, and in discussions with councils and the DfE, “we’ve made it really clear we are looking for growth in both mainstream and special schools because we see that that's what binds the community together.”

Leverage sees this as trust growth with a purpose.

However, Emma Bradshaw, chief executive Alternative Learning Trust, a five-school trust with alternative provision settings and special schools in the South East, has a different perspective.

She says: “If a specialist school or AP is on its own in a trust of mainstream schools, then yes, it can work in partnership and it can help mainstream schools with inclusion or with the developing of a resource base, but I would question: what is it really getting back in return?

“At our trust, our mission statement is that ‘iron sharpens iron’.”

The trust’s mission statement reads: “We acknowledge the development of mixed multi-academy trusts and recognise that this is often at the expense of the specialist provision if it is a sole provision amongst others...Where we have colleagues who walk in the same shoes as us, they are better able to hold us to account and support growth and development."

In making her case, Bradshaw points to the decision of Lift Schools, a major national academy chain, which decided to hand over two special schools to a specialist trust, The Bridge Trust.

Farrington, The Bridge’s CEO, tells ����Vlog that he thinks specialist and mixed MATs will continue to co-exist but adds that schools serving students with more complex needs “will be better suited to be in specialist trusts”.

How might the SEND reforms impact specialist trusts?

There are concerns that the government's focus on inclusive mainstream schools risks underestimating the demand and importance of special schools.

To some leaders, this is counterintuitive, especially given how heavily oversubscribed specialist schools are.

Carratt says that the government has “without doubt” sent negative signals to special-school trust leaders.

He highlights how the DfE is urging councils to focus on ensuring that more mainstream places are found for pupils with special educational needs in their SEND Reform Plans in order to receive government funding.

This, he says, shows that special schools are “being treated as a cost problem to solve” rather than an area the government is looking to expand.

However, the government has also identified a key role for special-school trusts – in its Experts at Hand programme.

The government plans to support mainstream schools on inclusion with a bank of external experts, including special-school staff. Local councils have been tasked with developing plans for their areas.

This provides new opportunities to play a wider system role, says Nic Crossley, leader of Liberty Academy Trust, which has three schools with a specialism in autism in Cheshire, Reading and London.

“When I first took over the trust, there was very much a narrative around ‘Isn't it daft that we've got schools all over the place?'" Crossley says.

“But actually, with the SEND reforms now, that's an advantage for us because we can say we are primed to provide that inclusive outreach support in lots of regions across the country...these reforms do offer us an opportunity to really be a sector player.”

The sector is still waiting for the government to respond to its consultation on SEND reforms, and recent reports suggest this response could be delayed.

But regardless of whether the political focus remains largely on SEND capacity in mainstream schools, special-school trust leaders are determined to be able to bring their expertise to bear both for their own schools and the wider system.