Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to support mainstream schools managing high-needs SEND pupils in Surrey Heath constituency.

The department is committed to improving inclusivity and expertise in mainstream schools, including those in Surrey Heath, as well as ensuring special and alternative provision schools cater to those with the most complex needs.

The Partnerships for Inclusion of Neurodiversity in Schools (PINS) programme tests a new model, providing health and education specialist support to upskill mainstream primary schools to better meet the needs of neurodivergent pupils at whole-school level. Schools in Surrey Heath have participated in this programme.

Our new regional improvement for standards and excellence teams will work with mainstream schools to help them become more inclusive places as one of four priority areas for improvement.

Ofsted will be holding leaders to account for inclusion. For the first time they have set out an explicit focus on inclusion in their new framework, which includes gathering evidence on how well schools understand disadvantaged pupils' needs.