Across the school system, we are seeing an increase in both numbers and complexities of children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) being supported in mainstream classrooms.
It is the government’s ambition for mainstream schools to be more inclusive. Yet teachers have told us they feel underprepared to meet these challenges, sentiments echoed in Teacher Tapp survey findings, commissioned by Tes.
Like many others, our schools are navigating increasing accountability around SEND provision, alongside stretched resources and the need to make inclusive education meaningful - not just aspirational. So, how can we do this?
Looking inwards
I am SEND lead at the 13-school Maritime Academy Trust and headteacher of Danecourt School - our specialist provision that holds deep expertise in supporting pupils with complex needs. Together with my team, I began thinking about how we could do more to share our expertise with our mainstream colleagues.
We soon saw there was a gap in the skills we had in our school and the CPD that staff in our mainstream schools were receiving, which, as with many settings, was often ad hoc, generic or delivered in isolation - and expensive.
As such, we realised we could create something far more in-depth, sustainable and responsive, by leveraging the power of being a trust to share this wealth of knowledge - and, importantly, at no cost to our other schools.
The creation of MOSS
This led us to create the Maritime Outreach Support Service (MOSS) with the aim of using the expertise of staff at Danecourt to help mainstream teachers and teaching assistants develop their skills, confidence and understanding of SEND and empower our schools to develop truly inclusive classrooms.
We now offer CPD that ranges from full-day, in-person sessions to short, targeted, live or recorded online training.
We’ve already delivered 27 sessions since October 2024. These focus on practical areas like sensory processing, communication strategies and the use of visual supports - topics teachers tell us they want more guidance on.
Responding to needs
But we’ve also gone beyond training. One-off sessions can raise awareness, but lasting change requires modelling, feedback and follow-up.
That’s why our outreach team - experienced practitioners from Danecourt - work directly with schools. They visit classrooms, observe practice, model strategies and provide hands-on support for teachers and support staff. We also work with schools so pupils can access a personalised curriculum adapted to their complex needs.
In some cases, schools request more embedded input, with an outreach specialist spending several days on site.
That extended presence allows staff to see approaches in action, ask questions and trial strategies with immediate coaching. It’s a more iterative, contextual form of development, building their confidence in a way that isolated training can’t.
This helps all our schools embed sustainable, evidence-based strategies that break down barriers to learning.
Seeing inclusive practice in context
We also wanted to create opportunities for staff to experience high-quality SEND practice in its own specialist environment. So our in-reach, mainstream colleagues spend time at Danecourt, observing classroom routines, adapted curricula and specialist techniques.
Feedback from these visits has been overwhelmingly positive. Seeing how approaches like TEACCH are implemented - embedded in timetables, resources and interactions - helps staff understand not just what to do, but why it works.
Colleagues return to their own schools ready to adapt routines or try new visual supports, having seen their impact.
Making inclusion a shared endeavour
Another key element is that MOSS brings together different professionals.
Our regular multi-disciplinary meetings bring together Sendcos with speech and language therapists, occupational therapists, educational psychologists, behaviour experts and SEND specialists.
These sessions focus on practical problem solving, giving schools timely and coordinated advice.
This kind of joined-up thinking is crucial. Inclusion is a whole-school endeavour, and MOSS helps create conditions of shared knowledge, consistent approaches and a sense that support is always available.
Looking ahead
We are in the first year of implementation, but already we have seen a 40 per cent increase in staff confidence in supporting pupils with SEND.
We’re seeing stronger whole-school approaches to inclusion, with best practice embedded across year groups, and improved engagement and progress for pupils who previously struggled.
While we developed MOSS to meet needs within our trust, the principles behind it are widely applicable - something we have discussed as well.
As the system continues to adapt to rising SEND needs, the question of how we build and share expertise becomes more urgent. This is why we are exploring how to open our programme to other schools, to widen impact for teachers, support staff and, crucially, children themselves.
Many trusts hold the expertise; we just need to harness it, not only to do things better, but to do better things for inclusive education.
Cathryn Falconer is SEND lead for Maritime Academy Trust and headteacher at Danecourt Special School
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