Like many school leaders, I have been trying to work out what this Budget really means for the children and families we serve.

Every government says it believes in inclusion. Every education minister talks about the importance of supporting our most disadvantaged communities. But Budgets reveal priorities more clearly than speeches do.

This Budget, then, does show some steps in the right direction. But a Budget that truly backed inclusive schools would look very different from the one we have just seen.

Budget 2025: Ending the two-child benefit cap

The decision to lift the two-child benefit cap deserves genuine praise. According to the Resolution Foundation, ending the cap could lift around 300,000 children out of poverty.

That means more stability for many of the parents and carers we work with and fewer children arriving at school having carried the weight of adult financial stress on their shoulders.

But this change supports families in the home. It does not help the schools that support those same families every day.

Inclusion overlooked

For inclusive schools, the gap between the social policy and the school funding policy remains painfully wide.

While pointing out the problems, it would be wrong not to recognise the awful position that the government inherited with a special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) system that was on its knees already and a mountain of issues caused by its predecessors.

School leaders know that inclusion is hard work. We don’t say yes to children with complex needs because it is easy. We do it because it is right.

But doing the right thing comes with a cost. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has reported that school spending per pupil in 2024 remained lower in real terms than in 2010, even though the level of need has increased dramatically.

The Local Government Association projects a £3.6 billion high-needs deficit by 2025, and that deficit is already shaping the decisions local authorities make today.

This is where the Budget falls short.

Waiting until 2028 for SEND funding

The government has said it will absorb the SEND deficits that local authorities have built up. On the surface, that sounds like a major step. But there is a catch. It will not happen until 2028.

Local authorities are legally responsible for balancing their books now. They cannot wait three years. So they continue to top-slice school budgets to cover their SEND overspends. Essex is one example, but it is happening across the country.

For years we have seen funding quietly removed from the school block in order to patch up the high-needs block. Every pound taken reduces staff capacity, reduces intervention, reduces the support that allows children to stay in mainstream schools.

If the deficits were being absorbed now, schools like ours would have a real chance of balancing our own budgets and protecting inclusive practice. Instead we are left with a promise of help in 2028 while we continue to absorb the impact in 2025.

The Commons Education Select Committee warned last year of a system “failing children” because of late intervention and overstretched services.

Delaying meaningful financial relief only deepens that problem.

Needs rising faster than support

Teacher Tapp reports that more than 60 per cent of teachers have seen increasing levels of unmet need in their classrooms over the past year.

Cuts in other services mean schools have become the first, and often only, place families turn to for help.

Parents and carers report long waits for assessments and support. School staff face behaviour linked to unmet need without the resources to respond.

These challenges do not pause until 2028. They are happening today, in every classroom in the country.

The tipping point

Inclusive schools cannot sustain rising needs with falling real-terms funding. When budgets tighten, the risk is obvious.

Exclusions rise. Off-rolling reappears. Vulnerable children lose the stability they need most and the schools that do the heavy lifting find themselves punished for their values.

This is not because leaders stop believing in inclusion. It is because the structures around them make it harder to deliver every year.

Budgets shape behaviour. If the government wants inclusive practice to flourish, it has to fund it.

Support inclusive schools

The removal of the two-child benefit cap shows a government that wants to reduce inequality. That intention matters but a fair society also needs inclusive schools that are supported rather than stretched.

Absorbing SEND deficits is the right idea delivered too late. And until it takes effect, local authorities will continue to draw money away from already pressured school budgets.

So, the question remains: what has the government delivered to support inclusive schools serving disadvantaged communities?

A few hopeful steps and some positive intent - but not enough to match the reality we face.

Vic Goddard is executive principal and CEO of Passmores Cooperative Learning Community. He is a founding member of the Headteachers’ Roundtable

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