Questions to ask about SEND at governor meetings

This is a starter guide — we will be revisiting and adding to it over time.

Why this matters

If your setting is run by a management committee, trustees, or a board of directors, you won’t be the ones changing nappies or leading activities — but you are responsible for making sure the setting meets its legal duties, and that every child is genuinely included, not just cared for. That is a scrutiny role: asking the questions that surface whether inclusion is truly embedded, rather than accepting a polished summary once a year.

This sits on real legal ground. The Equality Act 2010 and the SEND Code of Practice apply to Early Years settings just as they do to schools, and the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) statutory framework requires every setting to have arrangements in place for identifying and supporting children with SEND. The 2026 EYFS update (effective September 2026) reinforces these expectations rather than replacing them, alongside strengthened safeguarding requirements — so this is a good moment for committees to check current practice is genuinely up to date, not just check a box that says it is.

You may also come across the new requirement for mainstream schools to publish an Inclusion Strategy by December 2026 — that specific duty doesn’t extend to Early Years settings, but the underlying principle, being transparent and evidenced about how you include every child, is just as valuable for a committee to expect voluntarily, even without the formal duty.

What Ofsted is looking for (and why that’s not really the point)

Everything in this guide is here because it is genuinely the right way to treat children, families, and staff — not because Ofsted grades it. That said, it is worth knowing that Ofsted’s own framework has recently changed in a way that reflects the same priorities:

• Inclusion is now graded as its own dedicated area, alongside Safeguarding, Curriculum & Teaching, Achievement, Behaviour, Welfare, and Leadership & Governance — not folded quietly into another category.
• EYFS statutory compliance is now the explicit baseline for every grade, closing a gap where a setting could previously look good on paper while a statutory requirement underneath wasn’t actually being met.
• Grading has moved to a five-point scale (from Urgent Improvement to Exceptional), presented as a report card rather than a single overall judgement.

The reason to do the work in this guide properly isn’t to satisfy that framework — it is so that every child in your setting is genuinely included, every day, whether or not an inspector is in the building. Getting that right tends to mean the inspection evidence takes care of itself, rather than the other way around.

What “EYFS statutory compliance” actually means

It is a phrase that gets used a lot without always being unpacked. The EYFS statutory framework has two main parts, and both matter for a committee’s oversight:

• The Learning and Development requirements — the seven areas of learning, the Early Learning Goals, and how a setting tracks and reports on children’s progress (including the statutory progress check at age two).
• The Safeguarding and Welfare requirements — covering staff-to-child ratios, safer recruitment, first aid and medicine administration, behaviour management, complaints procedures, record-keeping, and how information is shared with parents. The 2026 update strengthens this section specifically, including safer sleeping, safer eating, and screen use guidance.

Both sections are legally binding on every registered provider, not optional best practice — Ofsted’s own grading now treats meeting them as the baseline before any quality judgement is even made. A committee doesn’t need to know every clause, but should be confident someone in the setting can answer, in specific terms, how each part is being met.

What to look for, not just ask about

• The setting’s SEND policy — genuinely specific to your setting and its current children, not a generic template.
• The SEND register itself — ask to see it, and ask who maintains it (usually the Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator). Is it current, or does it look like it hasn’t been touched in a while?
• How the Inclusive Early Years Fund is being used — a new funding stream (£47 million nationally for 2026/27) designed to help settings build inclusive practice setting-wide, alongside existing funding like SEN Inclusion Funding and the Disability Access Fund. Ask what your setting has drawn on and what it has been spent on.
• The key person system in practice — does every child, including those with additional needs, have a genuinely consistent key person relationship, or does it break down around SEND, English as an Additional Language, or complex family circumstances?
• How practitioners interact with families and children — is everyone genuinely valued and included? Do people look relaxed, and does the room have a sense of belonging, or does it feel tense or transactional?
• Whether resources and displays promote inclusivity — do books, toys, and displays reflect the range of children and families in your setting, or default to one narrow version of “normal”?
• A visit, not just a report — seeing adjustments, visual supports, and inclusive practice in the room tells you more than a written summary ever will.

Questions to ask about policy and oversight

• When was our SEND and inclusion policy last reviewed, and who was involved — just the SENCO, or genuinely families and staff too?
• What did we do to ensure harder-to-reach groups within our local area know about, and feel comfortable accessing, our setting? How successful has that been, and how do we know?
• Are we ready for the September 2026 EYFS changes, particularly around safeguarding and SEND expectations — what’s been reviewed, and what hasn’t yet?
• What additional funding are we applying for to support and promote inclusion (Inclusive Early Years Fund, SEN Inclusion Funding, Disability Access Fund, Pupil Premium)? What is the amount for each, how are we spending it, and how are we measuring its impact?
• How are families involved in decisions which directly affect their child?
• What evidence do we have to demonstrate our inclusive practice, and how often is that evidence updated?
• Do we analyse any protected characteristics and look for patterns in our data — or do we only ever look at outcomes as a whole-setting average?
• How do we ensure our staffing reflects a variety of protected characteristics — consider where vacancies are advertised, and safer recruitment practice?
• If Ofsted visited tomorrow, could we evidence our inclusive practice, or only describe it?

Questions to ask about children and families

• How confident are staff at identifying children who may need additional support, and what happens once that identification has been made?
• How many children are also in receipt of advice from outside agencies? How frequent and useful is that advice, and how do we ensure it is confidently implemented by staff and understood by families?
• How do we support children identified as having SEND, or known to outside agencies, during their transition into their next room or setting?
• How do we ensure all families feel welcome and included in decisions about their child?
• What do we do to meet the Four Cornerstones of Co-production — Welcome and Care, Value and Include, Communicate, and Work in Partnership — and build trust with our families? Where is the evidence that this is working?
• How do we find out what families think and need from our setting — feedback questionnaires, working groups, or anecdotal evidence that is actually recorded and acted on?
• What does co-production look like here in practice — a One Page Profile, a transition plan into or out of the setting?
• If a family raised a concern about how their child was being included, what happened next?

Questions to ask about staff and culture

• When does our SENCO have genuine, protected time to do the role properly — not just a title alongside a full room-based workload, but an actual time in the week set aside for it?
• When do staff have time to make and prepare resources — visual supports, adapted materials — or is this expected to happen in staff’s own time?
• How do we ensure the crucial information key people hold about a child feeds into review meetings about SEND, rather than staying with the individual who knows the child best?
• What training has staff had recently on SEND, English as an Additional Language, cultural inclusion, and gender inclusion — not SEND alone?
• Do our staff feel confident supporting a child with additional needs day-to-day, or does it fall to one or two specific people?
• Do our staff reflect a genuine range of backgrounds, and do staff with protected characteristics feel supported?
• How do we know? Is that based on a genuine anonymous staff survey, or just an impression from conversations with the staff who feel comfortable speaking up?

A note on red flags

Some answers are worth following up rather than accepting at face value:

• A SEND policy that reads generically, with nothing specific to your setting’s actual children.
• No clear answer about what the Inclusive Early Years Fund or other SEND funding has actually been spent on.
• A SENCO who can’t point to a recent example of family voice changing a decision.
• Inclusive practice that is described confidently but isn’t visible when you actually visit the setting.

None of these prove a problem on their own, but a pattern across several is worth genuinely pursuing, not politely noting and moving past.