Reducing SENCO workload without losing momentum

The SENCO role has grown steadily: more pupils with identified needs, more plans and reviews, more liaison with families and external services. When the workload becomes unmanageable, the strategic work — improving provision across the school — is usually the first thing to go. Leaders can change that.

Make SEND everyone's responsibility, in practice

The SEND Code of Practice is clear that teachers are responsible for the progress of all pupils in their class, including those with SEND. That needs to be visible in how the school works:

• class teachers write and review the day-to-day targets they deliver, with SENCO support;
• teaching assistants record interventions as they happen;
• heads of year and phase leaders own attendance and behaviour follow-up for pupils with SEND in their area.

The SENCO's role becomes quality assurance and expert advice, rather than doing everything.

Stop typing things twice

Look for places where the same information is re-entered: copying targets from a plan into a review, re-typing provision into a costed map, rebuilding evidence for an annual review. Every duplicate is time lost and a chance for errors. Connected systems — where a plan feeds the review and the review feeds the next plan — remove most of this.

Protect the calendar

• Put annual reviews and plan reviews on a whole-school calendar at the start of the year.
• Batch similar tasks, such as plan writing, into protected blocks.
• Agree response times for routine queries so the SENCO isn't constantly interrupted.

Be honest about time

Statutory guidance expects the governing board and senior leaders to make sure the SENCO has sufficient time and resources to carry out their role. Review the SENCO's allocated time against the actual size of the caseload each year, and adjust it.

Focus on what changes outcomes

Ask regularly: which tasks make a difference to pupils, and which exist only because "we've always done it"? Removing one low-value report or meeting can free hours each term.

A worked example

At one primary school, the SENCO kept a log of her time for two weeks. Almost a third went on tasks that someone else could do or that the system could do for her: chasing teachers for review comments, re-typing targets from plans into reports, building provision maps by hand and answering the same questions about where documents were saved.

The senior team made four changes. Class teachers now write their pupils' plan reviews directly into the shared record, with the SENCO checking a sample rather than writing them all. Teaching assistants log interventions as they happen on a tablet in the classroom, so provision records build up automatically. Review dates were placed on the school calendar for the whole year in September. And a one-page "where to find it" guide went to all staff. By the spring term, the SENCO had reclaimed most of a day a week, which she used to run coaching sessions on adaptive teaching.

Common pitfalls

• Delegating without support. Teachers asked to write reviews need a clear template, examples and time to do it.
• Adding a new system without removing an old one. If the spreadsheet still has to be updated, you have doubled the work.
• Treating the SENCO as the school's only SEND expert. Building expertise across the staff is what makes the workload sustainable.

Questions to discuss with your team

• Which SEND tasks could be done by the person closest to the pupil?
• Where do we enter the same information more than once?
• Does the SENCO's allocated time reflect the current size of the caseload?
• What would the SENCO do with an extra half-day a week, and how would pupils benefit?

Quick checklist

• Teachers and support staff own their part of SEND recording.
• No information is typed into two places.
• Reviews are scheduled at the start of the year.
• SENCO time is reviewed against caseload annually.
• Low-value tasks are identified and stopped.

Sources

• SEND Code of Practice: 0 to 25 years

General guidance for school staff, last reviewed 9 November 2026. Statutory guidance changes, so always check the latest version on GOV.UK.