ADHD

Almost everything that helps children with attention and self-regulation difficulties is ordinary good teaching applied consistently: clear instruction, well-designed tasks, visible scaffolds, prompt feedback, predictable routines. That makes this a curriculum and teaching-quality issue as much as a SEND issue, and it sits squarely with leadership rather than with the SENDCO alone.

The 2026 Neurodivergence Task and Finish Group report recommends action on workforce development and on learning environments, curriculum and assessment. These are recommendations to government, not current statutory requirements — but they describe where policy is heading, and schools that already do this will not be scrambling.

• Check that behaviour policy explicitly requires consideration of SEND and reasonable adjustments, in line with DfE behaviour guidance and the Equality Act duty.
• Audit sanctions, internal exclusions and suspensions by SEND status. Disproportion is a system signal, not a coincidence.
• Make sure adjustments transfer across staff, supply cover and year groups — a plan that lives in one teacher's head is not provision.
• Look at the unstructured parts of the day; they are the least planned and generate most incidents.
• Review how information passes at transition, including into secondary.
• Be careful that assessment and homework policies do not quietly penalise slow starters and disorganised children for something other than what is being assessed.

• Task design: expectations about instruction, scaffolding and checking understanding built into schemes of work rather than left to individual adaptation.
• Physical environment: noise, sightlines, display clutter and seating are cheap levers, though evidence on environment is more limited than it is often presented as being.
• Timetabling: where the hardest cognitive demands sit in the day, and what happens straight after lunch.
• Access arrangements that reflect normal classroom practice, not a special arrangement invented for a test.
• Enrichment and responsibility: check who actually gets picked for trips, roles and clubs.

The honest test is not whether provision exists but whether these pupils participate and progress. That means looking at things schools do not always collect.

• Attendance and punctuality for pupils on SEN support, compared with the cohort.
• Participation: clubs, trips, responsibilities, residentials.
• Behaviour data by pupil, time of day and subject — the pattern, not the total.
• Progress and, separately, engagement in lessons.
• Pupil voice, gathered directly and periodically.
• Parent experience, including whether contact from school is only ever bad news.
• Staff confidence, which predicts whether adjustments actually happen when nobody is watching.

• Set an expectation that families hear something positive, not only concerns.
• Be clear and consistent about what school can and cannot do — schools do not diagnose.
• Make the route for raising a concern obvious and low-friction.
• Involve families in review, not just in being informed of decisions.
• Recognise that many parents arrive already exhausted by waiting lists and previous schools.

• Current statutory guidance: the SEND Code of Practice (2015) and the Equality Act duty to make reasonable adjustments.
• Current professional guidance: DfE behaviour and attendance guidance; NICE NG87 for the clinical pathway.
• Evidence reviews: the DfE-commissioned rapid evidence assessments (2025), which explicitly do not represent government policy.
• Recommendations: the Neurodivergence Task and Finish Group report (February 2026), an independent report to DfE.
• Proposed reform: ongoing SEND reform work. Do not plan as though proposals are already requirements, and do not tell families they are.

1. National Institute for Health and Care ExcellenceProfessional guidance
   Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: diagnosis and management (NG87) (2018, last updated 2019)

   The NHS reference point for recognition, referral, diagnosis and management. Diagnosis requires a specialist assessment; NICE also sets out when environmental adjustments should be tried first.

2. NHSProfessional guidance
   ADHD in children and young people

   Plain-English NHS information for families on characteristics, assessment routes and what support looks like. The right first link to give a parent.

3. Department for EducationResearch summary
   Neurodivergence Task and Finish Group: report — recommendations for mainstream education (February 2026)

   Independent report to DfE. Recommendations, not statutory duties. Its four priorities — timely identification of strengths and needs, workforce development, learning environments and curriculum, and funding and accountability — describe the direction of travel.

4. Department for Education / University College LondonResearch summary
   Identifying and supporting the needs of children with SEND in mainstream settings — rapid evidence assessments (September 2025)

   A series of DfE-commissioned reviews. Explicitly not government policy. Useful for what the evidence does and does not support in mainstream identification and provision.

5. Department for EducationStatutory guidance
   SEND Code of Practice: 0 to 25 years (2015)

   Current statutory guidance. Sets out the graduated approach and makes clear that support follows identified need — a diagnosis is not a prerequisite for provision.

6. Education Endowment FoundationResearch summary
   Special Educational Needs in Mainstream Schools — guidance report (2020, updated 2021)

   The five-a-day principles and the argument that high-quality teaching, not a separate strategy for each label, is the strongest lever available to schools.

7. Education Endowment FoundationResearch summary
   Metacognition and Self-regulated Learning — guidance report (2018, updated 2021)

   Explicit teaching of planning, monitoring and evaluating. Relevant to organisation and task management, though the evidence is about teaching approaches generally rather than about ADHD specifically.

8. Department for EducationProfessional guidance
   Behaviour in schools: advice for headteachers and school staff (2024)

   Expects schools to consider whether behaviour is linked to SEND and to make reasonable adjustments, alongside clear and consistently applied expectations.