Every student deserves an education where they feel included, understood and supported. But making that happen takes more than good intentions. It requires the right people, resources and support behind the scenes.
Across schools, teachers and support staff are working hard to meet increasingly diverse student needs. However, when teams are stretched, providing the individual attention and specialist support some pupils need becomes much more difficult.
Research from the National Education Union (NEU) highlights the scale of the challenge. Its 2026 survey found that 83% of teachers identified insufficient support staff as a significant barrier to successful inclusion. High workload was identified by 74%, while 69% pointed to a lack of access to specialist services.
The findings also showed that 96% of support staff who responded considered insufficient staffing a barrier to inclusive education.
Read the NEU’s State of Education 2026: SEND findings.
Inclusion Needs More Than Good Intentions
Teachers and support staff play an important role in helping students with special educational needs and disabilities feel included in everyday school life.
But they cannot be expected to do everything without adequate support. Large workloads, staffing shortages and limited access to specialists can make an already demanding responsibility even harder.
The answer is not simply asking school teams to give more. Schools need the capacity, resources and specialist support to make inclusive education work in practice.
Supporting the People Who Support Students
There is another part of inclusion that deserves attention: the wellbeing of the people delivering it.
When staff spend their days managing demanding responsibilities and supporting students with complex needs, their own wellbeing can easily be overlooked. Over time, that pressure can affect how supported, motivated and able they feel at work.
At Shoorah, we believe staff wellbeing should be part of the wider conversation about education. Through our workplace wellbeing platform and Employee Assistance Programme, education organisations can give employees access to confidential counselling, advice and wellbeing resources when they need support.
This does not replace the staffing, funding or specialist services schools need. But it can help ensure that teachers and support staff have somewhere to turn, too.
Because supporting every student starts with creating an environment where the people supporting them feel supported themselves.
