Guidance

Guide for independent special institutions applying for inclusion on the Secretary of State approved list

Updated 1 April 2026

Applies to England and Wales

Introduction

We publish a list of independent special schools and special post-16 institutions approved by the Secretary of State for Education. The Special Educational Needs and Disability Regulations 2014 set out the criteria for inclusion and removal of institutions.

We only include institutions on the list with their consent.

This guidance explains how institutions can apply to be considered for inclusion in the approved list.

Independent special institutions include:

• independent special schools (ISSs) in England and Wales, which:
  • are on the register of independent educational institutions under the Education and Skills Act 2008 (published through Get Information about Schools (GIAS)).
  • offer special educational provision for students with special educational needs
• special post–16 institutions which:
  • are legally established to provide education and are not maintained schools or further education (FE) colleges
  • provide specialist post-16 education and support to young people with some of the most severe learning difficulties or disabilities or low incidence needs

Special institutions that are not in scope of the approved list, include:

• non-maintained special schools that cater for pupils up to the age of 18
• special academies and free schools
• other local authority-maintained provision, for example:
  • pupil referral units
  • special units attached to mainstream schools

What’s involved

Applying to join the approved list means you are voluntarily subject to certain duties. This includes:

• being on your local authority’s published local offer of support available to children and young people with special educational needs (SEN)
• co-operating with your local authority on arrangements for children and young people with SEN
• following the special educational needs and disability code of practice

The Special Educational Needs and Disability Regulations 2014 gives parents and young people the right to express a preference for independent specialist provision in their education, health and care (EHC) plan. If they request an approved independent special school or special post-16 institution, the local authority is under a conditional duty to accept. They can only refuse if:

• it would be unsuitable for the age, ability, aptitude or SEN of the child or young person
• the attendance of the child or young person would be incompatible with the efficient education of others, or the efficient use of resources

If you are named on an EHC plan, you must admit the pupil or student.

Special post-16 institutions are also able to apply annually for a funding agreement from the Department for Education (DfE). This means they can receive high-needs place funding directly (in the same way as general FE colleges). High-needs funding for 16- to 25-year-olds includes mainstream 16 to 19 funding (known as element 1) and high-needs place funding (known as element 2). Getting a funding agreement is subject to:

• local authorities’ commissioning decisions
• a separate due diligence process

When to apply and eligibility

The annual online application window opens on 1 May 2026 and closes on 12 June 2026.

Independent special schools (ISS) in England and Wales must be:

• registered with the Secretary of State. We cannot consider ISS applicants that have not registered and been included on Get Information about Schools (GIAS).

Special post-16 institutions (SPIs) must be:

• legally established
• registered for the delivery of education with Companies House or the Charity Commission

We will not consider any applications and supporting evidence received after the closing date. Late applicants must re-apply during the next annual application window.

We will not consider applications from:

• SPIs which are not in scope
• SPIs which are not legally established or registered with Companies House or the Charity Commission
• ISSs which are not registered on GIAS

2026 application window

Date	Activity
1 May 2026	Application window opens
12 June 2026	Application window closes
1 May to 31 July 2026	Applications reviewed and moderated
31 August 2026	Applicants informed and list updated

Application submission

You will receive an automated application submission confirmation within 15 minutes. Email hns.sos@education.gov.uk if this is not received.

Application outcomes will be sent by 31 August 2026.

We may contact you after the application closing date if we need more information following the validation checks. You must provide the information within the specified timeframe. Failure to respond to requests within the timeframe may result in the application failing.

Application process

We will assess applications against the criteria set out in part 5 of the Special Educational Needs and Disability Regulations 2014.

There are 3 stages to the application and you will need to complete all 3 stages:

• stage 1 – institution type and trading information
• stage 2 – financial health assessment
• stage 3 – type and quality of provision

If you do not respond in full to the questions, we may not be able to progress your application. If you do not fully engage with all 3 application stages, it will impact our assessment.

Stage 1 – Institution type and trading information (specialism and background information)

Select the appropriate institution from:

• independent special school (England and Wales)
• special post-16 institution

Complete all relevant fields in this section. This includes:

• the type of company, which must align to the information held at Companies House or the Charity Commission
• whether your institution currently holds a DfE funding agreement (special post-16 institutions only)
• your institution’s 6-digit unique reference number (independent special schools only)
• your institution’s information as listed on Get Information about Schools
• your institution’s web address (if you do not have a web address, enter ‘not applicable’)
• your institution’s trading name and address

Pupil or student cohort (specialism and background information)

If you currently have no pupils or students enrolled at your institution, you should not apply.

We will use this information to confirm that most of the provision you offer is specialist educational provision to pupils and students aged between 0 and 25 with special educational needs. We expect that at least 51% of the pupil or student intake will have an EHC plan naming your organisation or will receive high-needs top-up funding from a commissioning local authority or high-needs funding.

You should provide the total number of pupils or students as at the start of the current academic year and show a breakdown of the number of pupils or students with and without an EHC plan or high-needs funding. This must align with the supporting information you provide – for example, recent inspection reports.

If we are unable to verify the cohort information, we will ask you to obtain confirmation from commissioning local authorities of the number of pupils or students they have placed with you in the current academic year.

It would be advisable to discuss cohort confirmation with commissioning local authorities prior to making an application because if they do not confirm that a majority of placements are for children and young people with complex needs (requiring an EHC plan, high-needs top-up funding or both), your application will fail.

Local authority confirmation must include how many of these pupils or students are subject to an EHC plan, are in receipt of high-needs place funding or both.

Do not send in personal pupil or student information.

We will review the information you provide.

Stage 2 – Financial health assessment

We will assess your financial health using our financial health assessment. You should read the financial health assessment and check that you meet the minimum requirements as we will assess your financial health against this.

You must provide financial documentation in support of your application. This should be the latest approved or filed full financial statements. They must include explanatory notes to the accounts and contain every page. If you do not provide the correct financial information with your application, you will receive an inadequate financial rating.

You must submit:

• full, signed, final financial statements for your organisation – abbreviated accounts are not acceptable
• a breakdown of all creditors to enable DfE to identify all borrowings – this includes a further breakdown of other creditors (if shown within your financial statements)
• full, signed, final financial statements for your ultimate UK parent company (where applicable) – abbreviated accounts are not acceptable

If your organisation is unable to supply statutory financial statements because it has not traded for a sufficient period, you must supply management accounts to date, showing actual activity, along with forecast figures for a remaining period. The combined information must cover a period no less than one year, with the management accounts comprising at least 6 months of actual trading activity. Actively trading is determined here as including income and expenditure arising as a result of trade and does not include the incurrence of set-up or start-up costs. As a minimum, these must consist of:

• a profit-and-loss account covering a minimum 12-month period, from the commencement of trading
• an end-of-period forecast balance sheet
• a minimum 12-month rolling cash-flow statement covering the same period as the profit-and-loss account and the balance sheet
• detailed narrative supporting assumptions made for both management accounts and forecast information

We will review the information you provide and categorise your financial health. If we assess your financial health as inadequate, you will fail the application process.

We may conduct further financial checks during the application process.

Stage 3 – Type and quality of provision

We will ask you what type of provision you offer. This includes:

• day placements only
• residential placements only
• a mix of day and residential placements

If you offer residential placements, you will need to provide the:

• date
• rating
• reference
• link to your latest inspection report

The absence of this information will result in the application not proceeding.

You must notify us immediately of any changes to your offered provision by emailing hns.sos@education.gov.uk.

You should confirm if your education provision is subject to inspection by:

• Ofsted – the education inspectorate for England
• the Independent Schools Inspectorate – appointed by DfE to inspect association independent schools in England
• Estyn – the education and training inspectorate for Wales

You should provide the:

• date
• rating
• reference
• link to the inspectorate report for your last full inspection

If your institution is inspected by Ofsted or Estyn, you should confirm your last full inspection rating. If your institution is inspected by the Independent Schools Inspectorate, you should confirm the rating for the quality of pupils’ achievement and learning.

You will fail the application process if your inspection rated your institution as inadequate overall or in part, or if provider-level judgements show ‘urgent improvement’ is needed in leadership, governance or inclusion, or there is ‘unmet’ safeguarding.

Providers not compliant with Ofsted, Estyn, Care Quality Commission or Care Inspectorate Wales standards will be unsuccessful.

We will review any published emergency inspection reports that have taken place after your last inspection.

If you have successfully met stage 1 and stage 2, but have not yet had a full inspection, we will provisionally include you on the list until an inspection takes place.

Special post-16 institutions not inspected by Ofsted

Special post-16 institutions that are not in receipt of funding directly from DfE are not in scope for inspection by Ofsted. This means we will provisionally include special post-16 institutions who successfully pass stages 1 and 2 on the list.

We will arrange for a DfE education adviser to visit the planned delivery site as part of stage 3 of the process within 24 months of publication of the approved list. This visit will focus on:

• the quality of provision
• the proposed curriculum and study programmes
• internal policies in place
• qualifications and experience of management and teaching staff
• governance arrangements

Following the visit, the education adviser will submit a report to us on their findings. If we are satisfied with their findings, we will include the institution on the main published list. If we consider the findings to be unsatisfactory, we will remove the institution from the list with immediate effect.

Your contact information

The application must include contact details for the principal or head of the institution. If the principal or head application is not submitting the application, you must also provide your own contact details.

We will use this information to:

• notify you of your application outcome.
• ask for further information if needed.

Declaration

All applicants must complete the declaration section. This confirms that:

• you are authorised to submit the application on behalf of the institution
• the information you have provided is accurate

Decision

We will consider the evidence you provide in support of all the qualifying criteria.

We will inform you of our decision in writing via the email address provided in your application. We will update the approved list on 31 August 2026.

All decisions are final and not subject to appeal.

If you fail, you can reapply during the next annual window.

Applications outside the application window

You can submit an exceptional application outside the annual process if you are:

• an independent special school that has registered with DfE in the past 12 months
• a special post-16 institution that has registered with Companies House or the Charity Commission in the past 12 months

To submit an exceptional application, you need to email hns.sos@education.gov.uk and include your institution’s:

• name
• DfE registration number and registration date (independent special schools only)
• Companies House or Charity Commission number
• date when they were legally established (special post-16 institutions only)

If you meet the exceptions criteria, we will ask you to complete an application form. Exceptional applications are subject to the same eligibility criteria as applications received in the annual process.

If your application is unsuccessful, you will need to reapply during the next annual window.

Review of the list of independent special institutions

We review the list of approved institutions each term. We expect all institutions on the list to continue to meet the qualifying criteria.

We will notify all local authorities in England of an institution’s removal from the approved list.

We will remove institutions for safeguarding concerns or where there are concerns that the quality of education is unsatisfactory.

During this review, we will consider any new information such as:

• recent inspection reports
• emergency inspection reports
• monitoring visits

If the Secretary of State has received serious concerns relating to an institution, we will consider removing them from the list.

Voluntary removal requests are normally processed as part of the 3 termly reviews.

In circumstances where an exceptional update is required between reviews – for example, where safeguarding concerns arise and a provider needs to be removed – voluntary removal requests would also be removed from the approved list.

Providers remain listed as approved and must comply with Section 41 legislation until the updated list is officially published on GOV.UK.

Contact us

If you have any questions about any part of the application process, email hns.sos@education.gov.uk.