A reflection by Denise Yates, Chair of The Potential Trust, on inclusion, dual and multiple exceptionality, and the courage now required from schools, families, policy-makers and communities.

The Government document, ‘Every Child Achieving and Thriving’, published in April 2026, sets out an ambition that few in education would dispute: every child should be able to achieve, belong and flourish. But the question for all of us — schools, multi-academy trusts, alternative provision, families, policy-makers and the wider community — is not whether we agree with that ambition. The question is whether we are prepared to change the everyday experience of children in our classrooms, corridors and communities so that the ambition becomes real.

For too long, the SEND system has asked families, pupils and schools to navigate complexity rather than experience confidence. We have built processes to secure support, but not always environments where support is designed in from the start. We have asked mainstream schools to become more inclusive, while giving staff too little time, training and confidence to understand the full range of learners before them; and we have too often allowed children to be seen first through the lens of difficulty, deficit or diagnosis rather than through possibility, potential and voice.

Inclusion cannot be an add-on.

‘Every Child Achieving and Thriving’ rightly describes a shift from a narrow to a broader school experience, from children being sidelined to being included, and from withdrawal to engagement. That language matters. It recognises that achievement is not simply the product of harder working pupils or more determined parents. It is shaped by the systems, cultures and relationships around a child.

If inclusion remains a specialist project, owned by a SENDCo and accessed only when a pupil has reached a threshold, we will continue to respond too late. The most powerful inclusive work happens earlier: in the ordinary lesson; in the way instructions are given; in the flexibility of recording knowledge; in the readiness to use technology without stigma; in the relationship between an adult and a child who has begun to believe school is not for them.

Why dual and multiple exceptionality must be part of the conversation.

One group of learners shows exactly why reform must go deeper than labels: children and young people with dual and multiple exceptionality, often known as DME. These are learners with high learning potential alongside one or more additional needs. They may be intellectually curious, verbally sophisticated, creative, original and capable of flashes of remarkable insight, while also finding organisation, handwriting, processing speed, social communication, sensory regulation or emotional resilience difficult.

In my work on DME, I have seen how easily these learners can be missed. Their strengths may mask their needs, meaning they appear to be coping when they are actually working at an unsustainable cost. Equally, their needs may mask their strengths, meaning their potential is underestimated and their frustration misunderstood. As I have argued in professional guidance on DME, schools need to look at the whole child across different contexts, recognise the uneven profile, and ask not “Why won’t this pupil engage?” but “What barriers are preventing this pupil from showing what they can do?” Research and professional guidance on DME highlight the importance of identifying both strengths and areas of struggle, rather than allowing one to obscure the other.

For schools, this is a crucial point. A genuinely inclusive school or MAT does not only ask whether pupils with identified SEND are supported. It asks whether every school has the knowledge, curiosity and flexibility to notice hidden potential, hidden distress and hidden barriers. It asks whether high attainers who are struggling are being understood, not dismissed. It asks whether difference is being recognised before it turns into absence, anxiety, behaviour incidents, underachievement or exclusion.

The neuroinclusive classroom: evolution, not revolution

The work being developed with Microlink – and with which I have been involved in its module on Dual and Multiple Exceptionality – around the Neuroinclusive Classroom offers one practical route forward. Its philosophy is simple but profound: barriers should be removed by design, not by exception.

The model uses existing and emerging assistive technologies, many already embedded in the platforms schools use every day, to enable pupils to learn more independently and confidently. It draws on universal design, the social model of disability, adaptive teaching and a renewed understanding of classroom culture.

Microlink describes the Neuroinclusive Classroom as combining technology with the neuroscience of connection, using assistive technologies, universal design and adaptive teaching to make mainstream classrooms more accessible.

This matters because inclusion does not always require wholesale structural upheaval. Sometimes it begins with text-to-speech being normalised, not hidden. Sometimes it begins with a pupil being able to dictate an idea before the idea is lost. Sometimes it begins with captions, mind mapping, reading support, visual structure, AI-supported scaffolding or a classroom routine that reduces cognitive overload. Sometimes it begins with a teaching assistant shifting from doing for a child to enabling that child to do more for themselves.

The strength of this approach is that it benefits far more than the child with a diagnosis. When a classroom is designed so that neurodivergent learners can access learning with dignity, more children benefit: the anxious child, the pupil with English as an additional language, the young person returning after absence, the highly able learner who thinks differently, the child who has not yet found the words to explain what is hard.

What this means for The Potential Trust

The Potential Trust exists to champion potential wherever it is hidden, overlooked or misunderstood. Our work is rooted in the belief that inclusion is not simply a matter of access to support, but of access to possibility. SEND reform cannot be delivered through isolated initiatives or short bursts of training. It requires a shared language, shared expectations and a deeper understanding of how strengths and needs can sit side by side in the same child.

For The Potential Trust, the challenge is also an invitation: to help schools, leaders and communities see children more fully. We want to support cultures where staff feel equipped rather than blamed, where parents are heard earlier, and where children’s gifts are recognised alongside their barriers. We want professional learning that helps teachers recognise complexity without losing sight of ambition. We want technology to be used intelligently, not as a bolt-on, but as part of everyday teaching and learning.

From	To
Reactive support after difficulty escalates	Early, designed-in accessibility as part of quality first teaching
Labels as the gateway to understanding	Curiosity about strengths, needs, context and lived experience
Assistive technology for a few pupils	Accessible tools normalised for all learners who benefit
Teaching assistants as permanent adult dependence	Teaching assistants as enablers of independence and confidence
Inclusion owned by specialists	Inclusion owned by every adult, every classroom and every school

A call to courage

Whilst there is understandable nervousness about the impact the SEND White Paper and the resulting reforms will have in practice, is important because it gives the sector as a whole – including alternative provision, home education and online and blended learning as well as bricks and mortar schools – permission to think differently.

But permission is not the same as transformation. Transformation will be seen in the:

• child who no longer feels that support marks them out as different.
• teacher who knows how to adapt without lowering expectations.
• parent or carer who is believed earlier.
• pupil with DME whose brilliance is finally recognised alongside their struggle.

It will be seen when belonging is not something we ask children to earn, but something we build around them.

The Potential Trust can help play a part in this work. Not by promising easy answers, but by asking better questions. Not by treating SEND as someone else’s responsibility, but by placing inclusion, potential and belonging at the heart of educational improvement. Not by waiting for crisis, but by helping to design classrooms, cultures and systems where more children can succeed from the outset.

If every child is to achieve and thrive, then every classroom must be built for difference, every adult must be trusted to learn, and every community must be brave enough to make belonging its measure of success.

Denise Yates

September 2026

The Potential Trust is currently part of a consortium looking at developing a strengths-based holistic assessment model from pre-school through to the world of work as part of our Quest Programme

For further information about our Quest Programme click here

For more information on Microlink’s upcoming events and webinars click here

For more information on Microlink’s DME module click here