Learner support, SEND and inclusion software for FE colleges

General FE colleges are where Inclusion Studio starts. It is learner support and inclusion software for colleges: one place to hear the learner, agree support, record delivery and review it. A college may have a very large number of learners across dozens of courses, a small learning support team, many tutors and a steady stream of requests for help. This page explains the duties that shape that work, what learner support software for FE should do, how the support journey fits a college, and what the pilot will cover.

What are FE colleges legally expected to do for learners who need support?

Colleges must not discriminate against disabled learners and must make reasonable adjustments. Section 91 of the Equality Act 2010 covers applicants and students at further education institutions, and the duty to make adjustments in section 20 includes changing how things are done and providing auxiliary aids. The duty is anticipatory: you plan for the barriers disabled learners are likely to face, rather than waiting for each learner to ask. Our guide to reasonable adjustments in further education and the Equality Act guide go into detail.

For learners with special educational needs, the SEND code of practice 0 to 25 applies. It covers young people up to 25, and its chapter on further education sets out statutory duties on post-16 institutions, identifying SEN, SEN support in college, record keeping and funding. Section 66 of the Children and Families Act 2014 requires the governing body of a further education institution to use its best endeavours to make sure the special educational provision a learner’s needs call for is made, and the Code repeats that schools and colleges must do so. Where an EHC plan names a college, section 43 of the Children and Families Act 2014 requires the college to admit the learner. See also EHCPs in further education.

Colleges also work under inspection. Ofsted’s renewed FE and skills inspections began on 10 November 2025 and include an inclusion evaluation area looking at support for all learners, especially disadvantaged learners and those with SEND. Software cannot predict or improve an inspection outcome. What it can do is make your own records easier to keep and explain. See Ofsted inspection and learner support.

This page is not legal advice. Take professional advice for specific cases.

What makes learner support hard in a large college?

The hard parts are usually practical, not legal.

• Requests arrive by email, in corridors and through tutors, so nothing is in one place.
• Plans are agreed once and then not looked at again until something goes wrong.
• A tutor does not know which adjustments apply to this week’s session.
• Missed support, such as an absent support worker, goes unrecorded, so nobody knows what the learner actually received.
• Reviews ask staff how it went but rarely ask the learner.
• Evidence for a quality visit, a funding query or a complaint is assembled by hand from spreadsheets and inboxes.

What should learner support software do for an FE college?

Good learner support software for FE should make the support process easier to run and easier to check, without adding a second admin job. In practice that means:

• one way in for every request, with a named owner and a visible wait time;
• a support plan written with the learner, in their words, that tutors can actually find;
• a quick way to record support delivered and support missed, and how missed support was made up;
• reviews that ask the learner whether it helped, and end with a keep, change or stop decision;
• a controlled export when someone asks you to show what happened;
• permissions that limit each person to what their role needs.

If a tool cannot do these things, it is a filing system, not learner support software. Our guide to choosing learner support software has a fuller checklist you can use with any supplier.

How does Understand, Agree, Deliver, Review work in a college?

The journey is the same four steps for every learner, with different people leading each step.

Who uses Inclusion Studio in a college?

• Inclusion leads and learning support managers run triage, plans and reviews. See inclusion leads.
• Tutors see the adjustments that apply to their learners and record what they deliver. See tutors and assessors.
• Learners see their own plan and give feedback. See learners.
• Senior leaders and quality teams see aggregate patterns and controlled exports. See senior leaders and quality and compliance.
• Organisation admins manage who has access. Permissions are enforced on the server by organisation, relationship and field, not only by hiding buttons. See permissions and roles.

Is Inclusion Studio SEND software for colleges and post-16 providers?

Yes, in the sense that it helps a college record and track the support its learners with SEND need, including support set out in an EHC plan. It is not local authority EHCP casework software: it does not run EHC needs assessments, issue plans or manage annual review paperwork for the council. Colleges use it for their own part of the work, from learner voice to review and evidence. See SEND and ALS support for how that works for post-16 providers, and EHCPs in further education for the duties behind it.

What does the pilot cover for colleges?

The pilot starts with FE colleges and apprenticeship providers in England. It is a controlled pilot, so scope is deliberately narrow: the request-to-review journey, role-based views, delivery and missed-support recording, learner feedback and evidence export, tested with synthetic data first. Real learner data will not be used until the data protection impact assessment, contractual checks and security and privacy review are done. See the pilot page and the roadmap for the current position, and how it works.

Be clear about what is not claimed: there are no customers yet, no certifications, and no integration should be assumed until it is listed as verified. Imports and links to other systems are covered on imports and integrations.

How does Inclusion Studio support this process?

Inclusion Studio is a way to run the journey consistently. It does not decide who gets support, diagnose anyone, or make your college compliant. Your college stays responsible for its duties. Optional AI can draft wording from information a person has already entered, but a person reviews it before it is saved. See AI drafts.

If you work in a college and want to shape the pilot, contact us. For other settings, see sixth form colleges, apprenticeship providers, independent training providers, adult community learning, specialist post-16 institutions, the planned school edition and the solutions overview. To see how adjustments are tracked from agreement to review, read reasonable adjustments.