Funding
Funding routes for SEND, sensory spaces and neurodiversity support
Two halves: the funding your school or organisation can use to pay for us, and the funding our Community Interest Company can bid for so the work reaches people who cannot pay.
Honest note: we have not been awarded any of the grants listed below yet. These are the routes we pursue and help partners pursue. Funder rules and deadlines change, so always check the current guidance before you commit to a plan.
Funding you can use to pay for our work
SEN notional budget
Mainstream schools
The first portion of additional support for pupils with SEND, commonly used for staff CPD, small group work and calming room equipment.
Watch out: It is a notional amount inside your delegated budget, not a separate pot. Your business manager will know what is uncommitted.
High needs top-up funding
Schools with pupils on EHCPs or at risk of placement breakdown
Named pupil support above the notional threshold, including 1-to-1 regulation work and specialist spaces where it is in the plan.
Watch out: Requested through your local authority and tied to named pupils and their plans. Evidence of need and intended outcomes is required.
Pupil premium
Schools with disadvantaged pupils
Wellbeing, attendance and behaviour interventions that raise attainment for eligible pupils, including staff training.
Watch out: Must be justified in your pupil premium strategy statement with an evidence rationale and impact measures.
Devolved formula capital and capital maintenance
Maintained schools and academies
Physical works: converting a room into a calming or SEND space, acoustics, lighting, and outdoor pods as capital items.
Watch out: Capital funding cannot be spent on training or staffing. Pair it with revenue funding for the training that makes the space work.
Trust central and school improvement budgets
Academy trusts
Trust-wide CPD, a shared SEND provision across schools, or a pilot in one school before wider rollout.
Watch out: Usually needs a business case with cost per pupil and expected impact on exclusions and attendance.
Local authority early help and SEND inclusion funds
Schools, families and community groups
Preventative family support, parent workshops and inclusion projects, varying by authority.
Watch out: Local schemes open and close. We will help you check what is currently open in your area.
Access to Work
Employed adults, including school staff
Government funded workplace support for disabled and neurodivergent employees, including coaching and strategy support.
Watch out: Applied for by the individual, not the employer.
Funding the CIC bids for, with you or for you
The National Lottery Community Fund
Community-led projects improving wellbeing. Small grants for local delivery, larger programmes for multi-year work.
Strong fit for family regulation groups, parent support and community sessions in Essex.
Community foundations
Local grant programmes distributed county by county, including Essex, often quicker and less competitive than national funds.
Best first route for a small pilot with local beneficiary numbers.
Independent trusts and foundations
Charitable trusts funding children, young people, disability, mental health and community wellbeing.
Suited to multi-year programmes with clear outcome measures and a defined beneficiary group.
Children and young people funders
Grant programmes focused on children facing disadvantage, including emotional wellbeing and SEND support.
Fits our schools and families work where pupils are waiting for assessment or support.
Health and wellbeing funds
Physical and mental wellbeing programmes, social prescribing and preventative community health projects.
Fits nervous system regulation and brain health delivery alongside NHS pathways.
Corporate sponsorship and social value
Employers funding community delivery, equipment or a Peace POD, and reporting it as social value.
Fast, flexible, and reportable on both sides.
Applying together, step by step
- 1.Agree who is applying: the school, the CIC, or both as lead and delivery partner.
- 2.Define the beneficiaries in numbers: how many pupils, families or staff, and from where.
- 3.Agree the outcomes and how they will be measured before the bid is written.
- 4.We provide the delivery costs, method statement, safeguarding and governance evidence.
- 5.You provide the local need evidence, letters of support and match funding if required.
- 6.We report back together, honestly, including anything that did not work.
Funding questions
- Can a Community Interest Company apply for funding?
- Yes. A CIC is eligible for a great many grant programmes, including National Lottery funding, community foundation grants and corporate sponsorship, because it is legally committed to community benefit through an asset lock. Some funders restrict applications to registered charities, so eligibility must be checked programme by programme, and a CIC can often apply jointly with a school or charity partner in those cases.
- Who funds Community Interest Companies?
- Typical funders are the National Lottery Community Fund, local community foundations, independent charitable trusts, local authority and public health grant programmes, NHS and integrated care board community funds, and corporate social value or sponsorship budgets. CICs also earn income through trading and commissioned contracts, which many funders view positively as evidence of sustainability.
- Can a school use its SEN budget to pay for a calming room?
- In most cases yes, for equipment, training and small adaptations funded from revenue, with larger physical works funded from capital instead. Record the decision and the intended outcomes in your SEND plan so it stands up to scrutiny.
- Will you help us write the funding bid?
- Yes. Find Your Inner Peace Community CIC regularly supplies the delivery section, costings, method statement, safeguarding and governance evidence for school and community bids, and will apply jointly where that is the stronger route.
- Do you offer free or subsidised places?
- Where grant funding or sponsorship is in place, yes. The whole reason the CIC exists is to reach families, schools and adults who cannot pay privately. Ask us what is currently funded.
Work out the funding with us
Tell us what you want to put in place and what budget exists. We will tell you honestly which route fits, and whether a joint funding bid is the stronger move.