Oxfordshire's new SEND resource bases: what a host school needs from the building

By Grayling Thomas Architects · November 2026

Oxfordshire County Council is adding SEND resource bases in two ways: building them into new mainstream schools, and working with existing schools that have rooms they can repurpose. The second route is the one open to most headteachers today. A host school needs teaching and small-group rooms close to the mainstream classes its base pupils will join, a calm way in, direct access to outside space and a programme that has the rooms finished before the first pupils arrive. The council judges proposals against published criteria, and the state of the school's accommodation is one of them.

Where is Oxfordshire opening new resource bases?

The council's plan is the Oxfordshire SEND Sufficiency Delivery Strategy 2022/23 to 2026/27. It sets out a spatial framework for special school places and "a structure for the phased expansion of the network of Resource Base provision".

Progress is reported to councillors. A council scrutiny report on the delivery of special education provision tracks it. The report says the number of resource base places in Oxfordshire schools "has increased by 10% between 2021/22 and 2024/25, compared to an increase in overall pupil numbers in Oxfordshire of 3%". With the bases then confirmed, the same report expected over 80 additional places compared with the July 2023 Ofsted date.

That report names three new mainstream schools where accommodation for a base was built in from the start: Barton Park Primary School in Oxford, St John's CE Academy in Grove, and Windrush CE Primary School in Witney. Each base is designated for particular needs, such as social, emotional and mental health (SEMH), autism spectrum disorder (ASD), or communication and interaction.

New schools are slow, though, and the council has said so. It is working "with existing schools which have accommodation which can be repurposed as a Base", so that bases open "more quickly than can be delivered though new schools". The first named example is St Frideswide CE Primary School in Oxford, which the report said would open a 16-place base in 2025/26 for communication and interaction and SEMH needs. The report adds that "there has been considerable interest from other primary schools in opening Resource Bases".

The council said in March 2024, in an earlier news update, that it was planning new resource bases in several towns. These were five resource bases in new schools, "with up to 96 places, in Didcot, East Oxford and Wantage by September 2029". For needs other than SEMH and ASD, the same update listed "two resource bases in new schools, with up to 16 places, in Banbury and Faringdon, by September 2026". That target date has now passed. The dates come from that earlier news item; the plans may have moved since and depend on new schools opening on time, so confirm the current position, including whether those bases have opened, with the council's place planning team before building a proposal around them.

The new special school serving Didcot

Didcot matters to mainstream heads in the south of the county. A cabinet member decision report of 17 March 2026 states plainly that "Didcot currently has no special schools". It describes children and young people with SEND facing "long journeys to access suitable education provision".

The report sought approval of the specification for the Didcot Valley Park Special School and a competitive process to find an academy sponsor. The specification is "A 120-place special school, specialising in PMLD and SLD needs", that is, profound and multiple or severe learning difficulties. Its age range is given as 2 to 19. The county council will not run it. On timing, the report's wording is that "the current expectation is that the school will open in 2028". It also says "work is already underway to progress the ASD/SEMH school on the Aureus secondary school site", a second special school for the area.

For a host school, the point is that special schools and resource bases do different jobs. The council expects a new community special school in Didcot to "free up significant amounts of capacity" at other special schools. Resource bases serve a different group: children who can stay in their local mainstream school with the right support and the right rooms. The council's own priorities include "Projects which enable children to remain within mainstream schools".

Resource bases in the new national guidance

Oxfordshire's documents still say resource base. The Department for Education's Inclusion bases in schools, published on 25 June 2026, uses a new name: "The term inclusion base replaces the terms SEN unit, resourced provision, and pupil support unit". A council base becomes, in national terms, a specialist base, "commissioned and funded by the local authority". Our guide to inclusion base design covers the national guidance in full, so this article sticks to what is particular to Oxfordshire.

The national guidance also expects councils to choose host schools openly. Local authorities "should set out a clear and transparent process for selecting schools", for example "via expressions of interest assessed against evaluation criteria". Oxfordshire already does something close to this.

The council's tests for a host school

The council "continues to invite interest from both mainstream and special schools in further projects to expand SEND provision". Its scrutiny report lists the principles it uses to weigh proposals. Most are about leadership and inclusion: investment should go to schools with "strong leadership of SEND, and capacity to manage the proposed investment and new provision".

Several tests are about the building, and these are where an architect can help a head make the case:

• whether "Existing quality of education for SEND is compromised by the available accommodation, which could be resolved through the proposed investment";

• whether the proposal would "Make more effective use of OCC's education estate and assets";

• whether it would "Represent good value for money";

• whether it complies with council governance, including sustainability and BB104, the DfE's area guidelines for SEND.

The council is candid about the difficulties. Spare classrooms appear "gradually, as pupil numbers fall", and adapting former mainstream accommodation for special education "is not always straightforward". A proposal that shows exactly which rooms would be used, how they would be altered and what that costs answers those concerns before they are raised.

What does a host school need from the building?

The base has to suit the needs it is designated for, and it has to stay part of the school. The DfE guidance asks schools to prioritise "locating the base close to mainstream classes and shared spaces such as playgrounds and sports halls, ideally within the same building". It lists teaching spaces, support spaces for small-group, one-to-one, sensory, regulation and therapy work, and "direct access to purposeful outside space". A dedicated drop-off, entrance and play area may be right for some pupils, "with careful consideration to how they support an inclusive approach".

Our guide to what a SENCO should bring to a SEN building brief sets out the needs evidence the school can gather before the design starts.

On an existing site, those principles turn into practical questions:

• Rooms. Is there a pair of adjoining classrooms, or a classroom with a smaller room next to it, that can be released without squeezing the rest of the school?

• Adjacency. Are those rooms near the classes and year groups the base pupils will join, or at the far end of the site?

• Entrance. Can pupils arrive calmly, away from the busiest door at the start of the day, without the base feeling shut off?

• Outside. Is there a door straight to a garden or play space that can be used on its own or opened up to the main playground?

• Services. Are toilets, and any changing facilities the cohort needs, close by? Is there storage and a quiet space for staff and families?

• Sound and light. Does the room share a wall with the hall, the kitchen or a music room?

For room sizes, the DfE's area guidelines for SEND and alternative provision (BB104) are the reference the council names. Our article on SEN classroom size and layout explains how those areas work in practice. The legal responsibility stays with the school: schools "must satisfy themselves that any decisions about the physical environment meet any relevant legal requirements in relation to the premises of the institution".

Approvals and the school year

Adding a base is a formal change. The council's report says statutory processes apply to significant changes to existing schools and academies, "including expansion or adding a SEND Resource Base", and that these "inevitably add to the timescale". For a maintained school, a statutory consultation is followed by a decision of the local authority. An academy applies to the Department for Education, for approval by the DfE Regional Director.

Building work follows its own approvals. The report says significant changes to accommodation, in particular new schools, will require planning permission, which can cause delay. The council notes that construction "can be accelerated through the use of modular / off -site construction techniques, where these are suitable".

The DfE guidance asks commissioners to allow lead-in time for "environment setup" and a "pre-opening review by the commissioner". In a school, that usually means working back from the first day of a term. If the base must open in September, the design, approvals and contractor need to be in place early enough for the main works to fit the summer holiday, with furniture and equipment in before the review.

Where the conversion has to happen while the school is open, our guide to building work on a live school site covers phasing, safeguarding and keeping teaching going.

What our projects show a host school

Three of the practice's projects speak to the decisions a host school faces.

Mendlesham SEN is the closest to a resource base in existing space. It was the "conversion of a Community Hall into 2 SEN Specialist Classrooms, Group Rooms, Offices and Toilets". The project page says it "was limited to a tight timeframe to enable students to move in to the building at the start of term", and that the work "was constructed in 16 weeks". The practice supported planning, building regulations and project management through to handover. It shows that repurposed space can open to a fixed term date, if the approvals start early.

At Deddington Primary School in Oxfordshire, the practice added "single-storey extensions for drama and music studios, group rooms, a link corridor and a nursery" to a working primary school. The studio hall has "its own dedicated entrance". A base can work the same way, with its own calm front door and a short internal link to the classes its pupils join.

Bishop Loveday Classroom Block shows what the brief can draw from the people who will use the building. Its layout "came out of meetings with the headteacher, business manager, teaching staff and pupils", and its highlights include "Sensory and multi-sensory suites" and "Wide corridors and easy-mapping circulation". Those are the qualities a base for autistic pupils or pupils with SEMH needs relies on, at a smaller scale.

Related guides

• BB104 explained: area guidelines for SEND and alternative provision

• Designing a SEN building: the brief, the spaces and how it is funded

• Short of space or short of the right rooms? A BB103 check for schools

Resource base design at Grayling Thomas Architects

Grayling Thomas Architects is a RIBA Chartered Practice based at The Theatre, 7 Goddards Lane, Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire. For a school thinking about hosting a resource base, we can survey the rooms you could release, test the options against the council's criteria and the DfE guidance, and prepare the plans and costs that support an expression of interest. We then take the design through planning, building regulations and construction to opening.

Read more about our SEN school architecture. To talk through your site, contact Grayling Thomas Architects.