What a SENCO should bring to a SEN building brief

By Grayling Thomas Architects · November 2026

The SENCO's role in SEN building design is to supply the evidence an architect cannot find anywhere else. That means the school's needs profile and how it is changing, how many pupils have Education, Health and Care (EHC) plans and where that number is heading, the sensory, physical and medical needs that call for particular rooms or equipment, how pupils move and regulate through the day, how staff are deployed, and what is failing in the spaces the school uses now. Add a plan for hearing from pupils and families, and the design team can shape the building around real pupils rather than assumptions.

This article is about that evidence, not about room sizes or layouts. Those are covered elsewhere on this site and linked near the end.

What should a SENCO give the architect?

Most SEN building projects are led by a head, a business manager or an estates lead. The SENCO is often consulted late, asked to comment on drawings that already fix the number of rooms. That order wastes the SENCO's knowledge, because the decisions that matter most are made before anyone draws.

The Department for Education's guidance on inclusion bases in schools, published on 25 June 2026, is clear about the SENCO's place. Where a senior leader other than the SENCO holds strategic responsibility for a base for pupils with SEN, "the SENCO should also be involved in the strategic oversight of the planning, teaching and assessment in the base." The guidance is written for bases inside mainstream schools, but the evidence it expects applies just as well to a special school extension or a new SEN building.

A useful SENCO pack for the architect covers:

• the current needs profile and its direction of travel;

• EHC plan numbers, trends and what the plans commit the school to provide;

• sensory, physical and medical needs that require space, equipment or services;

• a picture of the pupil day, including where regulation happens and where it breaks down;

• the staffing pattern, including visiting professionals;

• what does not work in the current rooms, with examples;

• how pupils and families will be heard during design.

None of this needs to be polished. Spreadsheets, timetables and short notes are enough. What matters is that it is specific and dated.

The needs profile and where it is heading

Start with the primary areas of need across the pupils the space will serve, then show how that mix has moved over recent years and how it looks in the year groups coming through. A school whose intake is shifting towards autistic pupils with high sensory needs needs a different building from one where social, emotional and mental health needs are rising, even if the headcount is the same.

The DfE expects this kind of review anyway. Schools and responsible bodies setting up a base "should regularly review the profile of children and young people accessing the base to identify any potential trends". The guidance also says that "Where requested schools should contribute data about emerging education, health and social care needs, trends and provision" to local area planning. A SENCO who has already prepared that data for the local authority has most of the brief's first section written.

Trends matter to the architect because buildings outlast cohorts. The guidance puts it directly: "Flexibility should be part of the design, with sufficient space for different types of activities as the needs of the cohort change." If the SENCO can say which needs are growing, the design team can decide which rooms must stay flexible and which can be fitted out for one purpose.

EHC plans and what they commit the school to

Give the number of pupils with EHC plans, by year group, and how that has changed. Then go one step further and summarise what the plans require in practice. An EHC plan can specify therapy sessions, specialist equipment, small-group teaching or time out of class, and each of those needs somewhere to happen.

The guidance links plans directly to provision in a base: "The way the special educational provision is described in section F of the EHC plan will normally indicate provision which will be delivered through the base." It also says that where a pupil has a plan, "the curriculum in the base should be informed by their targets and outcomes". A short table that groups section F commitments by type (speech and language therapy, occupational therapy, physiotherapy, one-to-one support, sensory diets) tells the architect how many intervention spaces are really needed and how often each is used.

Pupils without plans count too. Many pupils receiving SEN support will use the same spaces, and they belong in the numbers.

Sensory, physical and medical needs that become rooms

Some needs translate straight into space, equipment and services. The SENCO should list them plainly: pupils who use wheelchairs or walking frames, pupils who need a hoist or a changing bed, medication that must be stored or administered on site, feeding needs, hearing or visual impairments, and pupils who are highly sensitive to noise, light or crowding.

Among the strategies the DfE suggests, "equipment is matched to children and young people's individual needs. For example, braille, touch typing, printing, sensory, physiotherapy equipment" and "accessible toilets and changing spaces are available, as appropriate". Each item on that list has a footprint, and some need drainage, power or ceiling structure that cannot easily be added later.

Therapists and nurses who work with the pupils should feed in directly. The guidance says that where health professionals and other specialists will support the pupils, "their views on the physical environment should be sought at the outset to inform scoping and design." The SENCO is usually the person who knows who they are and can get them into the room.

How does a pupil's day move through the building?

Architects plan routes, adjacencies and thresholds. The SENCO knows how pupils actually use them. A walk through a typical day, for two or three real (anonymised) pupils, is one of the most useful things a design team can receive.

Cover arrival and departure, including transport and whether a quieter entrance is needed. Cover transitions between lessons, break and lunch, and which of these cause the most difficulty. Note where pupils go when they need to regulate, how long they stay, and who goes with them. For pupils who split their time, note how much is spent in mainstream classes and how that changes, since the guidance recognises that "attending mainstream classes might flex from day to day and over time."

Be precise about the hard moments. The guidance asks schools to consider how shared spaces can be made more accessible, "particularly those who find noisy, busy spaces difficult." If the dining hall at twelve o'clock is the flashpoint, say so. If a corridor outside the hall is where incidents cluster, mark it on a plan. That evidence turns into decisions about where a calm room sits, how wide a corridor is, and whether pupils need a route that avoids the busiest areas.

Staffing patterns

The building has to work for the adults as well as the pupils. Tell the architect how many staff are typically in each group, how support staff are deployed across the day, which visiting professionals come in and how often, and where they currently work.

The guidance notes that "a key feature of many effective bases is a skilled multi-disciplinary and specialist staffing model", and adds that "Schools should consider staff workload and wellbeing when designing and operating the base." In practice that means somewhere for staff to step out, write up notes and store records securely, and sightlines that let one adult supervise a regulation space without leaving a group. A therapist who works from a cupboard because no room was planned is a briefing failure, not a design one.

What is failing in the current spaces

This is where the SENCO's evidence is hardest to replace. Describe what goes wrong in the rooms the school uses now: rooms staff avoid, spaces that are too loud or too bright, toilets too far from the classroom, a calm room that doubles as storage, interventions taught in corridors. Incident and behaviour logs that record location are especially valuable, because they show patterns the school may not have noticed.

Photographs help. So does a simple marked-up plan showing where each problem happens. A condition survey tells the architect what state the building is in; the SENCO tells them whether it works for the pupils.

Our guide to condition surveys for special schools explains how a survey can report suitability separately from condition.

How should pupils and families be involved in the design?

The DfE guidance is direct: "The voice of children and young people is important and schools should ensure opportunities for children accessing a base, and their families, to share their views on the provision." It adds that this "may include training and specialist advice around the use of tools and strategies for children who do not communicate verbally." Among its suggested strategies, "children and young people are involved in the decoration and design of the space". On whether a child uses a base at all, it is firm: "Schools should not place children in a base without involving their parents or carers in this decision."

The SENCO is best placed to plan how pupils take part, using the communication approaches they already know: visual choices, photographs of existing spaces, short walks round the site, or a pupil council session. Families can comment on drop-off, waiting areas and how the building feels on arrival. Plan this early enough for the answers to change the design.

Three projects and what they show

At Dorothy Goodman School in Hinckley, a new building for pupils aged 11-16, the practice's team "worked alongside the headteacher, business manager, teaching staff, and pupils". The design process "included input from a sixteen-year-old prefect". The completed building has "Wide circulation routes supporting easy orientation and reducing navigation anxiety", the kind of response that comes from knowing how pupils move and where they struggle.

At Chalk Hill SEN School, the cohort shaped the brief from the start: pupils aged 8-14, "with particular provision for those who have been permanently excluded or are at risk of exclusion from mainstream schools." The accommodation includes classrooms "with support group and 1:1 study areas" and "SEN spaces for sensory, multi-sensory, and soft play", with a courtyard "enabling outdoor learning, quiet study, and contemplative spaces". A clear account of who the pupils are produced a clear schedule of rooms.

The Mendlesham SEN project converted a community hall into "2 SEN Specialist Classrooms, Group Rooms, Offices and Toilets". It was "limited to a tight timeframe to enable students to move in to the building at the start of term" and "was constructed in 16 weeks." On a programme like that there is no time to gather evidence once design has begun. The SENCO's pack has to be ready on day one.

From evidence to design

Once the evidence is gathered, the design team turns it into space. For a base inside a mainstream school, our guide to inclusion base design explains how the cohort and the base's position on the DfE's continuum drive its size and layout.

For a school in Oxfordshire considering a base, our guide to Oxfordshire's new SEND resource bases covers what a host school needs from the building.

For the rooms themselves, SEN classrooms: size, layout and what makes them work covers classroom areas, the support spaces next to them and how they are arranged, using the DfE's BB104 area guidelines.

For a whole building or a large extension, designing a SEN building sets out the wider brief, the specialist spaces a special school needs and how new places are funded.

Related guides

• BB104 explained: area guidelines for SEND and alternative provision

• School building grants in England: the capital funding routes for new facilities

• Building work on a live school site: phasing, safeguarding and keeping teaching going

SEN building briefs at Grayling Thomas Architects

Grayling Thomas Architects is a RIBA Chartered Practice, working since 2010, that offers SEN and education architecture alongside CIF bid writing and condition surveys. We work with SENCOs, heads and business managers from the first briefing meeting, so that the pupil evidence shapes the schedule of rooms before any plan is fixed. For Dorothy Goodman School, the practice was CIF bid writer, lead consultant and architect.

If your school is planning new SEN space and you want the SENCO's knowledge in the brief from the start, see our SEN school architecture service or contact the practice.