A free, practical audit tool to help primary schools notice the everyday barriers that can make participation easier – or harder – for children.

It’s easy to know what should be happening across a school. This audit helps you step into the spaces children actually experience and look at what is happening in practice.

Designed by Specialist Occupational Therapist Sadie Charlton, the Whole School Inclusion Snapshot Audit takes a sensory-informed, participation-focused look at classrooms, dining and lunch areas, playgrounds, regulation spaces, transitions and whole-school adult practice.

Rather than giving your school a score, it encourages curiosity. What is already working well? Where are the pressure points? What are pupils and families telling you? Where might practice differ between adults or environments? And what small changes could make participation easier?

You can use the audit as a complete whole-school snapshot or simply choose one area when something keeps coming up. Each section includes practical observation prompts, examples of good practice, possible barriers to notice and non-leading questions to help gather pupil voice.

At the end, bring what you have noticed together into strengths, gaps, quick wins, medium-term developments and longer-term priorities, with clear ownership and review points.

It can be used to support:

• whole-school SEND and inclusion development

• reviewing your universal offer

• gathering practical evidence to inform an Inclusion Strategy

• SENDCo and leadership discussions

• staff reflection and development

• conversations with pupils and families

• reviewing whether agreed changes are actually happening in everyday practice

This isn’t a test, and there is no perfect score.

The purpose isn’t to prove your school is inclusive. It’s to help you notice where participation could be made a little easier.

Download it free, type directly into the editable PDF or print it and take it with you as you walk around your school.