How The White Horse Federation Built a Single, Trust-Wide Alternative Provision Hub with Purple Ruler
- Purple Ruler
- Jun 12
- 5 min read
When The White Horse Federation set out to strengthen support for its most vulnerable learners, it chose to bring alternative provision together into one coordinated, trust-wide model. This is the story of that transition, and the partnership with Purple Ruler that made it possible.
A Trust-Wide Vision for Inclusion
The White Horse Federation is a multi-academy trust responsible for the education of pupils across a family of schools. Like every trust, it is committed to keeping children engaged, supported and learning, including those who, for a range of reasons, are best served by alternative provision rather than a mainstream timetable.
Across the education sector, alternative provision has traditionally grown school by school. Each setting develops its own pathways, drawing on the providers and approaches that suit its pupils at the time. It is a model built on local knowledge and good intentions.
The White Horse Federation saw an opportunity to go further. Rather than letting inclusion develop in parallel across its schools, the trust set out to design a single, coordinated approach – one that could offer every pupil the same high standard of support, wherever they were on roll.
From Many Approaches to One Shared Model
Working in partnership with Purple Ruler, the federation created a dedicated, trust-wide inclusion hub built around a consolidated digital provision model known as the Blueprint framework.
The ambition was significant. As Tim James, the federation’s SEND and inclusion lead, put it:
"This is uncharted territory."
The new model brought together several elements into one place: a dedicated physical inclusion space, a shared trust-wide timetable, coordinated digital provision and standardised intervention pathways across year groups. For the first time, pupils who had been supported individually in different schools could join one consistent, well-resourced programme.
It was a shift from many separate approaches to one shared model, and it changed not only how provision was organised, but how it felt for the young people within it.
Watch: The White Horse Federation & Head of Inclusion, Tim James, Discusses Building Inclusion Centres
Belonging As an Intervention
Traditional alternative provision can, without ever intending to leave pupils feeling further removed from school life. A young person taken out of mainstream classes can end up isolated at exactly the moment they most need connection.
The federation's model was designed to do the opposite. Students attend provision together, across schools and year groups, within a peer-inclusive environment built specifically to reduce stigma and rebuild confidence. This has proved especially valuable for pupils experiencing emotionally based school avoidance (EBSA).
To keep the experience age-appropriate, the trust created differentiated cohorts for:
Years 7-8
Years 9-10
Two separate Year 11 groups
For Tim James, the goal was always about more than academic catch-up:
"It’s about belonging and making students feel welcome back into learning."
That philosophy shaped the entire model.
Early Signs of Re-engagement
The cohort within the inclusion hub is not a typical one. These are pupils with significant barriers to learning, many of whom had been disengaged from education for some time before joining the programme. Re-engaging them is, by its nature, gradual work.
Seen in that light, the early results are genuinely encouraging. Across the consolidated provision, active engagement reached 30.3%. A meaningful figure for a group of learners who, in many cases, had been close to zero engagement beforehand.
More telling still are the individual stories behind the numbers. Some students achieved 100% attendance once placed within the structured inclusion model. Others began attending consistently across English, Maths and Science.
For pupils who had drifted to the very edges of education, this is not marginal progress. Moving a young person from no engagement to real, sustained engagement is exactly the kind of change the programme was built to achieve.
"The purpose of this work is to reach the students nobody else could."
The most striking outcomes were not found on a dashboard at all. Students who had not been inside a school building for a long time were attending sessions again. Some engaged with learning inside the inclusion centre; others went on to transition back into mainstream classrooms.
A Model That Makes Sense: Educationally and Financially
Alternative provision has always carried a financial challenge: high-quality, bespoke support is expensive to deliver at small scale, and external placements more so.
By bringing provision together, The White Horse Federation was able to change that equation. A single, coordinated model now serves more than 60 pupils across cohorts, with shared staffing, shared facilities and shared reporting systems.
The advantages were immediate: a more efficient use of resources, streamlined administration and a lower cost per pupil. The federation estimates the consolidated model is 50-60% more cost-effective than delivering provision separately and crucially, leaders are clear that these efficiencies were achieved while strengthening, not diluting, the quality of support.
Insight That Arrives in Time to Act
One of the clearest benefits of the new model is visibility. The hub gives the trust a single, real-time view of engagement across more than 14 differentiated teaching groups.
Tim's priorities here were refreshingly practical. Rather than elaborate analytics, he wanted the things that genuinely drive action:
Attendance alerts
Engagement signals
Honest pupil voice
Rapid intervention triggers
The principle is simple but powerful: a concern should prompt support straight away, rather than waiting for the next scheduled review. The model is built around exactly that kind of timely, actionable insight.
A Glimpse of Where Inclusion Is Heading
The White Horse Federation's work is unfolding against a national backdrop. Across England, schools are being asked to reduce exclusions, improve attendance and keep more pupils within mainstream systems, all while meeting rising SEND demand and managing tighter budgets.
It is precisely this combination of pressures that is drawing attention to trust-led, internal provision models. They offer the promise of stronger oversight, earlier intervention, better value and more coherent pathways back into mainstream learning.
Not every trust will take the same route. But many are beginning to ask the question the federation has already started to answer: if inclusion is now central to mainstream education, should it really sit outside the mainstream system?
For The White Horse Federation, the journey is ongoing. As Tim James puts it:
"What we don’t want to do is stay stagnant… we have to keep improving."
The broader lesson is already clear. The trusts that thrive in the years ahead may not be those with the biggest budgets or the most complex interventions – but those, like The White Horse Federation, that make sure every learner stays firmly within sight, and within reach.
The White Horse Federation's inclusion hub is delivered in partnership with Purple Ruler. To learn how the Blueprint framework could support inclusion across your trust, get in touch with the Purple Ruler team at www.purpleruler.com.
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