What do schools need to know about the UK schools white paper and SEND reform proposals?
On Monday 23rd February, the DfE published two long-awaited documents: the schools white paper, Every Child Achieving and Thriving and their proposed SEND reforms, Putting Children and Young People First.
Both papers recognise that change is needed in the education system because it isn’t working for everyone, with too many children being let down.
What are the key themes?
The seven key areas (chapters) of the schools white paper are:
- Chapter 1: Our children’s futures – rebuilding public services and ‘wrapping services around schools’.
- Chapter 2: Narrow to broad – providing a rich and broad curriculum, and enrichment entitlement and improved transitions between school phases.
- Chapter 3: Sidelined to included – introducing inclusion standards and inclusive mainstream fund, alongside focused support for children and young people who have been let down by the system such as the accompanying SEND reform proposals and ‘Experts at hand’ programme.
- Chapter 4: Withdrawn to engaging – improving parent and student engagement in schools and introduction of new pupil engagement framework.
- Chapter 5: Support and investment in high-quality staff – delivering 6,500 more expert teachers, training and CPD offers including SEND CPD programme, and retention incentives such as increased period of maternity pay.
- Chapter 6: Collaboration between schools and other partners – Moving all schools to be part of school trusts, enabling Local Authorities or Area Partnerships to establish new trusts, and clarifying roles and responsibilities to local government.
- Chapter 7: Enabling innovation and ambition – Rolling out new Regional Improvement for Standard and Excellence (RISE) programmes and work with AI and sector experts to realise opportunities from data, AI and tech with safe tools and an extensive evidence programme.
The main themes of the proposed SEND reforms are:
- The ‘Universal offer’ – Setting a new baseline for mainstream education for young people aged 0-25 (teachers and educators will be trained on the new expectations).
- Targeted, Targeted Plus support and Specialist Support – Introducing new layers of support for children and young people with additional needs
- Introduction of Individual Support Plans (ISPs) and changes to EHCPs – ISPS will be a statutory digital document for all children with SEND and EHCPs will be for children and young people with the ‘most complex needs’. Those with the most complex need will receive a specialist provision package ‘underpinning the provision set out in an EHCP’.
- Experts at hand – An investment in bringing education and health professionals, such as psychologists and speech and language therapists into mainstream settings.
- Inclusion in the system – SEND CPD programme, mainstream funding reforms, collective responsibility and encouraging schools to become part of ‘local SEND groups.’
What is the timeline?
For Every Child Achieving and Thriving, the full changes will be in effect by the 2028-2029 academic year onwards with the changes happening in three phases (2025/2026 academic year, 2026/2027 and 2028/2029 academic years and 2028/2029 academic year onwards). For ‘SEND Reform: Putting Children and Young People First’ this is currently under a 12-week consultation giving you the opportunity to share your views. The Proposals are a decade long reform that will take place in three phases 2026-2028, 2028-2029, and 2029 onwards; with legislation not expected to come into effect until September 2029.
For an explanation of all the key changes and proposals, check out our detailed summaries in R.I.S.E. Magazine.