The Department for Education has now published the widely anticipated Schools White Paper, ‘Every Child Achieving and Thriving’, alongside a detailed SEND reform consultation ‘SEND reform: putting children and young people first’.  

As expected, the publication of the reforms has elicited mixed responses – initial reactions reflecting a combination of optimism and concern.  In this blog, we consider the key points outlined in the reforms and encourage you to feed back your views as part of the consultation.  

Key Proposals

There will be a new tiered framework of support, with three layers in addition to the ‘universal offer’: these are ‘Targeted’, ‘Targeted Plus and ‘Specialist.’  On initial reading, these look very similar to the original School Action, School Action Plus and Statutory/Specialist tiers that existed pre-2014.

EHCPs will only be available for children with the most ‘complex needs’ – only children with ‘Specialist Support Packages’ will qualify for an EHCP.  There are currently seven of these packages being consulted on, which have been drawn up by ‘experts’ from the specialist sector.  These will be tested with wider professionals and parents.   

For children currently at ‘SEN Support’ there will be a change to a statutory Individual Support Plan (ISP) and nurseries, schools and colleges will be responsible for consulting with parents and drawing the plan up.

There will be a £4 billion investment over three years to make every school truly inclusive and transform outcomes for children with SEND.  This includes:

• Over £200 million for Best Start Family Hubs
• £1.6 billion for the Inclusive Mainstream Fund (detailed below)
• £1.8 billion for ‘Experts at Hand’ (detailed below)
• Over £200 million for a national training package

An Inclusive Mainstream Fund of £1.6 billion over three years will be introduced to help schools, colleges and early years settings become more inclusive. They will be held accountable for delivering high-quality inclusive practice.

An ‘Experts at Hand’ service worth £1.8 billion over three years will be established to create a bank of specialist professionals in every local area, such as Educational Psychologists, Speech and Language Therapists and Occupational Therapists.  These professionals will offer expert advice and services in mainstream education settings.   

An updated SEND Code of Practice will be published, setting out legal requirements for support to be provided in all mainstream education settings from early years to post-16 education. 

There are also significant proposed changes to the five new ‘areas of development’ which will replace the current four ‘areas of need’. 

The proposed areas are: 

• Executive Function
• Motor and Physical
• Sensory
• Speech, Language and Communication
• Social and Emotional

Significantly, there is a proposed change to the current ‘Social, Emotional and Mental Health’ area of need, to ‘Social and Emotional.’  The justification given is to change the labelling ‘to bring this area in line with other areas of development which do not lend themselves to specific clinical intervention’.

National Inclusion Standards will be created to ensure parity across the country.  These will be evidence-based and will inform best practice in identifying barriers and meeting needs.  They will also include evidence-led resources to support curriculum adaptation, alongside new guidance on reasonable adjustments.   

Potential Areas of Concern

How will accountability work for the Individual Support Plans (ISPs)?  The proposals outline that the plans will be legally enforceable, but there is no clarity on what this will be. Will families have clear routes to action if ISPs are not being delivered?  Will it be possible to challenge ISP decisions in the same way that EHCP decisions currently can be?  The enforceability of these plans is the crucial part here – this system has the potential to improve early help and clarify expectations on schools, but if they are not implemented with the appropriate enforcement routes, children may have to repeatedly fail before they receive the right level of support.

The consultation maintains a legal right to an EHCP up to age 25 where a young person remains in education and training.  However, it proposes a review at transition phases on entry to primary school, secondary school and at 16 and 18.  This is a concern as the transition to secondary school in particular can be a challenging time for children with SEND.  A child may be thriving in Primary with the support of an EHCP and it would be vital for this to continue as they transition to Secondary school.

There is concern about the removal of some of the legal rights, such as the move from parents currently being able to request any suitable school, to a list of ‘recommended settings’ that can provide the child’s Specialist Provision Package.  Also, the SEND tribunal would no longer be able to force a Local Authority to name a specific school – only to reconsider their decision.

EHCPs will only be available for children with the most ‘complex needs’ – this could leave many children not eligible for support as they do not meet the threshold.  There is also no agreed definition of what constitutes complex needs.

There is concern that the tiered system will result in more gatekeeping points, more professional disagreement about thresholds, more time deciding which tier a child is at (rather than delivering provision) and more confusion for families, schools and Local Authorities.

There are concerns that the Inclusion Grant is too small – the NEU has raised concerns that it only relates to a part-time teaching assistant for the average primary school and two teaching assistants for average secondary schools. Tightening eligibility criteria for EHCPs without significant investment in mainstream SEN capacity and specialist staffing will only make the current situation worse.

Removing ‘Mental Health’ from the Social and Emotional area of development is concerning as although the publication states that ‘clinical mental health interventions, which should remain with health professionals, are likely to play a significant role in some of the Specialist Provision Packages’, the concern is whether there is capacity within the health services to deliver these.  Also, these Specialist Provision Packages are only available for a small number of children as the eligibility for this level of support has been tightened.  Where does this leave children who have Social, Emotional and Mental Health needs at either Targeted or Targeted Plus level?    

Next Steps

We encourage all stakeholders to take part in the consultation. 

At Early Excellence, we will ensure that you are kept up to date with all the latest information through our Senior Leader Briefings and National Updates.

Links to key documents:

• You can read the report in full here: SEND reform: putting children and young people first – GOV.UK
• You can feed back your views as part of the consultation here: SEND reform: putting children and young people first – Department for Education – Citizen Space

• The Department for Education has also published the conclusions and recommendations of the independent review into ways to support neurodivergent children and young people in mainstream education settings.  You can read the full report here: Neurodivergence Task and Finish Group: report – GOV.UK

At Early Excellence we continue to offer a broad range of tools to support you and your team.