The document can be accessed at: SEND Reform: Putting Children and Young People First. The overall aim of the white paper is to set out the long-term plan for reforming schools and overhauling the current SEND system in England. This is to ensure that all children can achieve academically and thrive socially and personally and are receiving the appropriate level of support to enable them to reach their full potential. However, the publication of the white paper has been greeted with both support and outrage across the education sector. Although the white paper sets out a clear vision, it does not clearly state how it is going to be achieved or provide any guidance for professionals on what it means for their own practice. Now that the white paper has been published for over a week, I want to take this opportunity to provide a summary of the key points from the document and provide some of my own initial reflections upon them.

Summary of the latest SEND white paper: Every child achieving and thriving.

The SEND white paper is a 129 paged document outlining the proposed reforms to ensure every child can achieve and thrive. Taken from this document the key proposals/big changes include:

• New support structures and Individual Support Plans (ISPs)

It has been proposed that Education, Health, and Care Plans will be scrapped for the majority of children and only granted to children with the most complex cases. For children who do not fall into this category, Individual Support Plans will be created for every child identified with SEND to ensure a baseline of support is delivered. It has also been suggested that there will be a three-tiered support system implemented to aid children in receiving the most appropriate level of support. The three tiers have been identified as;

1. Targeted: a mainstream provision gathers evidence and puts support into place at a setting/ school level.
2. Targeted plus: Children are identified as requiring further support, with input from external professionals.
3. Specialist: Children are identified as having more complex needs and require specialist provision packages to be put into place.

• Mainstream inclusion

There is a strong undercurrent within the white paper which suggests that children with SEND should be placed into mainstream provision. To help achieve this within practice, in addition to implementing ISPs, it is proposed that all secondary schools (and some primary schools) will have dedicated ‘inclusion bases’ for small groups of children requiring more targeted, expert support. However, this will come with a statutory duty for all mainstream settings/schools to record and monitor SEND provision stated in each child’s ISPs as well as a legal requirement to publish their own inclusion strategy, which will be monitored by Ofsted.

• Funding and resources

The government have pledged a nearly £4 billion investment to boost capacity and resources to aid early identification and enhance support for children with SEND. Most of this investment will be targeted at mainstream provisions to fund early identification and intervention and to upskill the workforce through specialist SEND training.

What the white paper fails to cover

Most of the criticisms of the latest white paper is not so much on what it contains, but on what it has failed to cover. For example:

• There remain gaps and ambiguity on the proposed funding and resources. Although the government have vowed to increase funding and resources substantially, it has failed to clearly outline how the new source of funding will be accessed and allocated.
• Likewise, the government has stated it will put more funding into training teachers and professionals working with SEND children, but it has failed to consider the current issues surrounding the workforce itself. The current workforce has a shortfall in professionals working within the sector and challenges surrounding the retention of them. In a workforce already at breaking point, there are further concerns that the proposed SEND reforms will continue to increase the demands and pressures on the workforce.
• With initial plans to ‘scrap’ EHCPs and only provide them to children with the most complex cases, the white paper does not provide a clear definition or criteria to identify who the children with the most complex needs are.
• Although the white paper acknowledges that having SEND can be a barrier for children to learn and develop, it has failed to fully consider broader systemic and structural factors which can create barriers and also affect a child’s ability to achieve and thrive, such as poverty, housing instability and parental mental health and wellbeing.
• Although the government have stated that major transitions and changes will not begin until 2030, they have failed to state how and when exactly these key changes will be implemented into practice and by whom.

My thoughts as a professional, a parent and a researcher

As a professional who has worked within the early years sector for over 20 years and a parent of children with SEND, I remain sceptical about the proposals outlined within the latest white paper.  I recognise that the SEND system, as it currently stands within the UK needs to change as far too many young children and their families are continuously being failed. It is a huge positive step that the government is putting SEND in the spotlight and identifying that changes need to be made. However, with next to no consultation with young children and their families, those with lived experience of navigating the SEND system and education, I feel that it falls short of what is actually needed. The UK education system and SEND support is operating in a broken landscape and rather than addressing the root cause of the fractures, the white paper appears to be nothing more than a ‘plaster’ in an attempt to show that the government are doing something. To make substantial changes, the government need to step further back and look at the current model of education in mainstream provisions and make changes to how the Early years Foundation Stage framework and the National curriculum is designed and implemented into practice beyond early years settings.

From my own experience, inclusive education works effectively in early years settings because it is very much child-led, play based and has higher ratios between staff and children. With pressures to ensure all children are ‘school-ready’, this becomes lost once a child enters a reception class at a school, especially as they are often placed in classrooms with up to 32 children with only one teacher. Despite research-based evidence highlighting the vital role that teaching assistants have in classrooms, often due to budget cuts, they are being pulled out of classrooms. Therefore, with the government striving for more children with SEND to be placed in mainstream schools, without any significant changes to the overall organisation and structure, it seems to be yet another utopian endeavour. Simply forcing children with SEND into mainstream schools under the banner of being inclusive education, is taking a step backwards and pointing more towards the 1980’s model of integration.

With the proposal to take EHCPs away for the majority of children and only reserving them for those who need them the most, is taking away many young children’s voice and their rights. Although it is a child’s right to access mainstream provision, it is equally their right to be able to access specialist provision. The focus should be on ensuring that children can access the most suitable provision for them. Over the past 10 years there have been a significant increase in the amount of EHCPs being granted to young children. I feel that this increase is partly due to greater awareness and recognition of SEND, but I think it is more reflective of mainstream education no longer being fit for purpose. Mainstream education has become too structured and based upon a foundation of conformity and performativity and is no longer suitable for the majority of children, let alone children with SEND. This goes back to my earlier argument that the UK education system as a whole needs a significant overhaul to ensure that it is suitable for not only the majority of children but also for children with SEND. I strongly believe that with substantial changes to current educational structures and curriculum changes, such as extending early years provision to include children up to the age of 7 and not letting them enter into formal educational settings until year 1, we would see a significant increase in outcomes for all children. Early years settings do well at what they do, so by extending provision to include the reception year within it will firmly create a strong foundation for future learning and development.

Furthermore, there is significant controversy surrounding the notion that many 4-year-old children are not ‘ready’ for school and lack key personal, social, emotional and communication skills.  In addition, concerns are being raised that young children do not have the ‘appropriate’ self-care skills to be able to dress themselves and meet their own toileting needs in reception classes. The controversy is focused upon a child’s lack of skills and not being ready for school. However, I strongly advocate that it is the schools who are not ready for children. Evidence of this is coming up time and time again, through the increased need for younger children to have EHCPs, reports of increasing behavioural ‘challenges’ within the classroom and a rise in poor mental health and wellbeing outcomes for younger children. We need to listen to what children are telling us through their behaviour and redirect the focus away from viewing children as a problem that needs to be ‘fixed’ and towards the school environment not being fit for purpose.

As practitioners working within the early years sector, we all know that it is a continuously changing landscape and although I hope some positives will come from the latest white paper, I think we will continue to practice in a  very turbulent time and it will remain a case of watch and wait to see how everything unfolds around us.  My initial response to the white paper is that I feel it contains a lot of political rhetoric and in many places, just reiterates what we already do in practice but under different terms. For example, the government’s proposal to introduce a three- tiered support system as a new idea, I feel mirrors what is already being implemented into current practice. Although the views expressed within this article are my own, I do feel that they will resonate with many professionals working within the education sector.  However, the government have opened a 12-week consultation period in response to the SEND reform white paper, asking for children, young people and families, teachers and leaders as well as school trusts, local authorities and representative groups to voice their views on the proposals and what it means in their lives and/or practice. I strongly advocate as practitioners, you utilise this opportunity (closes on the 18^th May 2026) to make your voice heard and express your own thoughts. This can be done online at the following link:

SEND reform: putting children and young people first - Page 1 of 16 - Department for Education - Citizen Space