A place-based approach to SEND reform

In February 2026, the government announced its SEND (special educational needs and disabilities) reforms via a whitepaper ‘Every Child Achieving and Thriving’. 

The SEND system as it stands currently isn’t sustainable. All parents want the best outcomes for their children, but outcomes for children with SEND won’t be the same as those for children without additional needs. SEND reform needs to give everyone the best chance to thrive - whatever that looks like for them.

It is clear that there is positive intention from the government, but for these reforms to succeed, local leaders and families need to be empowered to decide what works best for their own communities. How do we make sure this top-down reform works for local needs? 

EHCP reassessment

The most widely debated proposal is the reassessment of education, health and care plans (EHCPs) when a child leaves primary school - due to take effect from 2029. 

It is thought that the reforms will not remove EHCPs - a legal document that identifies a child’s needs and sets out the support they should receive while in education - for pupils with the most complex needs, but will provide over a million children with SEND in England, who currently don’t have an EHCP, with an individual support plan (ISP). 

The ISP will provide formalised support based on a national framework of evidence based interventions, but be personalised by the teachers and specialists who know the child best. 

EHCPs will stay in place for children whose needs can’t routinely be met through the ISP. However, they are being tightened up - they’ll be digitised and based on clearer, specialist provision packages.

A new ‘triple lock’ will stop children from losing support. If a child is in an alternative school provision in 2029, they will stay there until they finish. No child currently in year 3 or above will be forced off an EHCP before they finish secondary school, and if children do move from an EHCP to an ISP, it will only happen gradually at natural transition points, like moving from primary to secondary, and only once the new system is fully in place. 

However, what happens to pupils that would have qualified for an EHCP and now don’t? Would they have achieved better outcomes with an EHCP? And how will we measure that to make sure the reform is working? 

New money for SEND support

Another announcement is the commitment to an extra £4bn of “new money" over three years to "wrap support around schools". 

This is in addition to the £3.7bn that the government has already announced to develop 60,000 new specialist places, including inclusion bases in mainstream secondary schools.

The new funding includes a £1.6bn ‘inclusive mainstream fund’,  which will go directly into early years settings, schools and colleges to fund early intervention, small group support, adaptive teaching and targeted programmes. 

This funding will be needed to reinforce current SEND support in schools. Teaching assistants (TAs) are under increased pressure to manage additional needs. 

We recently commissioned a three-day training course working with Manchester Communication Research School and Pinnacle Learning Research School, for 50 TAs from primary and secondary schools in Rochdale and Tameside. The aim was to upskill and empower TAs, maximise teacher resources and retention, and expand literacy in the classroom. 

A £1.8bn ‘Experts at Hand’ fund will provide more access to experts such as educational psychologists, occupational therapists, specialist teachers and speech and language therapists in every local area, which schools can access even if a child doesn’t have an EHCP.

But how will the ‘Experts at Hand’ be managed - by the local authority, school, or a back-bone organisation, like Right to Succeed? Rather than bolt-on support, schools and classrooms need to be inclusive by default.

There will also be £200m for SEND outreach through family hubs, £200m to help local authorities reform how they operate and £200m for training so every teacher is better equipped to support SEND.

From our experience with place-based change, we know that funding is most effective when it is used for upstream intervention - implemented with a community, not to it, with a collective impact approach. 

Our collective impact

More clarity on how the reforms will be delivered in a meaningful way at place level is needed, especially in areas of high deprivation where levels of need are often higher. 

At Right to Succeed, our programmes in Liverpool City Region (Cradle to Career) and Greater Manchester (Literacy and Inclusion), we have seen a huge impact due to a place-based approach and also recognised the importance of linking SEND, literacy and inclusion for more positive future outcomes.

The importance of early SEND support, based on cases in Rochdale and Tameside:

• 57% of adult prisoners taking initial assessments had literacy levels below those expected of an 11-year-old.

• Pupils with an identified SEND need are more than four times more likely to experience a suspension at school. 

Since 2021, Cradle to Career North Birkenhead has: 

•  Closed a 15-month reading age gap across all 8 - 16-year-olds. On average, children in the area are now performing at the national reading age expectation.

• A partnership dedicated to SEND has helped students improve their reading ability by the equivalent of half a GCSE grade.

Conclusion

The whitepaper sounds very positive, but the practicalities are overwhelming. 

There are still concerns about:

• The increasing responsibilities of teaching assistants to support children with SEND. 

• The need for more localised SEN schools. 

• Inclusion bases in secondary schools need to act as a bridge to the mainstream classroom, not a destination in itself, to avoid further isolating the children they are intended to support. Specialist staff training, growing demand and the physical space needed in schools also need to be acknowledged.

  
  

SEND reforms are essential to protect the future of the system for children, families and education providers. Although the reforms are central government led, the decisions and delivery of them need to be local, collaborative and tailored in order to make early support routine, properly resourced and more sustainable across the country.