Dear Colleagues

I hope you are all well and have had a good start to 2026. Hopefully the School’s White Paper containing the SEND Reforms will be published very soon. I will send a separate summary once I have read and digested its contents.

In the meantime there have been a number of reports and articles, all of which have the same conclusion, the SEND system is in crisis and needs reform – lets hope the government are listening.

Reforming the SEND System –APPG and NAHT –

• Redesign of the SEND framework to promote joined-up working and clarity of roles – A shared vision across all services supported by legislation that requires collaboration and joint accountability
• Funding allocations must be based on robust assessments of need and should empower local areas to innovate
• Core mainstream school budgets need to reflect the level of need they are now expected to support without recourse to high-needs top up funding
• Investment in recruitment and retention strategies, ensuring that the professionals required to deliver SEND support are available and well-trained
• Prioritise early intervention – funding and policy incentives should reward preventative work, and schools should be supported to identify and address needs as early as possible
• Investment in early years settings as well as the support services in health and social care that support families of younger children
• A new accountability structure is essential
• National government must ensure that its own policies align with local authority strategies

Solving the SEND Crisis – Education Select Committee

• Building partnerships across services – The Government should introduce clear statutory duties for health and social care services in relation to SEND, and the Department of Health and Social Care should appoint a dedicated national SEND Lead to drive accountability and coordination
• Expanding SEND capacity – Need for improved and more strategic capacity building
• Improving early years for lasting impact – Effective identification of needs intervention and support in the early years can provide game-changing outcomes for children, while also reducing some long-term costs and needs – ensure equitable access to early development opportunities and expertise helping prevent the escalation of need
• Post 16 – To create a truly inclusive system, the post-16 offer must be broadened beyond academic qualifications and apprenticeships to include a wider range of pathways that reflect the diverse needs, talents, and aspirations of young people with SEND, including wider access to work experience.

England’s SEND crisis: costs, challenges and the case for reform – Institute of Fiscal Studies

• Rapid rises in numbers and spending – rising diagnoses of autism, ADHD, and speech and language needs
• Education, Health and Care Plans – good intentions, bad incentives – Creating high-quality provision requires system-wide efforts to increase the supply of well-trained staff, structured and planned provision within schools, and a system that can provide support in a flexible and timely way
• Capacity in specialist provision – councils becoming increasingly dependent on independent special schools
• Reform could be controversial and costly, but doing nothing is very expensive
• Improving supply-side capacity – mainstream schools have better training for teachers and support staff to meet a broad range of needs in the classroom – additional SEND provision in mainstream schools would also require partnerships with special schools – effective provision requires proper accountability on outcomes and quality – real change depends on shifting attitudes

Breaking the Cycle – A Blueprint for SEND Reform – Institute of Public Policy Research

• Recommendation 1: Design an education system for an inclusive society
• Recommendation 2: Introduce a new model that delivers better support sooner
• Recommendation 3: Build capacity by rebalancing funding and investing in the workforce
• Recommendation 4: Incentivise inclusion by making it a core part of school improvement and accountability
• Recommendation 5: Retain existing EHCPs as the system gears up to deliver better support sooner

Home to School Transport – National Audit Office

• 520,000 £2.3bn £1.5bn estimated number of children and young people (aged 0–25 years) in England receiving home to school transport as at February 2025
• £2.3 bn – Total spending by local authorities in England on home to school transport for children and young people (aged 0–25 years) in 2023-24
• £1.5 bn – Local authority spending in England on transport for children (aged 0–16 years) who receive transport due to special educational needs or disabilities (SEND)
• £8,116 estimated median annual cost per pupil on transport for children (aged 0–16 years) with SEND, compared with £1,526 for mainstream transport

Findings:

• An estimated 6% of children of compulsory school age and below receive home to school transport
• As well as facilitating attendance, home to school transport can bring wider benefits to children and young people with SEND and their families.

SEND – How we got to crisis point and why we need reform of the system – County Council Network

• There are many more children and young people than ever before in England being identified as having SEND
• There are more children and young people than ever before whose needs are not being met in their local mainstream school and who require special, or other, provision
• More money than ever before is being invested in SEND, but even that is very significantly less than what is actually being spent by education, councils, and health services
• Despite that rapidly rising expenditure outcomes for children and young people with SEND have not improved and neither has the overall satisfaction of families

SEND Reform

The government originally said that the School’s  White Paper containing the SEND Reforms would be published in the autumn term 2025. In October the Secretary of State announced that the publication of the White paper had been deferred until the spring term 2026 (March is now being predicted).

In a letter to the Chair of the Education Select Committee, the Secretary of State for Education, set out the five principals of the SEND Reforms. These are:

• Children should receive the support they need as soon as possible. This will start to break the cycle of needs going unmet and getting worse, instead intervening upstream, earlier in children’s lives when this can have most impact.
• Local. Children and young people with SEND should be able to learn at a school close to their home, alongside their peers, rather than travelling long distances from their family and community. Special schools should continue to play a vital role supporting those with the most complex needs.
• Fair. Every school should be resourced and able to meet common and predictable needs, including as they change over time, without parents having to fight to get support for their children. Where specialist provision is needed for children in mainstream, special or Alternative Provision, we will ensure it is there, with clear legal requirements and safeguards for children and parents.
• Reforms should be grounded in evidence, ensuring all education settings know where to go to find effective practice that has excellent long-term outcomes for children.
• Shared. Education, health and care services should work in partnership with one another, local government, families, teachers, experts and representative bodies to deliver better experiences and outcomes for all our children.

There have been a significant number of reports about what will be in the reforms especially about the future of EHCPs. These have caused a great deal of speculation and worry with schools and parent carers who are very concerned about the legal standing of an EHCP. It has to be remembered that any change to legislation will have to go through the Parliamentary process which takes time so for the foreseeable future the Children and Families Act 2014 will remain the legal framework for students with SEND.

Other Documents

Use of reasonable force in schools

New guidance entitled Restrictive interventions, including use of reasonable force, in schools will come into force on 1^st April 2026. The use of restrictive interventions, including reasonable force and seclusion, can have a significant impact on the pupils, staff members and parents involved, as well as the wider classroom. However, there are times when the use of restrictive interventions will be lawful and necessary; for example, to keep individuals and the wider school community safe.

This document aims to help schools proactively minimise the need to use restrictive interventions through early support, prevention and de-escalation strategies, and when necessary, to help school staff feel more confident in knowing how to use these interventions safely, appropriately and lawfully.

Page 14 and 15 contains the statutory guidance that schools must have regard to.

The use of social media and mobile phones

Over the past few week there has been a number of reports around the use of social media and mobile phones .

On 19^th January there was the announcement of the launch of a consultation on children’s social media use and the banning of phones in schools to protect young people’s wellbeing and ensure safer online experiences. This consultation has still not been launched!

On the 19th January the DfE also updated the Mobile Phones in School guidance.

The following week an announcement was made that from 1^st April Ofsted will:

• discuss with leaders what their policy is on mobile phones and how this is communicated to parents and to pupils
• evaluate whether staff and pupils understand the expectations around mobile phones
• determine how consistently the school’s mobile phone policy is being followed and its impact on pupils’ learning, behaviour and wellbeing

The DfE guidance being  “all schools should be mobile phone-free environments by default’.

Following this the Secretary of State has written to all Head Teachers and stated that all schools in England should follow new government guidance and be phone-free for the entire school day.

At the beginning of February the House of Lords amended the children’s wellbeing and schools bill to include a clause that would force ministers to enact a social media ban for under-16s.

Not sure what has happened to the consultation – Watch this space!!