This year saw the publication of the Education white paper Every Child Achieving and Thriving (2026). Alongside this, an ambitious set of reforms was proposed to address the widely recognised crisis in educational provision for children and young people (CYP) with Special Education Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and in the systems of funding, access and support.
The government invited the views of key stakeholders including families, CYP, local policy makers and providers, professionals and researchers through an open consultation process.
Drawing on the research interests and expertise amongst the inclusion and SEND researchers at the Department of Education, University of Oxford, we completed the official consultation questions through the Department for Education (DfE) consultation portal provided a detailed submission to DfE, which can be viewed here.
The team in the Department of Education are developing a network of researchers and other individuals interested in furthering SEND research for the benefit of CYP, their families, educators and policymakers. Please get in touch if you would like to be a part of this work moving forward and we will keep you up to date with opportunities to connect: Inclusion, Special Educational Needs and Disability Research Group – Fill in form
For us, the ambition of the proposed reforms is welcome as it is a recognition that significant change is vital if the SEND system is to work effectively for children, young people, and their families. The commitment to addressing the funding crisis and accumulated deficits is also positive. In particular, the group welcomes the emphasis on earlier and needs-led intervention, timely access to evidence-informed and specialist support.
However, concerns were raised regarding the demand on schools in terms of quality of reforms, responsibilities for delivery of supports, expectations for rapid skill development and CPD, and the pressure placed upon them to maintain positive relationships with families whilst working with limited resources. Workforce capacity more broadly is a concern, including in the professionals now categorised as “experts at hand.” Whilst respecting and eliciting the voices of children and families in SEND, provision and systems was seen as central as it was clear that there are still gaps in knowledge as to how to do this meaningfully and inclusively. The proposed reforms are conditional on adequate funding, workforce capacity, specialist expertise, training, co-design and mechanisms for monitoring implementation and equity, and greater specificity in implementation processes are needed to address these and other barriers to achieving the welcome ambitions described.
Below are summaries of our responses to a number of the questions posed in the consultation:
We want children, young people and their families to be involved in making better, evidence-based decisions about SEND, both in their local area and across the country. How can we make sure children, young people and their families have a genuine say in these decisions?
Children, young people and families need to be involved meaningfully at every stage of SEND decision-making through standing advisory groups, co-design, accessible consultation methods and participatory frameworks that distinguish consultation from genuine partnership. Involvement must be evidence-informed, collaborative and locally grounded, drawing on models such as What Works in SEND, while recognising that many children with SEND communicate in diverse ways, so “voice” must be understood beyond speech and supported through ethical, inclusive and methodologically flexible approaches. Participation should be accessible to families and young people with different communication needs and account for intersecting inequalities, using plain English, visual materials, extra processing time, familiar settings, skilled facilitation and Speech and Language Therapy expertise. We also stress that payment, expenses, flexible timing, preparation materials and proper funding for Parent Carer Forums, including participation workers and paid parent carer roles, are needed to widen involvement and strengthen accountability. Finally, we argue that genuine feedback loops are essential so that families know how their views influence decisions, helping to build trust, especially around data-sharing, multi-agency working and digital support plans.
How can we make sure that high-quality evidence and best practice inform decisions about SEND? Please share examples.
High-quality evidence for SEND must be rigorous, transparent and usable, supported by further research funding to address major evidence gaps across inclusion, hidden needs such as DLD, enriching activities, inclusive pedagogy, multi-agency systems, intersectional inequalities, relational approaches, early language intervention, CPD, and appropriate identification and intervention tools for bilingual children and children who speak languages other than English. SEND research should examine not only whether interventions work on average, but who they work for, in what contexts, with what resources and for which outcomes, using appropriate methodologies, such as realist evaluations, novel trials, cohort studies, statutory data analysis, economic evaluations, qualitative process evaluation and participatory methods. Better reporting and implementation are essential, an example being the TICLD project, and that evidence must be translated into practice through accessible summaries, worked examples, implementation guidance, CPD, coaching, mentorship, communities of practice and opportunities for professionals to reflect on and evaluate impact.
How can we ensure that children are best supported by the Universal offer?
The Universal offer should prioritise robust speech and language development in the early years, recognising that identification of stammering, speech and language needs in children aged 0–5 will always be inexact, so high-quality universal provision must act both as a safety net for children whose needs are missed and as an early indicator when children do not make expected progress. Monitoring speech and language development should be a core part of universal provision, combining robust assessment tools where available with holistic practitioner judgement, including children’s everyday communication, parent and caregiver knowledge, developmental progress, response to support, participation and inclusion, mental health and wellbeing, risk factors, and input from other professionals. Universal provision should include language-enriching physical and social environments, high-quality adult-child interactions, intentional planning for language content, form and use, evidence-based strategies such as shared book reading, structured language learning, explicit instruction, prompts and questions, phonological awareness activities, recasting, visual supports, regular audits such as CSCOT, and documented processes for assessment and monitoring. Early years settings should value all forms of communication and promote participation, while practitioners need training, coaching, tools to engage critically with evidence, and designated speech and language leads or champions to sustain quality and select interventions according to context, child need and intervention quality.
How can we ensure that children in the Targeted layer, are best supported?
Children in the Targeted layer, particularly in the early years, should be supported through strong local collaboration between local authorities, health services, speech and language therapy, early years settings and health visitors, with clear, accessible referral guidance and holistic criteria that go beyond test cut-points to consider children’s needs, progress and response to support. Targeted speech, language and communication interventions should be selected according to the child’s needs, contextual fit, feasibility, staff capacity, training requirements and evidence quality, recognising that approaches, such as phonological awareness work, speech recasts, NELI, NELI Preschool, Happy Talk and Talk Boost, have varying levels of supporting evidence. Targeted support should also promote inclusive cultures where all forms of communication are valued, using compensatory strategies such as gesture, visual supports, peer play support and clarification strategies, alongside knowledgeable and sensitive support for children who stammer. Implementation barriers, especially in early years settings with high levels of need and social disadvantage, must be addressed so interventions can be delivered with fidelity, and that training at the Universal tier remains relevant across all tiers. A major policy gap for children with SEND who are in contact with children’s social care, noting the high prevalence of SEN provision among Children Looked After and Children in Need, limited SEND training in the social care workforce, and the need for broader funding and support for Designated Social Care Officer and Designated Clinical Officer roles to strengthen collaboration across social care, health and education.
How can we ensure that children in the Targeted Plus layer, are best supported?
Support in the Targeted Plus layer, particularly for speech and language needs, requires close partnership between Speech and Language Therapists and early years settings, with sufficient resource in both SLT services and schools to enable meaningful liaison and co-practice. Class teachers are often least able to collaborate with external professionals, while SENCOs and LSAs may have more flexibility, but this arrangement alone is insufficient if it does not support two-way knowledge and skill exchange. Effective Targeted Plus support therefore needs collaborative working that helps professionals understand children’s needs, develop support plans that can be implemented in the school context, and build flexible, negotiated practice and relationships of trust.
How do you think early years settings, schools, and college can best support the mental health and wellbeing of children and young people?
We advocate whole-school approaches centred on belonging. This means creating educational environments where children and young people feel physically and psychologically safe, supported, included, protected from discrimination, known and valued. They should be able to build and repair relationships, be supported in their learning aspirations, and be empowered to participate in shaping inclusive and anti-discriminatory settings. Schools must tackle stigma and prejudice against neurodivergent, SEND and disabled children and young people, as well as trauma affecting those with and without SEND. They should do so through trauma-informed, restorative and relational approaches, rather than relying on stricter behaviour policies or resilience initiatives that have not improved outcomes and may worsen difficulties where trauma, anxiety, unmet need and delayed support are not addressed. We also emphasise the role of bullying prevention, including adapted whole-school approaches in special schools. We highlight the importance of identifying and supporting language and communication difficulties as a preventative mental health approach, while noting the need for further research on the mental health effects and long-term impact of language interventions.
Do you agree that the refreshed ‘areas of development’ will support educators to understand and address barriers to learning and participation? Please explain your answer.
We agree that the refreshed areas of development have potential to support educators to understand and address barriers to learning and participation, particularly if accompanied by appropriate training and curriculum design, because they recognise transdiagnostic needs such as executive functioning difficulties and the co-occurrence of children’s varied strengths and needs. We value the pedagogy of play, especially for neurodivergent children, as it can support intellectual, creative, social, emotional, physical and executive functioning development through exploration, enjoyment, empowerment, trusting relationships, safe spaces and structured routines. However, we caution that the promise of a transdiagnostic, needs-based approach may not be realised if children are still implicitly or explicitly matched to provision through “primary need” categories, which can obscure the full breadth of their needs. We also stress that while needs-based approaches are essential, diagnoses still have an important role in understanding different underlying cognitive and psychosocial mechanisms, informing teaching approaches, and helping neurodivergent young people understand themselves, exercise self-compassion, find community and advocate for their needs, so needs-based and diagnostic approaches should be brought into dialogue.
What arrangements would best support effective joint working between early years providers, Best Start Family Hubs, health, local authorities, and parents for children with SEND in the early years?
Effective joint working for children with SEND in the early years requires sufficient system capacity and commissioning and service delivery models that enable flexible, negotiated and distributed support rather than rigid, transactional or episodic services. There is a need to co-design local offers with all relevant stakeholders, bringing together local data, family and practitioner knowledge, and research evidence, with attention to acceptability, feasibility and equity by design. Effective collaboration also depends on time and structures for developing shared values, understanding and relationships across practitioners and services, including inter-agency training, communities of practice, ongoing professional development, networking and knowledge exchange. Drawing on successful collaborative models is important, and adapting them to local needs, assets and service delivery contexts.
How can the early years foundation stage (EYFS) two-year old progress check and the Healthy Child Programme development review be improved so that children’s needs are identified and supported more quickly? Please share examples.
The ELIM-I is an example of a co-designed identification measure and linked intervention, developed with health visiting teams, Speech and Language Therapists, parents and caregivers to create a feasible and accurate measure of early language development and a model of early intervention based on current best evidence, parent and caregiver preferences, and methods to develop therapeutic alliance and equitable outcomes. The methods used to develop ELIM-I could be applied to other areas of development, such as executive functioning, and that collaborative assessment and support models should be developed more broadly. We also argue that greater collaboration between early years settings and health visiting teams during the two-year review could support better sharing of knowledge about children and provide additional support to families, while recognising that barriers to collaborative working remain and that further research is needed to test collaborative models of assessment and early language support across health visiting and early years settings.
What should the top three priority areas be for building and sharing evidence within the National Inclusion Standards?
We identify three priority areas for building and sharing evidence within the National Inclusion Standards: developing and evaluating whole-school approaches to belonging; developing and evaluating multi-agency early prevention pathways for children aged 0–4, including localised offers and the effects of stacking support; and developing and evaluating innovative models of CPD that incorporate coaching, reflective practice and mentorship to create sustainable inclusive practices and pedagogy. Evaluating these priorities requires methods suited to complex approaches in diverse systems, including realist evaluations, novel trial methodologies, longitudinal cohort studies with nested intervention trials, retrospective and prospective analysis of statutory data, economic evaluations, qualitative process evaluation and participatory methods.
What are the most important issues for national training to cover, to help support children and young people with SEND?
National training should treat inclusion as integral to curriculum planning, classroom interaction, assessment and participation, rather than as a separate specialist area, supporting teachers to develop professional judgement about learner variability, belonging and subject-specific barriers to learning. There is a need for coherence across ITE, the ECF and later professional development, with sustained reflection, mentor support, specialist expertise and capacity-building across teachers, mentors, departments and school leaders, recognising that inclusive practice is shaped by school culture, accountability pressures and curriculum structures. Training should also address systemic inequities, including neuro-normativity and institutional expectations that can exacerbate difficulties such as school anxiety, and should support whole-school approaches to belonging, social participation, relational and trauma-informed practice, inclusive policies and supportive environments. SEND training is needed beyond schools, including across local authorities, health, leadership and council members, and that collaboration between local authorities, mainstream schools, special schools and Alternative Provision can support mutual learning, outreach, reintegration and improved expertise.
What practical actions can help teachers, educators and leaders manage workload whilst implementing these changes?
We are concerned that these reforms place considerable workload and responsibility on individual schools, and argue that implementation must be supported by practical tools, focused evidence-based training, clear examples, observation tools, reflection, peer support, mentoring and coaching, rather than additional bureaucracy or generic compliance-driven CPD. Many teachers are already working at or beyond capacity, so new responsibilities for inclusive practice must be matched by reductions in administrative demands and wider pressures, with careful consideration of how curriculum, assessment, accountability and Ofsted frameworks may affect inclusive practice. Practical workload support should include protected time for collaborative curriculum planning, access to specialist expertise from Educational Psychologists, speech and language therapists, SEND specialists and parents earlier in planning, embedded subject- and department-level professional development, and stronger links with local authorities and external services. We also stress that workload management requires attention to staff morale, wellbeing and training, including regular communication, review of practice, supervision, counselling, additional staffing, and opportunities for staff themselves to shape solutions, recognising that needs will differ across schools and contexts.
How can we best support transition for young people with SEND, so that they are well supported into post-16 provision and further education, training or employment?
Transition support for young people with SEND should be strengthened through increased funding for local authority transition services that provide a bridging function across key educational stages and across the 0–25 age range. Small, dedicated LA transition teams should review and improve transition planning, processes and procedures, improve timeliness and family experiences, strengthen communication about available and inclusive provision, and work directly with children, young people and families to provide practical support when needed. This model is already being implemented in some local authorities, but not consistently.
How can we make sure that Inclusion Bases help children and young people succeed in mainstream settings?
Inclusion Bases must be properly resourced with qualified specialist staff who have pedagogical expertise and appropriate SEND training, so they do not become exclusion zones and can support early intervention, meaningful educational opportunities and inclusion in mainstream settings wherever possible. Schools hosting Inclusion Bases need a whole-school approach so inclusion in classrooms and wider school activities is meaningful, supported by co-teaching between specialist and mainstream educators, shared learning, observation and coaching to build knowledge and skills across the school. This provision has major cost implications likely to exceed current funding models, so a staged approach using pathfinder Inclusion Bases could help develop realistic costing and funding arrangements.
How can Specialist Provision Packages be designed to effectively support the main types of need we currently recognise?
Specialist Provision Packages (SPPs) should be co-designed with families, children and young people, relevant professionals including educators, Speech and Language Therapists, Educational Psychologists and Occupational Therapists, and commissioners and providers of specialist provision, with these perspectives synthesised alongside relevant research evidence. As SPPs describe the type and nature of educational provision while Individual Support Plans (ISPs) describe day-to-day support for individual children, careful consideration is needed of how schools providing SPPs will be configured, drawing on the knowledge of successful special school leaders. There is the need to map the availability of, and gaps in, planned SPP provision at school, local and national levels.
We propose creating a more direct route to Specialist Provision Packages and EHCP assessments for children under 5 with complex needs. How can we make sure this works in practice?
We welcome the proposed more direct route to SPP and EHCP assessments for children under 5 with complex needs. It will require local areas and ICBs to design systems that enable health and education services to share knowledge about individual children, since these children are likely to be first identified through healthcare systems. There needs to be timely planning and liaison with education colleagues before key milestones and transition points, such as taking up the 2-year offer or entering nursery, so EHCP development is not delayed. Local data-sharing issues across health and education must be addressed and an expectation or requirement created for a shared education, health and social care plan from the point of identification, together with annual updates even when not attending an educational setting.
This consultation outlines a series of measures intended to reform the SEND system. Some of these measures have already been finalised, and this is clearly indicated within the document. With this in mind, is there anything further you would like to contribute to help inform the remaining proposals that are still under consideration?
The reforms need clearer mechanisms for monitoring effectiveness and equitable implementation, including accountability beyond schools and analysis of relative representation by ethnicity, socioeconomic disadvantage, sex and other groups to assess whether reforms reduce or worsen over- or under-representation in SEND provision. Curriculum, assessment and accountability structures can themselves act as barriers to inclusion, particularly in secondary education where narrow curriculum pathways, high-stakes GCSEs and performative pressures may limit meaningful participation, practical or vocational routes, and opportunities for children and young people with SEND to demonstrate their strengths; a more inclusive system, therefore, needs greater flexibility in curriculum, teaching, assessment and accountability, so schools are not penalised for appropriate adaptation. Inclusion is about participation, belonging and recognition within ordinary classroom and school life, requiring coherent teacher education and professional development, shared professional language, mentoring, collaborative enquiry, critical reflection on inclusion in specific subjects, and earlier involvement of Educational Psychologists, speech and language therapists and SEND specialists in curriculum and provision design. Finally, policy gaps for children with SEND in contact with children’s social care, including limited SEND training and inconsistent funding for Designated Social Care Officer and Designated Clinical Officer roles, and for children unable to attend school for physical or mental health reasons must be addressed.