Schools White Paper: Every child achieving and thriving

The government published its highly-anticipated Schools White Paper and a corresponding consultation on 23 February 2026, setting out major reforms, focused primarily on special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).  These reforms will affect children and young people aged 0-25, their families and others in the wider education ecosystem including schools and local authorities. Most of these reforms are expected to be enacted by 2027/2028, with a phased implementation from 2029 – 2035.

In the foreword to the White Paper, the government describes its ambition to “to build a system which matches the ambition we have for our children, a system which works for the children neglected for too long, which stretches every child further, and sets them up to achieve and thrive.”

Here is an overview of some of the key proposals:

1. SEND Reforms

• The government’s vision is to have a universal offer of high-quality teaching and support for children and young people, with inclusion at its core. The government expects that most children will have their needs met under this universal offer, with teachers being trained to meet these expectations.
  • £1.6b Inclusive Mainstream Fund provided directly to early years, schools and colleges to ensure children get support where and when they need it.
  • £1.8b “Experts at Hand” service – to create a bank of specialists such as SEND teachers and speech and language therapists in every local area which schools can draw down from on demand, regardless of whether a child has an Education, Health and Care Plan.
  • £200m national SEND teacher training programme.
• Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) – The transition to the new SEND system is expected to take some time, with phased implementation from 2028 to 2035. Until then, the current SEND system (under the Children and Families Act 2014) will remain in place. Those who already have an EHCP – the legal document that sets out what a support a child/young person is entitled to – will be able to keep it until at least September 2030, when the process of reassessing support entitlements at the end of primary school and GCSEs will be introduced.  From 2035, EHCPs will be reserved for the most complex SEND cases in England – see more on this below.    
• From September 2029, schools will have a legal duty to produce an Individual Support Plan (ISP) for any child with SEND, setting out the day-to-day educational provision, and the support required, and this will be created collaboratively with parents. ISPs will be ‘interactive, accessible and available in digital format’.
• Three layers of support – for children and young people for whom the universal offer alone is not enough, there will be three ‘flexible’ and ‘interlocking’ layers of support (which will all involve the young person having an ISP in place). These are:
  • Targeted support – for pupils with ‘ongoing and commonly recurring needs’, to be created in consultation with parents. This could include teaching pupils in smaller groups or use of coloured paper or laptops for children with dyslexia, for example.
  • Targeted Plus support – this will give access to SEND specialists such as speech and language therapists and educational psychologists, as well as to dedicated SEND spaces within schools called ‘inclusion bases’.
  • Specialist support – reserved for those with the most complex needs. When a child/young person receives ‘specialist support’, they will be given a ‘specialist provision package’, which will be created by an EHCP.

2. Other Expectations on Schools

Other key changes for schools include:

• A new duty on schools to create an Inclusion Strategy outlining how resources are deployed to benefit children with SEND, replacing the duty to produce SEN Information Reports.  Ofsted will assess how the inclusion strategy is being implemented as part of a school inspection.
• The government will invest up to £15 million by 2028 to build the evidence base for, and then provide, National Inclusion Standards. These will provide a shared, nationally consistent understanding of the best evidence to support children and young people with SEND, equipping early years settings, schools and colleges to intervene early and effectively. They will set out what all children, young people and their families should be able to expect from their school/college.
• An updated SEND Code of Practice, to clarify the responsibilities of education settings (e.g. to ensure all staff receive training on SEND and inclusion) and local partners, as well as make the guidance more user-friendly. The current four broad areas of need in the Code of Practice will be replaced with new areas aligned to key aspects of child development.

3. New Remit for the Children’s Commissioner

• The Children’s Commissioner will provide oversight and scrutiny of SEND reform implementation. This will include monitoring the progress and effectiveness of SEND reforms for all children, particularly those who are in care, in need, not in school (including those who have been excluded) and those facing multiple disadvantages. The Children’s Commissioner will report publicly and regularly on the progress of reforms to identify gaps, risks, areas of strength and good practice.

4. Independent Special schools

• The White Paper recognises the key role that independent special schools play in supporting children and young people with SEND. However, the government proposes to:
  • Introduce legislation at the earliest opportunity to ensure local authorities can pay a reasonable price for independent special school placements.
  • Introduce legislation to align the duties of independent special schools with those of other special schools.
  • Give the Secretary of State power to refuse the expansion or opening of new independent special schools where there is limited evidence of demand from commissioning local authorities.

5. Other Major Changes in the White Paper

The White Paper also sets out broader reforms, including:

• Supporting collaboration between schools and other partners by moving to all schools being part of school trusts, including new trusts established by local authorities or area partnerships, which are rooted in their community and equipped to innovate for all children.
• Ensuring education keeps pace with technological change while keeping children safe.
• Improving the school complaints system to simplify the process, improve coordination between multiple bodies, and stop complaints being escalated through multiple avenues in parallel.
• A new Pupil Engagement Framework that will enable schools to measure the key factors that determine children’s engagement in school. This will be developed with input from children, parents and schools.

6. Supporting Teachers and Leaders

Proposals to support school and college staff include:

• A delivery plan for 6,500 additional teachers, aimed at driving recruitment, retention and development – particularly in shortage areas, across secondary, special schools and further education colleges.
• A new Teaching Training Entitlement (TTE) to ensure that every teacher and leader can access high-quality professional development opportunities to keep learning and developing. The TTE will evolve over time to ensure teachers continue to be supported to adopt evidence-based approaches, including in areas such as the use of technology and AI to support learning.  This includes strengthening the existing national offer of professional development and extending the offer to reach new audiences such as experienced teachers and leaders.
• Changes to make working in the sector more sustainable, including funding schools to improve maternity pay.

Our initial thoughts

There is still so much to digest in this White Paper and the devil will be in the detail as we see the proposals being developed. There is not much information currently, for example, on schools being part of school trusts.

The government’s vision to build a more inclusive educational system aligns with Ofsted’s recently updated school inspection framework. Under that framework, inclusion will be assessed as its own evaluation area on the school’s inspection report card (and no longer considered under ‘personal development and wellbeing’). This puts far greater focus on how well schools identify and support pupils who face barriers to learning and/or their wellbeing (such as pupils with SEND and those who are on free school meals).  

Adequate resourcing (crucially, financial and staffing) at all levels across the system will be key to ensuring the SEND reforms are a success. The government has promised an initial cash injection of £4b over three years, but there will need to be sufficient ongoing investment to ensure all parties can meet their legal duties for the whole duration of a child/young person’s educational journey.

Effective collaboration and cooperation between the key agencies in charge of Education, Health and Social Care will also be key to ensure accountability. This has been a longstanding source of frustration under the current SEND regime, and the government will need to ensure that any legal duties it imposes on local authorities and other agencies to cooperate are actually enforced, otherwise they risk having no teeth at all.

How Bates Wells can help

The consultation is open until 18 May 2026. If you’re looking for advice on any of the proposals in the White Paper, or would like support in responding to the consultation, please contact Jean Tsang, Matthew Smith, Eloise Carey or Liz Racine.